It's Too Late : Only 10-years before open sea in the Arctic, page 3
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ATS Members have flagged this thread 3 times


reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 03:18 PM by TheRedneck
The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

Hello everyone! Sorry I'm late to the party.

reply to post by dodadoom
In antarctica, that ice sits on a rock.
When ice melts there, it does add to the oceans volume!
The influx of cold water also (may) alter oceanic currents!

True, if the Antarctic ice were melting. But the Antarctic ice is not melting:
ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent’s western coast.
Source: wattsupwiththat.com...

Arctic sea ice is decreasing dramatically and reached a record low in 2007. But satellite images studied by Turner and his colleagues show that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in every month of the year expect January. "By the end of the century we expect one third of Antarctic sea ice to disappear," says Turner. "So we're trying to understand why it's increasing now, at a time of global warming."
Source: www.newscientist.com...

SYDNEY: New analysis has indicated that contrary to the belief that there is large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, ice is actually
expanding in a large portion of the continent.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com...

This was just a sampling of what I was able to find in ten minutes or less, after discounting foxnews.com and anything that looked remotely like a blog. It would appear that us nay-sayers now have the 'experts' trying to understand why we were right and they were wrong.

Speculating here,...when the earth and atmosphere heats up,
wouldnt it thereby create more evaporation also?

Yes, it would. That would mean more water vapor in the air, and therefore less water in the oceans. Less water in the oceans means the ocean level might actually drop a bit, contrary to what we are being told by those "in the know".

Keep speculating... it makes things appear so much clearer.

TheRedneck

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.



reply posted on 17-10-2009 @ 07:23 PM by majestictwo
Okay you may think you know about floating ice and what happens when it melts - suggest we review this so we are on a level playing field and well have no more arguments from here on.
Buoyancy of ice
Good now if we can see that the Arctic is melting and there is no difference we can all go and cut the lawn or something.

On the otherrrrrrrr hand!! we could just take a peak at these - only two I found in 10mins
Glacier melting

This report may be a little old for you to take seriously
Royal Society of New Zealand

Okay time zone only permits me to go cut the lawn now - see yer tomorrow


reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 09:17 AM by majestictwo
Okay so what do you make of this then pretty clear cut I reckon.

link



reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 12:09 PM by TheRedneck
The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

reply to post by majestictwo

Not so clear-cut. The first photographs have the following caption:
1919 image of Athbasca Glacier, Jasper National Park, Canada, courtesy National Archives of Canada, from the Wheeler Survery; 2005 image © Gary Braasch
Source: www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org...

These are neither Arctic nor Antarctic photographs; Jasper National Park is located west of Edmonton, not very far from the Washington-Canada border. It is a hilly region; hence the ice flows in the higher elevations. There is no mention of the time of year each of these photos were taken, and so high-elevation ice deposits that wax and wane normally between winter and summer can easily be misrepresented.

Next photos: Antarctica. The only mention here is of the ice shelves along the edge of the continent. It is little surprise they are melting; they have been doing so for untold millenia. Proof of this? If ice continually builds in the interior, as we know it does, then a lack of any melt along the edge of the ice would mean a continually growing area of ice. The planet would be frozen in a few thousand years from tip to tip, and we also know for a fact it is not frozen thus.

Next photos: the Arctic. There is little debate that the amount of ice in the Arctic is at a low. However, there is also little debate that several areas of the Arctic are undergoing volcanic undersea activity. A little research will show that the areas of volcanic activity correlate to areas experiencing ice shrinkage.

I think that makes my point. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it isn't necessary a thousand true or accurate words.

TheRedneck

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.



reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 04:33 PM by majestictwo
reply to post by TheRedneck


Fair enough - but the point was that glaciers are melting at a fast rate over the whole world and while its got away from the original subject (Arctic) this water has to go somewhere.

I'm happy to leave it there and perhaps to be official we should have a different thread for ice on land. The original title was really just an observation about the Arctic nothing more or less.

Cheers for your input
MJ2


reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 04:40 PM by melatonin
Originally posted by majestictwo

Fair enough

...

Cheers for your input
MJ2


Don't take anything Redneck says as reliable, check and double-check. Antarctica has been shown to be losing ice mass overall.

Letter abstract
Nature Geoscience 1, 106 - 110 (2008)
Published online: 13 January 2008 | doi:10.1038/ngeo102

Subject Categories: Climate science | Cryospheric science

Recent Antarctic ice mass loss from radar interferometry and regional climate modelling
Eric Rignot1,2,3, Jonathan L. Bamber4, Michiel R. van den Broeke5, Curt Davis6, Yonghong Li6, Willem Jan van de Berg5 & Erik van Meijgaard7

top of page
Large uncertainties remain in the current and future contribution to sea level rise from Antarctica. Climate warming may increase snowfall in the continent's interior1, 2, 3, but enhance glacier discharge at the coast where warmer air and ocean temperatures erode the buttressing ice shelves4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Here, we use satellite interferometric synthetic-aperture radar observations from 1992 to 2006 covering 85% of Antarctica's coastline to estimate the total mass flux into the ocean. We compare the mass fluxes from large drainage basin units with interior snow accumulation calculated from a regional atmospheric climate model for 1980 to 2004. In East Antarctica, small glacier losses in Wilkes Land and glacier gains at the mouths of the Filchner and Ross ice shelves combine to a near-zero loss of 4+/-61 Gt yr-1. In West Antarctica, widespread losses along the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas increased the ice sheet loss by 59% in 10 years to reach 132+/-60 Gt yr-1 in 2006. In the Peninsula, losses increased by 140% to reach 60+/-46 Gt yr-1 in 2006. Losses are concentrated along narrow channels occupied by outlet glaciers and are caused by ongoing and past glacier acceleration. Changes in glacier flow therefore have a significant, if not dominant impact on ice sheet mass balance.


Increasing rates of ice mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets revealed by GRACE

I. Velicogna
Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California, USA

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

We use monthly measurements of time-variable gravity from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite gravity mission to determine the ice mass-loss for the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets during the period between April 2002 and February 2009. We find that during this time period the mass loss of the ice sheets is not a constant, but accelerating with time, i.e., that the GRACE observations are better represented by a quadratic trend than by a linear one, implying that the ice sheets contribution to sea level becomes larger with time. In Greenland, the mass loss increased from 137 Gt/yr in 2002–2003 to 286 Gt/yr in 2007–2009, i.e., an acceleration of −30 ± 11 Gt/yr2 in 2002–2009. In Antarctica the mass loss increased from 104 Gt/yr in 2002–2006 to 246 Gt/yr in 2006–2009, i.e., an acceleration of −26 ± 14 Gt/yr2 in 2002–2009. The observed acceleration in ice sheet mass loss helps reconcile GRACE ice mass estimates obtained for different time periods.

Received 28 July 2009; accepted 3 September 2009; published 13 October 2009.


[edit on 18-10-2009 by melatonin]


reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 05:13 PM by TheRedneck
The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

reply to post by majestictwo

Some glaciers are melting, while others are growing. I can't tell you the net result is more or less ice; I simply don't know.

Your question of where the water goes is fair enough, and I don't think it is too far off the original topic to be discussed here. The real concern over the ocean levels rising because of too much water is a bit of an obfuscation of the issue. There is the same amount of water on the planet today as there was a thousand years ago. Water is extremely stable under terrestrial conditions. It can be polluted, even broken down into oxygen and hydrogen, but once the hydrogen is burned in air or once the pollutants are removed, it is still water.

The real question is how much of our water will settle into the reservoirs we call oceans. Arctic ice will contribute no significant amount either way since it is technically already there. The only reason ice floats is that it has a density less than water and therefore displaces more volume. Antarctic ice, on the other hand, would have some net effect since it is land-based, as would glaciers but to a lesser extent due to their size. A warmer atmosphere would also increase the amount of water vapor in the air, leading to some decrease in sea levels. Higher temps and higher CO2 levels (along with higher water vapor levels) would also increase flora growth rates, meaning that more water would be locked up in cellular structures of those plants.

Now, as to what the net effect of all these variables (and many others I have not mentioned) would be, I don't think anyone really knows. Personally, I would be much more apt to listen to the cries of doom and gloom if the criers simply took all the variables into consideration; they don't, apparently preferring to ignore them. The predictions are based on simplistic calculations under ideal conditions where there are no other variables in the system.

Should Arctic ice melt, it is really not a big deal. Should glaciers melt, it would create a change, but IMO a very small one. the oceans are a bit on the HUGE side.

Antarctica is not melting, except around the edges. that much is natural and normal.

Masqua has started a thread on a documentary I think should prove interesting: Documentary - Not Evil Just Wrong. It premiers tonight at 8:00PM Eastern (about 2 hours from now) and I for one am definitely interested to see if it contains facts or fallacies. I already know what An Inconvenient Truth contained.

TheRedneck
P.S.: hello, Mel. You seem to be in a terrible mood today. Hope you feel better soon.

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.



reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 05:44 PM by TheRedneck
The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

reply to post by vermonster

I think we are in a warming cycle, characterized by cooling temperatures.

That means if the temperatures go up again we'll then be in a cooling cycle.

TheRedneck

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.



reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 08:49 PM by TheRedneck
The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

reply to post by elfie

The report says a computer model was used to simulate the effect of a 27.2-inch rise in sea levels triggered by global climate change. It says that kind of a rise was at the upper end of forecasts by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a conference of scientists from around the world.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com...

There has been no rising levels yet; this is only speculation based on a computer model.

There is little awareness, however, that the rapidly rising relative sea level within the bay is also having dramatic and wide-ranging effects. Islands once populated in colonial time and during the past century have disappeared due to submergence and related shore erosion.
Source: pubs.usgs.gov...

No rising sea levels here; instead we have submerging islands and shore erosion. The sea rise is relative, meaning only with respect to the shoreline and not necessarily with respect to any previous sea level.

I will just touch briefly on what scientists believe will be the effects on the Chesapeake Bay unless action is taken to dramatically reduce emissions and sequester additional carbon. I know that my colleagues on this panel from the scientific community will fill in the details.
Source: epw.senate.gov... (page 4).

All speculation based on future projections. No mention of rising ocean levels to date.

Predictions of Relative Sea-Level Change and Shoreline Erosion over the 21st Century on Tangier Island, Virginia
Source: www.bioone.org...

Didn't have to go past the title. Your own description nailed this one: a prediction, not an occurrence.

Maybe I am wrong, but I took endisnighe's post to be asking for actual sea level changes. Remember that any rise in sea level would affect the entire globe, not just one area. raising sea level in one isolated area would be akin to piling up a pile of water on one side of a pool; it doesn't work that way.

There has been no sea level rise to date, despite predictions.

TheRedneck

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.




reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 08:59 PM by TheRedneck
The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

reply to post by rapunzel222
however even if our carbon emissions arent causing the warming, too much carbon in the atmosphere CAN in time lead to massive problems for us; and even to our extinction as a result of a chain reaction set in place when carbon in the atmosphere reaches a certain critical level.

That critical level is known, it is the lower threshold of human toxicity and is considered to be at 5000 ppmv (parts per million by volume). Present levels are around 387 ppmv.

We're not even close.

Bear in mind that, far from an actual pollutant, CO2 is a primary ingredient in photosynthesis. Plants use it similarly to how we breathe oxygen. Cut the CO2 levels down too far (I have heard the figure of 150 ppmv) and photosynthesis stops; plant life dies off and destroys the food chain.

We're a lot closer to that dangerous threshold than to the toxicity levels.

Increasing CO2 levels, along with high humidity and high temperature (within reason, no one is talking about steel furnaces here), causes plants to grow much more rapidly. Some greenhouses even add CO2 purposely to increase the speed of growth and the health of their plants. Incidentally, that accelerated plant growth is also very effective at removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

A little reading:
Carbon Dioxide
Photosynthesis

TheRedneck

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.



reply posted on 18-10-2009 @ 11:57 PM by dragonridr
reply to post by rapunzel222


If we are going to take are stewardship of the planet seriously we have to establish whats really polluting the planet. Its not CO2 its particulates thrown in the atmosphere from industrial plants and burning of fossil fuels.Scaring people with global warming does nothing.This global warming myth was created to make money nothing else.The sad part is people fell for it when in truth were between ice ages and were alot closer to the next one than we think.You better hope the earth gets warmer instead of colder warmer more food population increases colder mass extinctions.


reply posted on 19-10-2009 @ 06:13 AM by majestictwo
reply to post by dodadoom


See now you done it again dodadoom - I was right with you untill your last three lines


When it affects us personally then we may care.
We're just along for the ride anyway. Try to enjoy it.
We're not here for a long time, but for a good time!


And I'm not sure you mean it liturally - I hope you dont. There are others to follow you you know


reply posted on 19-10-2009 @ 08:58 AM by elfie
Originally posted by TheRedneck
reply to post by elfie


There is little awareness, however, that the rapidly rising relative sea level within the bay is also having dramatic and wide-ranging effects. Islands once populated in colonial time and during the past century have disappeared due to submergence and related shore erosion.
Source: pubs.usgs.gov...

No rising sea levels here; instead we have submerging islands and shore erosion. The sea rise is relative, meaning only with respect to the shoreline and not necessarily with respect to any previous sea level.


From the same link:

The Modern Setting
Continuous tide gauge records around the Chesapeake Bay show that the rate of sea-level rise during the 20th century has not been constant and that modern rates are more rapid than those determined by geologic studies conducted two decades ago. The current rate of sea-level rise at the mouth of the Chesapeake is about 4 millimeters per year (about 1.3 feet per century) and decreases northward. Tide gauges with longer periods of record, like that at Solomons Island, Md., midway along the length of the bay, record mean sea level since 1937 and illustrate a 3-millimeter-per-year rate of rise (about 1 foot per century) (fig. 6). Areas described as marsh in colonial times have given way to shallow creeks. Dead trees farther up tributary creeks characterize areas only recently submerged to become marsh. Tree stumps of former forests can be found beneath the sediments of tributary creeks. Sea-level rise continues....(graph snipped)

The Chesapeake Bay Today
Tide gauges for the Chesapeake Bay and the Mid-Atlantic coast show rates of sea-level rise twice that of the worldwide average. Scientists disagree on the cause of the recent increase in the rate of rise. Is the increase caused by land subsidence, or is it related to a changing climate and ocean volume? Anthropogenic (man-induced) causes are often sought to account for anomalies in the short historical records of environmental change. Sediment compaction resulting from extraction of ground water is another popular explanation used today to account for land subsidence. On a much broader scale, a zone of subsidence along the entire Mid-Atlantic coast has been attributed to crustal adjustment still taking place following the removal of vast thicknesses of glacier ice to the north thousands of years ago (isostatic adjustment).



I think you mean subsidence (sinking) of the islands and shore areas, because 'submerged' simply means covered by water which is an indication of rising water levels. Yes, the report is clear that there are differing opinions as to the mechanisms that can be attributed to the causes of the subsidence, but agree that it is a combination of subsidence along with rising water levels that are responsible for the submersion.



Predictions of Relative Sea-Level Change and Shoreline Erosion over the 21st Century on Tangier Island, Virginia
Source: www.bioone.org...

Didn't have to go past the title. Your own description nailed this one: a prediction, not an occurrence.

Maybe I am wrong, but I took endisnighe's post to be asking for actual sea level changes. Remember that any rise in sea level would affect the entire globe, not just one area. raising sea level in one isolated area would be akin to piling up a pile of water on one side of a pool; it doesn't work that way.

There has been no sea level rise to date, despite predictions.

TheRedneck


I don't think it's too far fetched to use an example of one relatively small area as a canary in a coal mine, so to speak. I will try to find some images of Tangier Island for a comparison. I visited it and Port Isobel some 11 years ago with my daughter's class on a field trip and the recent google maps images show erosion since the time that we were there.

edit for grammar & to add:

10-17-09 Sinking Maldives Warns of Global Warming Dangers
Country's Politicians Hold Meeting Under Water to Highlight Rising Sea Levels

abcnews.go.com...


[edit on 19-10-2009 by elfie]
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