ICE Satellite Maps Profound Polar Thinning 245
xp65 writes "Researchers have used NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite to compose the most comprehensive picture of changing glaciers along the coast of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The new elevation maps show that all latitudes of the Greenland ice sheet are affected by dynamic thinning — the loss of ice due to accelerated ice flow to the ocean. The maps also show surprising, extensive thinning in Antarctica, affecting the ice sheet far inland. The study, led by Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, was published September 24 in Nature."
What is the net effect? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm no climate change skeptic, but from just looking at the images it's not clear that the reduction in some places is not balanced by the increase in others. What is the net effect? Can these data be compared to model predictions?
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Let's start by an extremely rapid decline in habitat for a great many and varied species, that we cannot possibly begin to fully appreciate scientifically, let alone model with any accuracy.
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Re:What is the net effect? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is really simple. It all depends on how much kick are you getting out of the environment as we know it.
It is true that so far whenever cataclysms occured and species died out there was a subsequent re-population with new flora and fauna. It is also true that whenever such events have occurred, nearly all of the prevalent species have disappeared, and the subsequent re-population has taken millions of years to happen.
So, if you really, really don't care about your species disappearing in famine and diseases and other niceties those bring then yeah, life will eventually adapt to the new equilibrium that will prevail, and there is little to worry about in the long run.
If you are one of the neo-conservatives who want to keep living as we like it (a.k.a. tree-huggers), without disruptions and without need to die out and re-adapt, then you understand there are things that better be done sooner than later.
Re:What is the net effect? (Score:4, Informative)
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That may be true, but I think the main issue about dihydrogen monoxide is that there are oceans of it that release by evaporation amounts much larger than anything the human race could produce—therefore it is well-nigh impossible to disrupt its equilibrium the way we can disrupt carbon dioxide's.
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Re:What is the net effect? (Score:4, Informative)
According to a recent survey [people-press.org], about 10% of scientists believe that the current warming is natural, 4% believe there is no warming, and 84% believe the current warming is caused by humans. So, yeah, some scientists are skeptical of global warming.
But stop trying to count heads on each side of the debate. As I've repeatedly stressed in that last link, science isn't democratic. It's about evidence. When I see some convincing evidence against the existence of abrupt climate change, then I'll be interested.
And of course the IPCC doesn't conduct original research. They compile previously peer-reviewed research into reports that summarize the best scientific evidence available.
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Or maybe you could re-read my point that the natural carbon cycle is a closed cycle. That means any CO2 emitted by respiration and decomposition was very recently absorbed from the air as the plant grew. So it doesn't change the overall concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Another independent line of evidence is that the isotopes in vegetative CO2 don't match the current isotopes of CO2 in the atmosphere. The CO2 in fossil fuels, on the other hand, has been locked underground for millions of years and ha
Re:What is the net effect? (Score:5, Informative)
They have never been able to accurately predict what the weather will be tomorrow. It is arrogant for Al Gore (who incidentally also invented the Internet) to claim he knows what the effect will be decades from now. The largest cause of CO2 emissions is natural activity. The most abundant greenhouse gas is water vapor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Greenhouse_effects_in_Earth.27s_atmosphere [wikipedia.org]
3 myths in one go? Not bad. First link on google for climate myths gives 3 rebuttals: Chaotic systems are not predictable [newscientist.com], CO2 isn't the most important greenhouse gas [newscientist.com] and finally CO2 isn't the most important greenhouse gas [newscientist.com]
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Whereas we can totally trust profit-seeking industry to give us the straight talk? Nuh-uh. Game/economic theory says that if spewing disinformation results in a net profit, it will happen, otherwise they are not treating their shareholders right. They're not supposed to be moral or ethical; they are supposed to turn a profit, on whatever timescale their investors think is appropriate.
Neither "side" is necessarily trustworthy, but one side has clear motives to be untrustworthy.
Note, also, that the power-s
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You're absolutely right that peer-reviewed journal articles are far superior to pop science sources. But the New Scientist articles he quoted accurately reflect the science in those peer-reviewed journals, which I've linked [dumbscientist.com] extensively so you can compare.
Huh? What in th
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Oh, the global cooling myth, how quaint! Haven't heard that one for a while. I see you have gotten the one where decades and 100 of decades are mixed up. The trick is to count the zeros! ;)
Seriously, how can anyone be surprised that the outlook 10000 years ahead is different from 100?
There is also a different global cool myth, which claims that the scientist agreed that such was in store for us around 1970. Hope I didn't steal your thunder ;)
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1. Actually, where I live (in Japan), the weather predictions are very accurate. My wife says it is so because when a wrong prediction is given, the people phone the weather bureau and bitch about it. Since I see correct local predictions most of the time, I tend to believe the global ones as well, especially when the same nice folks make them.
2. I don't really give a fuck about Al Gore's opinion (or about yours), but I own homes in three different continents, and over my lifetime the temperatures in all
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A significant amount of evolution is driven by mass die offs. That is, the population of a species reduced by 99% or more. We could evolve to be a species with average height of 7.5 feet very quickly...just kill off everyone except for a few hundred p
Re:What is the net effect? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, I didn't mean the net effect of climate change, I meant the net amount of ice in Greenland and Antarctica. From the data provided it's not obvious that Greenland and Antarctica are losing ice. For example there are very large blue/green regions (gaining ice) that by eye could be bigger than the red regions (losing ice).
The other question is regards climate model predictions. One of the catastrophic outcomes of climate change are large sea level rises due to ice melt in the polar regions. Presumably there are models that predict how this could occur with global warming. So the question is, do these data agree with these models?
Re:What is the net effect? (Score:5, Informative)
The last article I read in Science [pik-potsdam.de] compared model prediction of sea level rise, and found that observations showed the sea levels rising even faster than the models predicted. Perhaps this was just short-term weather, though: more recent measurements may indicate agreement with the models.
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Re:What is the net effect? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes for Antarctica - there does, indeed, seem to be a balancing between areas with thinning and those with thickening ice. But not for Greenland, which appears to be pretty much on a dramatic thinning regimen.
Re:What is the net effect? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why would it surprise you? Ice extent has been growing in Antarctica for quite some time, and the same goes for the Arctic since 2007.
This is not disputed, it's simple fact.
http://nsidc.org/seaice/characteristics/difference.html [nsidc.org]
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm [uaf.edu]
Watch out for the hyperbole in popular media that's simply not based on actual observations but "models".
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I'm with you. I'm going to wait until the sharks are swimming around my ankles here in central Victoria, Australia, before I stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
It has to be sharks too. Angry sea bass aren't going to convince me. There are plenty of non-global warming explanations for why sea bass could be swimming around my ankles, and so that alone should not be taken as hard evidence of climate change.
And once I'm finally convinced that the climate is in fact changing, the presence of sharks swimming ar
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Your Steve Fielding impression is disturbingly good.
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Anyway, whether it is human activity or not, weather is messed up big time.
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The whole report can be found here: http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/ [unep.org]
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It seems likely to me that ice loss at an ocean boundary will cause a reduction in floating ice sheets. Those floating ice sheets act as a barrier to glacial ice flowing into the ocean. Their reduction could cause an acceleration of ice flow into the sea.
In addition, it also seems likely to me that increases in ice in certain areas are associated with the increased moisture carrying capacity of warmer air. To snow, all you need is for the temperature to be below 32F/0C. If the warming continues, the ice
Do they know if this is unusual? (Score:5, Interesting)
I see on the maps that some areas are thinning, near the coasts, and other areas are thickening.
I wonder if that is the usual pattern, or if they are seeing something unusual.
The article didn't mention that, as far as I could tell.
Re:Do they know if this is unusual? (Score:5, Insightful)
Qualitatively, what you'd expect from climate change is more precipitation (because there's more evaporation) and therefore thickening at high elevations where the snow stays cold, while lower warmer regions flow faster or even melt.
Re:Do they know if this is unusual? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Do they know if this is unusual? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, this doesn't help, but I can see why health care is the focus of attention: it is one thing the government can do something about. Climate change is a serious problem, but it is now too big to fix, since no-one has the will to adopt a policy amounting to more than "business as usual" and "let's have another toke on that big ole' oil-pipe".
A lot of political mileage is being made of proposed emissions trading schemes, but it's too late for that. They are just accounting exercises - like pushing food around on the plate to make it look like you're eating less.
I'm sorry if that sounds defeatist, but I'd be happy to hear an alternative. People will not change until they're forced to.
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I've repeatedly [dumbscientist.com] argued [slashdot.org] that we need to start building as many modern nuclear fission plants as possible. Preferably pebble bed reactors, using breeder reactors and reprocessing techniques to turn the waste into useful fuel.
And as I've explained on my homepage, I think that cap-and-trade will make coal less profitable, and nuclear power more profitable. It's a very capitalistic approach to the problem of climate change.
Re:Do they know if this is unusual? (Score:5, Informative)
I've discussed [dumbscientist.com] this claim before. Short version: there hasn't been a cooling trend over the last ten years, major or minor.
The climate varies naturally on long timescales but Meehl 2004 [ucar.edu] shows the current warming can't be accounted for by natural forcings. Greenhouse gas emissions are the only way we can explain the temperatures over the last ~40 years.
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(And that's a big assumption given the major cooling trend we have been in for the last 10 years.)
Oh please. Take a look at the graph [www.dmi.dk] and tell me what cooling trend you see? I know that 1998 was exceptionally warm, but one years does not make a trend.
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You should try verifying that graph scientifically. Some have, with interesting results.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/23/taking-a-bite-out-of-climate-data/ [wattsupwiththat.com]
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Look at bigger picture. Do not be narrow minded as rest of the scientists.
Climate change first and foremost affects humans. Having better health care would help to absorb some of the climate change effects.
One step at a time. There is always time for the panic and apocalypse. At the moment we try to make sure that humanity as it is now would survive. And that we would be able to live on *after* surviving.
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What you are not taking into account is Global Dimming [wikipedia.org]. This phenomenon (do,do, do.do.do) blocks photons from hitting bodies of water which is what is *required* for evaporation to occur. Records of rainfalls taken in Israel has shown a decline in the amounts of rainfall as the amount of particulate matter (from pollution) increases in the atmosphere and blocks light from reaching the earth.
This
Re:Do they know if this is unusual? (Score:4, Interesting)
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FTFA:
Which... is sort of what healthy glaciers do. Thick, healthy glaciers flow quickly due to the pressure they exert on the deeper portions, giving the lower ice under pressure more plasticity. This could be construed as abnormally healthy glacial activity, but IANAAG (i am not an artic geologist).
I should note my liberal bias, democratic registration, and belief in glob
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Double check your terminology there. The article specifically states glacier flow, not glacier melt in Antarctica. Glacier flow only occurs when you have lots of extra ice pushing more ice down the slope. Flow != Melt! It's way, way too cold in Antarctica for glaciers to melt anywhere on the actual landmass. Thinning ice shelf in this case is specifically due to improved glacial flow, pushing more ice out to where it can melt - in the sea.
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Does it? (Score:2, Insightful)
The increased temperatures of west Antarctica are more than compensated by decreased temperatures elsewhere in Antartctica. It is especially interesting that there is so much growth inland of Greenland.
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Antarctica as a whole isn't warming unless you deal in dubious statistical models. The west Antarctica peninsula has been warming though, and that's where the hyperbole comes from.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/20/steig-et-al-antarctica-warming-paper-process-is-finally-replicated-and-dealt-a-blow-to-robustness/ [wattsupwiththat.com]
That has likely more to do with natural shifting of the polar current around Antarctica than anything else. Changes in current location affects weather at the peninsula without affecting the rest
We are literally being served half truths (Score:2, Insightful)
Or is less than half truths. Most of Antarctica gets colder, some of it gets warmer. By reporting on the parts that get warmer, media tries to sell disasters just because it sells better than the whole truth and nothing but the truth. West Antarctica has according to climatologists always behaved differently from the rest of Antarctica.
Climatology news is starting too resemble a boxing match where only the strikes delivered by one of the boxers are being reported.
Don't matter... (Score:4, Insightful)
Then when the engineers say it's too late to do anything except build a 300 foot tall dam around every coastline in the world, it'll be their fault for not fixing it.
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Wow, exaggerate much?
Re:Don't matter... (Score:4, Insightful)
We have been warned for years on end that coastal inundation would be the direct effect of polar melting.
But inundation should not be a delayed effect. It should appear immediately, and in direct proportion to the melting.
So where is it?
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Re:Don't matter... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, 2008 and 2009 had smaller ice extent minima [uaf.edu] than 2007. But the point is that climate models had previously predicted [demon.co.uk] larger ice extent minima than were observed in 2007. So the last several years tend to confirm that the previous measurements were due to short-term weather variability rather than a flaw in the climate models.
Ask, and you shall receive [uiuc.edu]. No serious scientist is actually "guessing" that the decline has been constant, and no climate model that I'm aware of makes that prediction. Short term variability is expected, but the data shows a clear downward trend over the last 30 years.
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We have been warned for years on end that coastal inundation would be the direct effect of polar melting.
But inundation should not be a delayed effect. It should appear immediately, and in direct proportion to the melting.
So where is it?
Two South Pacific islands have disappeared beneath the waves, as climate change raises sea levels to new heights. [bbc.co.uk]
Tuvalu, soon to be no more. [earthtimes.org]
World's deltas subsiding, says study. [google.com]
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Please read the article.
Because that is exactly what it says.
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Because the costs of adjustments to the new climate exceeds the costs of avoiding it by a huge margin.
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That doesn't prove that adapting is more costly than avoiding. I'm not saying one or the other is better. I'm just saying that making the claim that one is more costly than the other isn't a fact.
Re:Don't matter... (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, yes. Technically I agree. The political/economic ramifications of our response to climate change aren't completely within the domain of physical science, so they're not facts in the way that the anthropogenic origin of abrupt climate change is a fact. For example, our technology could suddenly jump forward very quickly, rendering adaptation very simple and cheap.
But we're talking about the future of the human race here. Let's choose the safest option, and try to avoid the worst effects by moving from coal power to modern nuclear power. As technology advances, solar, wind, tidal and geothermal power can play an increasing role. We've stagnated and become complacent in a world powered by cheap oil; another industrial revolution is long overdue.
Re:Don't matter... (Score:4, Insightful)
And I'm sure the number of possible problems is significantly greater with the surface of the planet changing compared to retiring old coal power plants and converting to more electric cars.
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And that's proved by.... ?
Go check the numbers yourself, it's not like it's a secret. In these parts (DK), it's mostly more damms or relocation of some towns, new sewers (that's an amazing expensive part), irrigation for the farmers and such items. On the plus side, the heating bill might get slightly smaller (but probably not as much as the cooling bill will get higher) and we might be able to grow a bit more crops, provided enough irrigation. You don't have to be that bright to see that the expenses outweigh the benefits. Perhaps
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What numbers would I be investigating, exactly? Apparently it's considered trolling to question anything around here. All I'm saying is that we can't just make a blanket statement that avoiding the problem is less costly than adapting to the problem. There are no numbers that can support either case. I completely agree that avoiding the problem is probably the least disruptive solution. However, there are costs associated with keeping things the way they are. That can't be ignored when making argumen
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What numbers would I be investigating, exactly? Apparently it's considered trolling to question anything around here. All I'm saying is that we can't just make a blanket statement that avoiding the problem is less costly than adapting to the problem. There are no numbers that can support either case. I completely agree that avoiding the problem is probably the least disruptive solution. However, there are costs associated with keeping things the way they are. That can't be ignored when making arguments that one solution is better than another.
If you are talking specifically about the global warming, then yes, we can come up with some numbers --- like "what will it cost to build the damns and move the towns if the water rises 2 meters" and then add them up.
If you meant in general, then I completely agree that you cannot say that avoiding is better than adapting.
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When it comes to unintended consequences, Murphy's Law predicts outcomes pretty well in my experience. Especially when whatever is changed is irreversible.
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Where do you get the idea, that the arable land increases due to global climate change?
I hope, you don't think, it just gets warmer (as the oversimplifying name "global warming" might suggest), and one can start farming in the tundra.
There are more factors involved in arability than temperature
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Re:Don't matter... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, with what is usually being proposed, like reducing carbon emissions by driving more fuel efficient cars, no leaving lights on everywhere, how is that POSSIBLY a bad thing?
If we're talking about some of the more harebrained ideas like having hundred of thousands of ships sucking up cold water from the the ocean and spraying it as high into the atmosphere as possible, yes I agree - that could easily do serious long term damage that we don't realise.
But conserving energy cannot do that, as we are simply choosing to reduce the energy input into a system that had previously had a moderately stable equilibrium before we started burning all those fossil fuels.
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Sure, more efficient cars (as long as they arent less safe or something) is a great idea regardless. But if we are spending time and money (and energy) on one thing that is still less to spend on other things.
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When I said "moderately stable equilibrium" I was talking about the amount of energy that entered out atmosphere. This was not very clear in my post, and I apologize for that.
Yes, over very large periods of time, the amount of energy that has then been radiated away from our atmosphere has varied as glaciation will increase the bleed off by reflecting this.
But, when we then start to burn off fuels that are the accumulation of energy over hundreds of thousands if not millions of years inside a span that is a
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But logically speaking taking action before you know the consequence of the action can be very bad. Many of the demands made to mitigate postulated anthropogenic global warming involve considerable expense, so all the things that we know for sure need doing (like feeding people) that might otherwise be done with the money constitutes the minimum opportunity cost.
Of course the irony is that the people benefiting from the status quo have always whined about the cost, even when at the time it was trivial. The sad fact is, that since AGW is a positive feedback loop, the longer we have delayed taking steps to slow/reverse the process, the harder and more expensive it becomes.
The maximum would be far greater - we might well cause one climate catastrophe as we seek to avert the other.
Yeah. It would be really a shame if more people took mass transit.
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BTW look up aerosols. They may have doomed us all, but luckily we stopped it in time, aerosols are used a very very tiny fraction now compared to what they were at their peak. Since we averted the crisis does it not count?
1) No, no scientis
Carbon Credits? (Score:4, Funny)
National Post rebuttal (Score:2, Insightful)
Another POV... http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/09/25/lawrence-solomon-hot-and-cold.aspx [nationalpost.com]
He points to a National Geographic report saying the opposite.
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Conflicting evidence must be resolved before you discard data as worthless. This is a closed system. You may not ignore evidence that contradicts your point of view. While I know The Day After Tomorrow was horse shit, the underlying theory is not. Warming oceans cause changes in currents that circ
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I read that article, and wondered why the authors missed the crucial part of the story. Yes, 2008 and 2009 had smaller ice extent minima [uaf.edu] than 2007. But the point is that climate models had previously predicted [demon.co.uk] larger ice extent minima than were observed in 2007. So the last several years tend to co
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But I want NPOV!
Over what time period, is the question (Score:3, Insightful)
The question is, over what time period are we seeing rises and falls in coverage? We have no proper data before the satellite age. So all we know is that there has been recent shrinkage. We have however no idea what the standard deviation is of gains and shrinkages over a period of centuries or millenia, so we have no idea whether we are looking at an event close to the mean or one that is several standard deviations away from it.
At this point people usually ridicule one for not being prepared to take action until there is proof, which is usually projected as being some natural disaster like New Orleans.
The argument is mistaken. It is quite reasonable to wait for proof, because 'doing things' in the absence of proof is a risky and expensive business. It could have quite dramatic and unexpected side effects depending on what the situation really is.
It would enormously help us figure this thing out if all the climate scientists would just publish their raw data and algorithms. That way we could at least verify their work so far. The ones that need to publish? Well, just about all of them. They supposedly have evidence that the present warming is a very rare event, but they decline to publish it. They just publish studies based on it, summaries of it, processed forms of it. We need this data, and we need the code that was applied to it.
Without that, its not science, its arm waving. There is probably nothing more important than to establish the climatic history of the last 2,000 years, and if we could establish ice coverage and density in some way, that too. Without the scientists publishing, I do not see how we take this debate any further. It is, to say the least, curious that the main workers in the field, the ones who find the present trend most alarming, are the ones who refuse to reveal the data that would prove them right.
Where, for instance, is Mann's algorithm, the one he refused to supply to the Wegman Committee? Where is the data underlying the HADCRU series? Where is Thompson's ice core data?
If we cannot see it, how do we even know it exists?
Re:Good-bye ice, it was nice knowing you. (Score:4, Funny)
Where is the massive coastal flooding that was promised to be caused by this?
I have beachfront property. Or I will have as soon as the much promised flooding arrives.
Re:Good-bye ice, it was nice knowing you. (Score:4, Informative)
That would be sensationalism. So far, it is measured in cm; by the turn of the century (90 years from now) it is projected to be a few meters,
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I say fuck the polar bears. Why? Because we need polar-bear human hybrids in order to survive the coming pseudo-ice-age warming period. Also when the magnetic field flips from north to south, our polar-human descendants can track the pole as it migrates over the period of M_PI years. I mean if anything can track that, it'd be a polar human.
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That would be sensationalism. So far, it is measured in cm; by the turn of the century (90 years from now) it is projected to be a few meters,
I would think both of those outcomes would be awful for a few dozen cities on our planet that are only a foot above sea level.
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yea but the stench will finally be out of NY city. I think that's worth it.
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We have cities that are below sea level, right at it, or barely above it. They all cope (except perhaps during the occasional hurricane.
Think of how many well populated cities in 1900 are gone or all but gone today. For many reasons, economical, environmental, etc, cities will grow or decline. Think of every town that had to be uprooted and moved because we built a lake. Moving a bit inland over a 100 year period isn't going to be a big problem.
-Restil
-Restil
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It would be a bit more comforting to see some numbers to accompany your estimate. I say this, because, on the one hand I know that in the space of 100 years Florida when from barely populated to what it is today (my great-grandfather moved there there in the early 1920s, now it is 6% of the US population), but on the other hand, in the town I live in today (some miles inland, but in the Charles and Mystic river watersheds), there's a thousand or so houses too close to sea level. One town, a thousand homes
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But "profound" thinning isn't sensationalism? Is there a scale of hyperbolic adjectives that maps to physical volumes or thicknesses? If there isn't then "profound" is an invitation to make an assumption unsupported by the facts.
Perhaps, I am not a native speaker. Profound means "deep" doesn't it? http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/profound writes
Descending far below the surface; opening or reaching to a great depth; deep.
but also notes a number of other meanings. Anyway, I just thought they meant that the ice was thinning far inland.
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FTFY.
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What planet you are from again?
Re:"man made" (Score:4, Informative)
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Your certainty actually demonstrates your lack of intelligence, especially since you've clearly developed your opinion from very limited data - or more accurately - from other peoples opinion.
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Re:Hide in the mountains! (Score:4, Insightful)
Now try this, take that same full cup and put two chop sticks side by side across the top of the glass. Now place a few ice cubes on the chop sticks and watch them melt, what happens to the water level in this case?
What is worrying is ice that is currently NOT floating is showing signs of melting, which will have an impact on sea levels.
The climate is changing, it doesn't mater if its caused by humans or some natural cycle, we have to start thinking about how we are going to adapt now if we are going to survive long term.
Remember that what happens elsewhere in the world DOES have an effect on you, it may be slight but it does. Ever notice how milk costs more when petrol prices go up because of political unrest in the middle East?
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Our coastal cities are sinking with all this ice loss! Oh... wait.
Ever put an ice cube in water and watch it melt? Or do you people seriously just listen to CNN all day while complaining about conservatives listening to Fox all day?
Your mastery of geography has me awed.