Plainly that was too big a step.
Answer this. Why do we care what happens to the Antarctic ice sheets? What are the reasons they show up in AGW debates all the time?
Once I know what your answer to this is, I may be able to figure out why you're saying the things you are.
One more thing. I am not disputing your assertion that total heat transfer rate for a given set of conditions depends on surface area. That is indeed obvious, and trivial. What I am trying to figure out is why you brought it up.
Why are the glaciers melting?
-
GW Johnson
- Posts: 85
- Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2010 9:14 pm
- Location: McGregor, TX USA
- Contact:
I see people picking and choosing pieces of physics to support pre-existing politics. I don't see much in the way of response to actual observations and effects. Nowhere in this entire conversation thread. I find that completely alarming.
Ice on the ground or the ocean surface melts when ambient temperatures rise. I don't think anyone is so wrapped up in their politics as to deny that. I dare you. Deny it!
Data as incontrovertible factual observations: the Antarctic peninsula ice shelves broke up and disappeared. I double-dog dare anyone to deny that! Therefore, something (ocean, atmosphere, I dunno) is warmer at the south pole. The key word is "warmer".
Data as incontrovertible factual observation: the Greenland ice sheet is showing meltwater lakes that suddenly disappear as they drain to the nether regions below the ice sheet surface. 50 years ago, no one saw this phenomenon at all, and we have been in Greenland since WW2 looking. Again, I double-dog dare anyone to deny this observation.
That phraseology "double-dog dare" may date me as an early boomer, but I don't care.
There are similar observations from all over the world about spring starting earlier on average, and fall starting later on average, in terms of all kinds of measurements. These things are observations, and quite factual, and also quite reliable, in a statistical sense.
My point: it really is getting warmer in recent years. Why? Who cares. What is our response? Everyone should care, but so many do not, because of their politics.
Again, those things we might do to stave this off, or to buy some response time, are quite easily verifiable with the most elementary bench-top experiments. You cannot deny those elementary experiments -- those demonstrations are simply to simple, too direct, and too elegant to be wrong. I'm talking about the the bell jar / bottled gas greenhouse experiments, of course. These have been accepted as "crude fact" for over a century now.
Again, I double-dog dare anyone to deny the fact of these so-very-elementary demonstrations.
Now, since these observations indicate a warming climate (for whatever reason -- who cares why), how bad could the effects be? Warmer climate = melting ice. Ice volume melting above sea level = sea level rise. Conservation of volume (mass). Deny conservation of mass for the sake of your politics, if you think you can. I dare you! I double-dog dare you!
darn the politics, on all sides.
The volume of ice that potentially could melt in Greenland is worth about 6 meters of sea level rise, if it all melts. It won't all melt, but if even half melts, what is the effect of a 2-3 meter sea level rise, when so many live that close to sea level? How soon might this happen? I dunno. But, does that really matter? I don't really think so.
The West Antarctic ice sheet is founded on rock below current sea levels (deny that for your politics, I dare you!), and so is also at risk of melting and breakup. The portion of it above current sea levels also corresponds to another 6 meter sea level rise by simple conservation of volume, if it were all to disappear.
Again, all of it won't disappear, but what about the much more likely half of it disappearing? Another 2-3 meters sea level rise. How soon? Again, I dunno. Does that really matter? Nope.
Put the two together and get a total of 4-6 meter sea level rise "soon", if we do nothing. So, I ask you all, how do we cope with that? Billions on the march, displaced, and looking for new homes, right where the rest of us live, and across international borders, to boot. What are you going to do, nuke them? What kind of "final solution" do you want to implement, after the disaster begins, and there is no more time to respond?
Why not at least try to respond, before the perfectly-forseeable disaster begins? Stave it off if you can (I don't really think that is possible anymore, we have procrastinated too long, but that is no excuse not to try), and figure out how to cope before the disaster is actually upon you (I see no one actually doing this).
I am actually about as conservative as one can rationally be, but the engineer in me forsees this disaster, and demands action.
Focusing on this little piece of physics vs that other little one is pointless. Look at the whole picture, and use your God-given intuition, plus your technical educations. Please!
BTW, the East Antarctic ice sheet, while much less likely to melt anytime soon, is founded mostly above sea level. Its above sea level volume volume corresponds to 20 meters sea level rise. And, the remaining mountain glaciers correspond to another 1 meter rise, are demonstrably at risk of melting first of all.
Worst case: 1 + 6 + 6 + 20 = 33 meters sea level rise. Minimum: 1 meter. Most likely, about 6 meters. Population living within 6 meters of sea level: 2-3 billion. Population living within 33 meters of sea level: the majority of humanity.
THAT is why I am concerned.
Ice on the ground or the ocean surface melts when ambient temperatures rise. I don't think anyone is so wrapped up in their politics as to deny that. I dare you. Deny it!
Data as incontrovertible factual observations: the Antarctic peninsula ice shelves broke up and disappeared. I double-dog dare anyone to deny that! Therefore, something (ocean, atmosphere, I dunno) is warmer at the south pole. The key word is "warmer".
Data as incontrovertible factual observation: the Greenland ice sheet is showing meltwater lakes that suddenly disappear as they drain to the nether regions below the ice sheet surface. 50 years ago, no one saw this phenomenon at all, and we have been in Greenland since WW2 looking. Again, I double-dog dare anyone to deny this observation.
That phraseology "double-dog dare" may date me as an early boomer, but I don't care.
There are similar observations from all over the world about spring starting earlier on average, and fall starting later on average, in terms of all kinds of measurements. These things are observations, and quite factual, and also quite reliable, in a statistical sense.
My point: it really is getting warmer in recent years. Why? Who cares. What is our response? Everyone should care, but so many do not, because of their politics.
Again, those things we might do to stave this off, or to buy some response time, are quite easily verifiable with the most elementary bench-top experiments. You cannot deny those elementary experiments -- those demonstrations are simply to simple, too direct, and too elegant to be wrong. I'm talking about the the bell jar / bottled gas greenhouse experiments, of course. These have been accepted as "crude fact" for over a century now.
Again, I double-dog dare anyone to deny the fact of these so-very-elementary demonstrations.
Now, since these observations indicate a warming climate (for whatever reason -- who cares why), how bad could the effects be? Warmer climate = melting ice. Ice volume melting above sea level = sea level rise. Conservation of volume (mass). Deny conservation of mass for the sake of your politics, if you think you can. I dare you! I double-dog dare you!
darn the politics, on all sides.
The volume of ice that potentially could melt in Greenland is worth about 6 meters of sea level rise, if it all melts. It won't all melt, but if even half melts, what is the effect of a 2-3 meter sea level rise, when so many live that close to sea level? How soon might this happen? I dunno. But, does that really matter? I don't really think so.
The West Antarctic ice sheet is founded on rock below current sea levels (deny that for your politics, I dare you!), and so is also at risk of melting and breakup. The portion of it above current sea levels also corresponds to another 6 meter sea level rise by simple conservation of volume, if it were all to disappear.
Again, all of it won't disappear, but what about the much more likely half of it disappearing? Another 2-3 meters sea level rise. How soon? Again, I dunno. Does that really matter? Nope.
Put the two together and get a total of 4-6 meter sea level rise "soon", if we do nothing. So, I ask you all, how do we cope with that? Billions on the march, displaced, and looking for new homes, right where the rest of us live, and across international borders, to boot. What are you going to do, nuke them? What kind of "final solution" do you want to implement, after the disaster begins, and there is no more time to respond?
Why not at least try to respond, before the perfectly-forseeable disaster begins? Stave it off if you can (I don't really think that is possible anymore, we have procrastinated too long, but that is no excuse not to try), and figure out how to cope before the disaster is actually upon you (I see no one actually doing this).
I am actually about as conservative as one can rationally be, but the engineer in me forsees this disaster, and demands action.
Focusing on this little piece of physics vs that other little one is pointless. Look at the whole picture, and use your God-given intuition, plus your technical educations. Please!
BTW, the East Antarctic ice sheet, while much less likely to melt anytime soon, is founded mostly above sea level. Its above sea level volume volume corresponds to 20 meters sea level rise. And, the remaining mountain glaciers correspond to another 1 meter rise, are demonstrably at risk of melting first of all.
Worst case: 1 + 6 + 6 + 20 = 33 meters sea level rise. Minimum: 1 meter. Most likely, about 6 meters. Population living within 6 meters of sea level: 2-3 billion. Population living within 33 meters of sea level: the majority of humanity.
THAT is why I am concerned.
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
McGregor, Texas
I deny it.Ice on the ground or the ocean surface melts when ambient temperatures rise. I don't think anyone is so wrapped up in their politics as to deny that. I dare you. Deny it!
If the temperature rises from -40 to -39 (C or F I don't care) there will be no melting. Oh. Yeah. What is the content of dissolved matter and the species? Is radiation a significant factor? Wavelength and intensities please. And albedo of the ice surface.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Yeah. I really worry a lot about sea level rise. So far we are on track for a 1 flt rise in 100 years. If we are going to get even a 1 meter rise the rate has to go up by a factor of 3X. A 10 ft (3 m) rise means the current rate has to be accelerating a LOT. And has to get to a rate better than 10X the current rate real soon now.
Sadly the rate of rise appears to be declining for the present:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/17/s ... p-in-2010/
Don't you just hate it when that happens?
Sadly the rate of rise appears to be declining for the present:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/17/s ... p-in-2010/
Don't you just hate it when that happens?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
-
GW Johnson
- Posts: 85
- Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2010 9:14 pm
- Location: McGregor, TX USA
- Contact:
Past rates of sea level rise have little to do with what has started to happen. That's because something is (or at least could be) happening now, that was not happening in the past. It is the fundamental risk incurred by projecting into the future past trends. All bets are off if something changes, and everybody seems to forget that.
Why do I think things are happening now that were not happening before? Life experience observations, even if I do not read or believe historical accounts.
When I was a boy, the arctic sea ice was never more than a mile offshore of Alaska in summer. Now it is miles offshore. Winter pack ice was 20-30 feet thick, forcing atomic submarines to hunt for the thin ice in leads so they could surface. Now they surface anywhere they want, any time of year, precisely because the pack ice is never more than 5 feet thick. That's a change over just the last 50 years. The arctic icecap is thus demonstrably thinning. It takes heat to melt ice. Basic physics. Therefore, the arctic region has been warming of late. Why? What difference does that make? Point is, it's really happening.
Sea ice is no sea level rise threat: it's already floating. But, the Greenland ice cap is largely on land. It's a threat if it partially or wholly melts, and it is located in the demonstrably-warming arctic. Heat melts ice, I would remind you. Enough of Greenland's ice cap is above current sea level to present a potential sea level rise of 6 or 7 meters. Simple conservation of volumes, adjusted for ice vs liquid volumes (a 10% correction). Even if only 20-30% melts, that's a meter or three. That's too much to live with comfortably; things will change when all those folks have to move. Is it happening? Yes: there are now meltwater lakes in summer that drain down through the ice. There were none when I was boy old enough to pay attention 50-some years ago. That's a real change.
OK, is the Antarctic also warming? Answer: yes. How do we know? The sea ice shelves have mostly broken up from the Antarctic Peninsula. The larger continental ice shelves are next. Heat melts ice. Basic physics. Again, floating ice is an indicator, not a sea level rise threat. But what about the land ice down there? The West Antarctic ice sheet is showing wet at the bottom of the ice when 50 years ago those bore holes were always dry. That's a real observed change. The potential is another 6 meters if it all melts. Even just 10% of that does real damage: over half a meter rise. What is so hard to understand about that?
The truly big threat is the East Antarctic ice sheet. It shows no signs so far, but corresponds to at least 20 meters rise if it were to all melt, something not seen in 10 or 20 million years or so, according to the geologists. But, if we were to really drastically warm, it could! You have to remember that. Lower on the threat list to be sure, but a real killer if it does happen.
The mountain glaciers-- When I was a boy, Glacier National Park had lots of big glaciers in it. So did Kilimanjaro in Africa. Today, Glacier National Park is almost ice-free in summer. So is Kilimanjaro. The total of all the mountain glaciers is a volume corresponding to 1 meter rise of seas. Will it all melt? Probably not, but up to around a quarter of what was there 50 years ago already has. Yep, there's a little threat there.
Add the partial meltings together: maybe 1-3 meters for Greenland, a fraction for the mountain glaciers, and maybe another meter or three from West Antarctica. 3 to 7 meter rise. That's lot. It's way out of line with the trend of past centuries; it's actual a rapid single event, geologically. How fast? I dunno. I might live to see it. Maybe not. But my son probably will. Unless something flips the climate back to going colder, as in some previous centuries.
So, once again, there are really only two questions:
1. Can we do anything to stave this melting off, or buy some time to adapt? Yes. Quit making the problem worse. Reduce emissions of known greenhouse agents as fast as is practical to do. Not economic, not expedient, as fast and as much as we can. It's gonna hurt. No way around that.
2. We're probably gonna fail at #1. So, start figuring out how to adapt to a drastically changed world with displaced billions on the march looking for new homes, right where the other billions live and grow food. Can this be done without a depopulating genocidal war? I dunno. Nobody is working on this angle. And that's really bad news.
Why do I think things are happening now that were not happening before? Life experience observations, even if I do not read or believe historical accounts.
When I was a boy, the arctic sea ice was never more than a mile offshore of Alaska in summer. Now it is miles offshore. Winter pack ice was 20-30 feet thick, forcing atomic submarines to hunt for the thin ice in leads so they could surface. Now they surface anywhere they want, any time of year, precisely because the pack ice is never more than 5 feet thick. That's a change over just the last 50 years. The arctic icecap is thus demonstrably thinning. It takes heat to melt ice. Basic physics. Therefore, the arctic region has been warming of late. Why? What difference does that make? Point is, it's really happening.
Sea ice is no sea level rise threat: it's already floating. But, the Greenland ice cap is largely on land. It's a threat if it partially or wholly melts, and it is located in the demonstrably-warming arctic. Heat melts ice, I would remind you. Enough of Greenland's ice cap is above current sea level to present a potential sea level rise of 6 or 7 meters. Simple conservation of volumes, adjusted for ice vs liquid volumes (a 10% correction). Even if only 20-30% melts, that's a meter or three. That's too much to live with comfortably; things will change when all those folks have to move. Is it happening? Yes: there are now meltwater lakes in summer that drain down through the ice. There were none when I was boy old enough to pay attention 50-some years ago. That's a real change.
OK, is the Antarctic also warming? Answer: yes. How do we know? The sea ice shelves have mostly broken up from the Antarctic Peninsula. The larger continental ice shelves are next. Heat melts ice. Basic physics. Again, floating ice is an indicator, not a sea level rise threat. But what about the land ice down there? The West Antarctic ice sheet is showing wet at the bottom of the ice when 50 years ago those bore holes were always dry. That's a real observed change. The potential is another 6 meters if it all melts. Even just 10% of that does real damage: over half a meter rise. What is so hard to understand about that?
The truly big threat is the East Antarctic ice sheet. It shows no signs so far, but corresponds to at least 20 meters rise if it were to all melt, something not seen in 10 or 20 million years or so, according to the geologists. But, if we were to really drastically warm, it could! You have to remember that. Lower on the threat list to be sure, but a real killer if it does happen.
The mountain glaciers-- When I was a boy, Glacier National Park had lots of big glaciers in it. So did Kilimanjaro in Africa. Today, Glacier National Park is almost ice-free in summer. So is Kilimanjaro. The total of all the mountain glaciers is a volume corresponding to 1 meter rise of seas. Will it all melt? Probably not, but up to around a quarter of what was there 50 years ago already has. Yep, there's a little threat there.
Add the partial meltings together: maybe 1-3 meters for Greenland, a fraction for the mountain glaciers, and maybe another meter or three from West Antarctica. 3 to 7 meter rise. That's lot. It's way out of line with the trend of past centuries; it's actual a rapid single event, geologically. How fast? I dunno. I might live to see it. Maybe not. But my son probably will. Unless something flips the climate back to going colder, as in some previous centuries.
So, once again, there are really only two questions:
1. Can we do anything to stave this melting off, or buy some time to adapt? Yes. Quit making the problem worse. Reduce emissions of known greenhouse agents as fast as is practical to do. Not economic, not expedient, as fast and as much as we can. It's gonna hurt. No way around that.
2. We're probably gonna fail at #1. So, start figuring out how to adapt to a drastically changed world with displaced billions on the march looking for new homes, right where the other billions live and grow food. Can this be done without a depopulating genocidal war? I dunno. Nobody is working on this angle. And that's really bad news.
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
McGregor, Texas
Something is not (or at least could not be) happening now, that was happening in the past. Possibly. I'm possibly quite sure. But possibly I'm not. Depending.
xcxxcxcxcxcxxcxcxcxcxcxxxccxxxccxxx
QED.
Send me your money.
xcxxcxcxcxcxxcxcxcxcxcxxxccxxxccxxx
QED.
Send me your money.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
When I was a small boy the sky was very tall. And now the ratio of the height of the sky to my height has fallen by at least a factor of three just since I was a kid. The sky is falling.
We need to cripple energy production ASAP.
Send me your money.
We need to cripple energy production ASAP.
Send me your money.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
When did you start channeling Al Gore?MSimon wrote:When I was a small boy the sky was very tall. And now the ratio of the height of the sky to my height has fallen by at least a factor of three just since I was a kid. The sky is falling.
We need to cripple energy production ASAP.
Send me your money.
When opinion and reality conflict - guess which one is going to win in the long run.
I propose a war with China and India. Some one has to stop their CO2 production and they are ignoring the science. It might as well be us. ASAP.Reduce emissions of known greenhouse agents as fast as is practical to do. Not economic, not expedient, as fast and as much as we can. It's gonna hurt. No way around that.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
When Ötzi the Iceman was a little boy the glaciers were about where they are now. That was about 5300 years ago. A blink in the geological time line. How do we know? He was found under the glacier as they were retreating. So this is not a new thing. Indeed, ice coverage has been very irratic for centi-millenia.GW Johnson wrote: The mountain glaciers-- When I was a boy, Glacier National Park had lots of big glaciers in it. So did Kilimanjaro in Africa. Today, Glacier National Park is almost ice-free in summer. So is Kilimanjaro. The total of all the mountain glaciers is a volume corresponding to 1 meter rise of seas. Will it all melt? Probably not, but up to around a quarter of what was there 50 years ago already has. Yep, there's a little threat there.
Once I found out how profitable it was.JLawson wrote:When did you start channeling Al Gore?MSimon wrote:When I was a small boy the sky was very tall. And now the ratio of the height of the sky to my height has fallen by at least a factor of three just since I was a kid. The sky is falling.
We need to cripple energy production ASAP.
Send me your money.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Can't argue with that... Man knows how to run a scam, that's for sure.MSimon wrote:Once I found out how profitable it was.JLawson wrote:When did you start channeling Al Gore?MSimon wrote:When I was a small boy the sky was very tall. And now the ratio of the height of the sky to my height has fallen by at least a factor of three just since I was a kid. The sky is falling.
We need to cripple energy production ASAP.
Send me your money.
When opinion and reality conflict - guess which one is going to win in the long run.