From NPR:
Scientists have been worried about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet for decades. A new study finds that if it were to collapse, global sea level would rise drastically, though not as much as predicted 30 years ago.
Much of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is vulnerable because it rests on ground below sea level. If warm ocean water gets under it, the ice could start flowing off the continent and into the sea. That ice, and ultimately water, would increase sea levels by a substantial amount. A landmark research paper published 30 years ago concluded that the ice sheet contains enough water to raise global sea level by 20 feet.
“The strange thing about that study is that nobody has really reevaluated the number since then,” says Jonathan Bamber, from the University of Bristol in the U.K.
Another problem is that there’s no increased melt at either cap, and that the thingie in the sky what makes the day is in a down cycle.
More reality-based musings here and here.
Dan Collins: shill for Big Night
ADMIT IT WINGNUT
The countdown until the Next Ice Age becomes the problem caused by the Icebox Effect has already begun.
We are due for a new ice age. And frankly a little global warming would be welcomed to stave that off. I am not a big Jared Diamond fan, but his description of the decline and extinction of the Greenland colony (which lasted more than 400 years) is disturbing.
Up here in Michigan we could use the global warming. Once cap and trade gets instituted, we’ll no longer be able to heat our homes.
Of course, it matters not. The Wasman-Markley American Clean Energy and Security Act is about to be unveiled.
Carin, we can always ask our neighbors to the north if they’d like to flood a few more of their valleys and sell us the hydropower.
The total lack of seriousness, on the part of libtards, is their avoidance of nuclear energy. They’re are only interested in lining the pockets of their green buddies, and using cap and trade to redistribute wealth.
The other thing that makes no sense is that once the ice is floated, whatever sea level rise that would result from melting has already taken place due to the fact that the berg has displaced an amount of water equal to it’s weight.
Math is hard.
Warmists are dumb.
Roland, I thought that, too. But I think, and I could be completely mistaken, that I heard an explanation as to why that was not the case. Anybody know, or have I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue again?
Carin–Ka-ching! Everytime a cash register bell rings, a government insider gets a lucrative contract.
Actually, Roland nailed it originally when he says “ice that’s already floated.” But again, I point out that the article stipulates that the ice would be a problem if it “…could start flowing off the continent and into the sea.”
You say that as if it were a bad thing. WTF? You need to get with the program! What’s ours is ours and what’s yours is ours.
“The strange thing about that study is that nobody has really reevaluated the number since then,†says Jonathan Bamber, from the University of Bristol in the U.K.
Really? You mean the cutting edge gorbal-warmenists might be not interested in verifying a cherished assumption?! Wow.
Of course not! It’s computer climate models all the time. No need to check or verify, because the computer models are infallible.
Has anyone gotten a leftie – IRL – to defend this Cap and Trade stuff? It seems to be some sort of leftist repellent to even bring it up.
Seems to me there is a dearth of troll traffic everywhere, Carin. Ace is practically daring them to swing by. Other than the drive-by defecations of AJB here, the lefties are pretty damn quiet.
I suspect most of the trolls are busy healing up from the prodigious assfucking their plastic savior has been giving them the last couple of weeks.
I have a couple of trolls at my blog, but they’ve never been once to really debate/argue the issues. More bumpersticker chest- pounding. But, they avoid threads about cap and trade like the plague. They’re all over my Michelle doesn’t belong on the Maxim Hot 100 list. Priorities, you see.
Oh, and for that hot 100 dealo, I did follow Stacy’s rule 5. If anyone wants to check it out.
It just seems like a lot more scientists think that global warming will be a problem than those who say otherwise. Where should I go for more info?
Same thing for eevolution vs creationism. any links would be appreciated.
Thanks
Yeah, that seeming stuff is the very essence of science, roland.
Maybe try Francis Bacon for starters.
Comment by Carin on 5/15 @ 9:58 am #
Has anyone gotten a leftie – IRL – to defend this Cap and Trade stuff? It seems to be some sort of leftist repellent to even bring it up.
—————————————————–
Sadly, he wasn’t even that far left – even kinda right on a few issues. Just utterly convinced that the earth’s got a fever and less carbon is the cure.
roland —
No, I’m not going to give you a linkfest. The rules of commenting here won’t allow it, anyway.
The AGW issue is pretty well defined by Real Climate (dot org, pro) and Watts Up With That (IIRC a WordPress blog, mostly anti). Google and follow the links. What you might do, in the process, is take a look at what sort of scientists are pro and anti. The Pros, especially the sky-is-falling types, tend (with exceptions) to be in the social sciences and/or computer programming, where the Antis lean strongly toward geologists, physicists, and the like. Hint for you: if you can’t take one look at the “hockey stick” graph and call Mann a liar, you aren’t paying attention.
As for evolution vs. creation, what’s going on has a lot more to do with political pushback than with science, considered either positively or negatively. Basically, there are a lot of believers in this country, and many of them feel that they’re being trampled. People who feel oppressed tend to band together and defy their oppressors, right? I mean, isn’t that a standard Progressive trope? You should be able to identify at least some of the opportunists who are cashing in on that feeling — but you’d better examine your own side for the same effect before you start raging.
Regards,
Ric
Carin – Maxim picked Michelle Obama ahead of Padma ?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME ?! What is wrong with the beer-addled juvenile fucks? One too many beer bongs, I presume.
Hmmm. Given that H2O uses LESS space, when going from a solid (ice) to a liquid, how would floating icebergs’ melting cause sea level to rise? It would seem that while floating, they would already displace as much seawater as they could, since 90% of an iceberg is underwater.
Is it possible that the AGW enthusiasts are WRONG?
Ginwa – Don’t go getting all fact-y on them. This is all about Teh Narrative, facts be damned.
As opposed to “floating icebergs”, the article says:
That would make quite a difference I’d think.
Yeah, I understand that they are resting on the sea bottom, but but there would have to be enough melting from below for them to actually float. They would grdually settle down as they melted, until there is enough water below them to finally float. I would think they would be fairly small by that point. I suppose that there is some additional water added to the ocean up to that point, but afterwards, I don’t see much.
All this goes up against the fact that the Antarctic sea ice has bee expanding, rather than shrinking, of course.
It is unmistakable now: The only “transparency” we will see from this government, is the transparent plan to destroy capitalism, by any means possible. I mean, if that were their stated goal, how would they behave any differently? Ratfuck sonsabitches.
Where, oh where is that edit function?
I wouldn’t claim any special knowledge about the possible mechanisms ginwa, but we could hypothesize a handful anyway. They could slide off the underwater shelf in the manner of a glacier flowing downhill by gravity, breaking apart as they do so; they could have the ice underneath them melted by volcanic activity until their mass is reduced to the point that they can float, at which point they could break-up due to new stresses; they could melt away in the above sea-level portions to the point that the remaining mass becomes insufficient to ground them on the sea-bottom, float and break up as before; we can also imagine some combination of these causes (and others, if others there be.)
Sdferr, the Chicken Little version of that is that warm ocean water will gradually undermine the ice, which will lubricate the joint enough to let it flow into the sea. Since the land under the ice is below sea level, but well above the level the bottom of the ice would be if it were floating, the result would be net displacement of water and a rise of sea level.
There’s an ongoing research project that I can’t remember the name of. It uses several thousand free-floating sensors in the ocean, each consisting of a thermometer, a depth (pressure) sensor, a little transmitter, a simple GPS receiver, and a bladder controlled by a pump. The pump squeezes the bladder until the sensor sinks, then it rises at a controlled rate, taking a temperature profile. When it gets to the surface it gets its position from GPS and transmits its data to a satellite.
The data from that project are conclusive: the oceans are cooling, especially down in the depths. This has given rise to ever-more-complex explanations of “the heat deficit”, because if the Earth is warming the oceans have to get warmer. Notice the teensy-tiny little logical fallacy there?
To add to the fun, we now have satellites that can measure sea level around the world with enough sensitivity to detect the expansion that would occur as the oceans absorbed heat. The data from those satellites confirm the temperature measurements — there is no detectable expansion, although if there is any contraction it’s small enough to be lost in the measurement uncertainty.
Regards,
Ric
I take it Ric that the entirety of the NPR article is based on the Chicken Little scenario you mention above. I also take it that no such event has occurred to date, that is to say, no one has observed the process described in the NPR article taking place, that it merely amounts to a projection of an hypothesis, not a measured event. If that’s so, I’d throw it into my “others” category. Heh. Cooling oceans wouldn’t seem to be helpful at all. double heh.
::shrug:: Ninety percent or better of the “discussion” in the media is Chicken Little.
It’s the other half of “Never let a crisis go to waste”: “create a crisis whenever possible”.
Regards,
Ric
#27
Not enough to matter. The mass of ice is still flosting and dispacing water equal to its mass. Icebergs ground out all the time in the straits between Labrador and Newfoundland. Nothing happens unless a boat hits one. The variables involved with predicting climate approach infinite the further away you get from right now.It is absolutely absurd to try and predict what climate is going to be like ten, five or even one year from now.
It took three state of the art supercomputers to fully design and function test the Boing 777 before one ever flew. There isn’t even one supercomputer dedicated full time to global warming. There simply isn’t enough data to come to any definite conclusions.
what a waste of time though
Thats why they’ve started pimping ice that is on top of land masses in the Antarctic. The story goes it’s not floating yet so it will raise the water levels once it melts off the continent. Oddly enough they didn’t start focusing on the Antarctic until somebody told them that ice thats already floating in water can’t further raise the water level.
The math may not be that hard, but apparently the physics is a bitch.
i mean we’re talking about a sphere with radius of 41,848,740 feet. 20 feet you’re talking a shitload of water
4/3pi r1**3 – 4/3 pi r2**3 = vol@20ft
4.1887r1**3 – 4.1887r2**3 = vol@20ft
4.1887(41848760)**3 – 4.1887(41848740)=vol@20ft
306,991,986,573,896,163,540,051 – 306,991,546,429,184,790,091,048 =
440,144,711,373,449,002 cu ft
440 144 711 373 449 000 cubic foot = 2 990 155.130 5 cubic mile
a 137 cubic mile ice cube
er 137 miles per side
ok math.
361 million square kilometers area of ocean. 6 meter rise for the 20 feet.
361,ooo,ooo,000 m2 times 6 m = 2,166,000,000,000 m3
divided by 1,000,000 to get km3 = 2.166 million km3
how much water is needed to float 137 mile per side ice cube? how is the water being forced underneath the ice cube to lift it to sea level?
the only pressure the ocean’s got is 14.7 psi
where’s the discussion of heat transfer between the ice cube and the ocean?
I am not having any problems at all, meys. Read this and this and see if you can figure out the problems with the theory you are promoting.
Hint: Soft drinks and cocktails all have different densities than ice cubes, but none of them overflow if you let the ice melt.
“Read this and this and see if you can figure out the problems with the theory you are promoting.”
Here’s the simple version — with pictures!
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20050801_floatingice.html
“Archimedes’ Principle states that an object immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces. However, Noerdlinger notes that because freshwater is not as dense as saltwater, freshwater actually has greater volume than an equivalent weight of saltwater. Thus, when freshwater ice melts in the ocean, it contributes a greater volume of melt water than it originally displaced.”
Here’s a more extensive version:
http://home.comcast.net/~pdnoerd/NoerdlingerBrower.pdf
With math!
Gaahhh, screw it!
The volume will be slightly greater.
What are you having a problem with?
That you are a clumsy, spinning, crapweaseling liar.
Hint:
If all the extant sea ice and floating shelf ice melted, the global sea level would rise about 4 cm.
This is an irrelevant change.
And you are a pathological, dissembling liebot.
P.S. I have serious doubts that “global sea level” can be measured to within an accuracy of 4cm in the first place.
The Pros, especially the sky-is-falling types, tend (with exceptions) to be in the social sciences and/or computer programming, where the Antis lean strongly toward geologists, physicists, and the like.
Not true in my experience. Computer scientists who specialize in modeling and simulation (and I know some good ones) will often express skepticism (if not hilarity) of some of the “global warming” “models” out there.
Most of these “models” are programmed by amateurs.
Computer scientists who specialize in modeling and simulation (and I know some good ones)
Of course the ones I know tend to work in Evil White Male Dominated environments such as Wall Street and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
You know what I’m worried about? A potential phenomena I shall now refer to as “space rain”.
And ice isn’t as dense as either one, that is why about 10% of it sticks up in the air and doesn’t displace any water at all, salt or otherwise. Noerdlingler also isn’t accounting for the fact that within seconds of the ice melting, it becomes salt water.
potential phenomena?
Noerdlingler also isn’t accounting for the fact that within seconds of the ice melting
Of course, even if one accepts Noerdlingler’s claim, it’s only a lousy 4 cm rise.
I wouldn’t worry about the Statue of Liberty going under water any time soon.
We’re counting comets? That’s mere space drizzle.
J’see this the other day bh?
Notice the caption to the picture refers to “concentrated salt water” and the ice cube is about half way out of the water. If the ocean ever gets anywhere near the saline levels he is playing with global warming will be the least of our worries.
so how much water is needed to lift a 137 mile cube sitting in a ditch to sea level and at what pressure to lift it? and if 14.7 psi plus additional pressure doesn’t figure in you’re an engineering idiot.
No, no such luck, sdferr.
Btw, I don’t see anything amiss with what this Noerdlinger guy is saying. I don’t know the relevant amount of floating ice or the relative densities but it’s fairly straightforward to say that different fluids have different volumes compared to weight. For a floating body, the displacement is merely weight, you don’t know the volume displacement. And, after melting, the freshwater merely brought down the overall saltwater density, yet the weight is obviously still the same, so volume will be larger.
and wouldn’t salt water cause the ice to melt. here in the north we use salt to melt ice
ice is less dense than water. that’s why it floats. water is less dense then lead. lead is less dense than uranium get a periodic table people
And plain water is less dense than salt water. Which means by weight, it has more volume.
No need to believe me, but the concept is sound. As SBP points out, it’s a trifling number regardless.
so much stupidity so many gov’t loans to people to be “college educated”
oh fine but how is a 137 mile cube of ice going to be raised to sea level at 14.7 psi? are the whales going to force the water in underneath, moonbats un bureaucrats, how’s it going to happen? i tired of listening to idiots make up doomsday scenarios.
We used to make a drink called the Harbor Light. Equal parts Amarretto, Tequila, and 151 Rum, floated carefully, one on top of the other (in that order), lit and downed in one shot. Good thing in the wintertime.
You can do something similar with Guinness and Bass. “Black and Tan”.
The problem with land-based ice is that on Greenland and the Antarctic continent, both ice masses are seated inside a “bowl” that resulted from the weight of the ice. If it all melted, a good quantity would stay on land as a huge lake.
Furthermore, melting ice is irrelevant. The whole AGW thesis posits a “tipping-point” of 350 ppm of CO2, at which our climate — currently dominated by a negative-feedback loop — will be dominated by positive feedback.
Given that atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been MUCH higher during Earth’s history (both with cooler and warmer temps) and that positive-feedback loops have NOT come do dominate climate, it is extremely improbable that the catastrophic, runaway warming is even physically POSSIBLE, let alone imminent.
Follow the money, meya. Doomsday sells. Al Gore is feathering his nest like the filthiest of capitalists, and sweet grant money is pouring into climatological studies. That right there should be a huge red flag, but no, AGW is such a convenient pair of coattails for power-grabs large and small that it will be abandoned only reluctantly as empirical evidence disproves the theory.
Just as it did the last kajillion world-ending crises the left has come up with for the past 100 years.
router, the 20 ft number you’re basing your back of the envelope calcs on comes from ice that currently sits on land suddenly taking float.
This Noerdlingler guy is talking about something else. All currently floating ice melting, creating a volume increase based on density differences. That’s the tiny 4 cm number.
Two different things.
Oh, here’s the linky for my last.
Yes, as it’s Friday, I think I shall have a Harbor Light and then a Black and Tan. In the interest of science.
Use a spoon to dribble the second and third pours into the glass and you’re good to go. Until you aren’t. lol.
Given that atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been MUCH higher during Earth’s history
Absolutely.
Counterintuitively, you have to put the Bass on the bottom for a Black and Tan.
the original post via npr
well “currently floating ice” will melt. and the current atmosphere will take on some the water vapor of the “currently floating ice” through evaporation and sublimation and melting
yes let’s quibble about trivial stuff. agw is a fraud like acid rain:
?
I wasn’t saying anything remotely positive about the crazy AGW claims, router.
Just speaking to the narrow topic that meya linked.
And subtly soliciting drink suggestions. I’m clever like that.
narrow thinking = progg
Also, the claims of catastrophe from climate change alone are absurd. 10,000 years ago, the climate was considerably cooler than it is now. Where I’m now sitting, there was a huge pluvial lake, 1000 feet deep. That lake has since evaporated due to natural global warming, and considering the sheer volume of the lake (19,691 square miles), that’s a helluva lot of warming: MUCH more warming than has occurred in the last 100 years.
You’ll notice that the planet is still habitable.
Climate change means that some places benefit (from a human perspective) and others suffer. But utter catastrophe, rendering the planet totally uninhabitable, happens only during complete glaciation, with ice from pole to pole, NOT when the ice is missing from the poles (which is more norm that anomaly).
We are warming OUT of a glaciation cycle, and that’s a MUCH better prospect than cooling into one. We’re better off doing nothing until forced to adapt to any change that actually takes place. If an island DOES flood, we evacuate the populace. If a desert forms, we stop farming there and go to where rainfall has increased.
As global bugaboos stand, I’d sooner put my money on volcanism throwing the planet into a brief iceage than CO2 emissions pushing it into catastrophic meltdown, s’far as that goes (and it don’t go too awful far).
Agreed, sdferr. On that topic, I might have recommended this book before.
Where I’m sitting used to be under several miles of ice. All gone now. Global warming from 12,000 years ago.
But since I’m talking to myself here….
Where I’m sitting, it’s still “uninhabitable”.
I think she might just mean “messy” and “poorly decorated” though.
Something else I rarely see mentioned, particularly by the dim bulbs like meya: Sea level has been rising since the end of the last ice age (~12,000 years ago). It has risen over 300 feet, with NO appreciable impact on humans, or any other species. We all adapted. It is an ultra slow motion “catastrophe,” leaving plemty of time to adjust to whatever happens. This is why (partly) they are in such a hurry to change the law-once everyone sees what a farce this is, they’ll be plenty pissed.
One other thing-climate is always changing. We are far better of when it’s warming, rather than cooling. Look at human history, and note the correlation between the bad times (Dark Ages, etc.) and times of global cooling. My guess? They’re related.
OT somewhat.
From a link at Ace’s. A new show from Mike Judge that looks promising “The Goode’s”.
Okay, it’s late, but I figured out sdferr’s joke off of the “potential phenomena” of “space rain”.
Yes, meteors, dangerous.
My joke was much more simple and retarded. What if space started raining and started bringing up the water levels. Towards a more frivolous eschatology, that’s my goal.
I dunno – when I was at Ur, we saw plenty of little sea shells and such. It used to be a port. It is now waaaaay, inland, maybe 1/3rd up the length of Iraq.
I’m not quite worried the waves will o’ertop Illinois just yet. Well, presuming Al Gore and Michael Moore don’t get into a bellyflop contest in the Fox River.
#71
This is my contention , but given the earths history I don’t think it’s unreasonable. For enough polar ice to melt to make a difference there would have be an incredible change in the temperature in those regions. say 50%. Just a guess. It has happened before. When the poles have flipped. Nothing much we could do about it if it happened. Nothing we can do about the temperature of the sun either.
Good news. Due to heavier snows and wetter springs, the Great Lakes are rising. back to their previous levels.
Here you go, a good place to start anyways.
Regards,
Ric
See, B Moe, spies knows how to fight this. Call it irrelevant. But don’t call it wrong.
I called you a spinning, crapweaseling liar.
Which you are.
meya-
So following that logic, when that 10% melts, it will add to the volume of water in the ocean.
See Archimedes, you ignorant twatwaffle.
Nope, it absorbs the salt from the existing salt water, which would make it all less dense and we get to start the whole silly little dance all over again.
Talk of salt and the difference in volume (2.6 to 2.8% which is trivial anyway) is irrelevant. They’ve calculated the volume of water trapped in the WAIS at about 2.2 million km^3. That’s based on ice density of cores taken as well as the mineral content that that reveals. The simplest truth here is that the ice in the WAIS is not distilled water, some of it undoubtedly was ocean water at one time and would be expected to have some resulting salt content.
Not having that data, no one here can calculate all the gives and takes in this. Even the known data is based on a LOT of assumptions, most significantly about the quality and continuity of the ice cores that the known data is based on. Satelite imagery has undoubtedly helped, but it’s still not a perfect picture.
In all, nothing new–meya continues to argue irrelevancies in order to distract and to try to confuse. Real or feigned obtuseness to follow.
Bingo.