Hellfire for all eternity

[Hamish]

daoding said:

But the records are only very very recent, so even this is not an indication.

Memory sucks

We have records of people saying it has been "hotter colder, wetter, dryer etc since I was a lad" since people could write. (also the youth of today are more ......and women are more...... etc) And next year, when it is the other way, eg, dryer instead of wetter, they will claim the droughts are worse these days.

Not exactly imagination. Older bodies deal with it less capably, plus memory fades over time, especially of difficulties and hardship and suffering. Otherwise we would never get anything done.

Nope.

There is ample glaciological data from many sources to expand our concerns eons beyond personal memories.

However, I have personal knowledge that the glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere are in dramatic retreat and that the area inside the Arctic Circle is warming at alarming rates. I have flown the North American arctic for 20 years, watched the glaciers retreat up their ancient valleys to stages they have not occupied for thousands of years. I have discussed the situation with world-renowned scientists who were studying them (I flew them in and out of their camps near coastal glaciers and the Harding Ice Field. Jesus, some of those guys can drink and party!). IMHO, your "skepticism" has led you into intellectual lethargy about a set of data that is demonstrably cataclysmic.

The professional climatologists I flew in and out were from the leading Universities of the world. Harvard, Cambridge, Berkeley, and MIT, among others, and these men and women were almost frantic as they talked about how hard it is to get people, in particular governments and politicians, to listen and understand how close to a tragedy affecting many hundreds of millions of the world’s river bottom, island, and coastline inhabitants we now are. The problem is not limited to those people either. When the river valleys are flooded with seawater, where do we grow food? And, when the river valleys are flooded, where most people are concentrated, where do they live? As they move away from the flooding, what social disruptions result from their encounter with the folks living on higher ground?

More locally, the mountain ice caps of the Chinese ranges and the Himalayas are melting at profoundly accelerated rates. There is considerable concern that the plateaus and the agricultural heartland of China will soon, and I do mean soon, become deserts due to the immanent complete failure of year round water sources. The water table here in the Baoding area has fallen over 60 feet since the end of WWII.

It also bothers me that you characterize the current epoch as an “ice age.” I can find no source to substantiate your suggestion.

[Hamish]

I showed you a chart that plots the addition of human induced carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the last century.

Of course there are natural contributors. The ecology developed to deal with natural contributors for heavens sake! We are concerned here about the ADDITION of carbon dioxide to the natural contributions of volcanoes and other sources by the activities, rapidly accelerating by the way, of human beings.

It is a simple point, and very important. Volcanoes have just exactly nothing to do with what we are discussing. They are NATURAL.

[George61]

PS I am a card carrying member of the Australian Skeptics.

I don't believe that!!
Don't get your knickers in a knot over it. Global Warming is not real, until Government says it is.....and they will only say that when it suits them to say it.
Meanwhile, invest in Water De-Salination Plants.

[Mr Nobody]

Definition of ice age = ice on both poles, covering more than a certain amount of area. I forget how much, but we are about on that limit.

Information of weather effects so far back only shows certain aspects, such as extremes. The error is great and can't tell anything except in general terms.

Sorry Hamish, you are barking up the wrong tree. I am not denying that global warming is occuring, evidence strongly suggests it is. I am saying you cannot feel it. The first effects are as I have stated. Weather patterns, followed by climate shifts etc. I know the glaciers are melting. I am saying that you can't feel the temperature difference.

Water table falling is probably due to human use.

The rise in sea levels will take a very very long time. It is due to teh expansion of the oceans not melting of ice caps. That is one huge heat sink. Melting ice caps would raise sea level by only a few metres. The climate shifts will be sooner, and more dangerous. But they won't happen for quite some time.

And if you read the article it gave four equally valid scenarios. And humans, no matter what you think, are part of nature. Not separate. This kind of thing only goes to show that we are.

I believe in UFO's - I can't tell a cessna from a lear jet from a weather balloon. But I do know that aliens ain't giving anal probes to hillbillies and psych patients.

[Hamish]

For everybody's sake, read this.

science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/05mar_arctic.htm

[Mr Nobody]

I think that shows adequately what I was talking about. Global warming doesn't necessarily mean getting hotter. Climate shifts

And if anyone thinks a few quadrillion (or whatever huge number it is) tons of water is going to just stop on a dime, forget it. Inertia alone will keep it going for a generation if it stopped at this moment.

the 20 year estimate by 'some scientists' would be the more excitable fringe. Most would be much more conservative. I bet the majority reckon it to be 200 years at the very least, and only if it happens at all.

And "sudden" in geological terms could be 1000 years.

[Nate M]

daoding said:

Melting ice caps would raise sea level by only a few metres.

Where do you get that. I had heard that melting the West Antarctic Ice Cap alone would raise the world's sea levels by an average of about 15 feet or so, and that's by far the smaller of the two. Even a mere 15 feet is probably enough to make a good chunk of Florida pretty wet.

[Mr Nobody]

Can't recall, but the greater measures are mostly crap. I think we are talkiing like two or three metres max, more likely one or two. The area it must cover is enormous.

Most of the sea level rise in warmer periods is due to the slow warming of the deeper layers of the sea, due to expansion. It take a long time, centuries.

Most calculations are of the order of, when the ice cap was that size, what was the sea level at that time sort of thing.

Look at it yourself. The size of the ice cap, the height above sea level and how much is actually water, change volume by the expansion coefficient of ice, etc (not too significant under the circumstances only a few percent) then average it over the area of teh sea, remembering that it will need a lot more if it floods inland at all. I can't find the info here, i have it back in Oz. I am going on my (occassionally shaky) memory.

Plus, it is unlikely that the whole cap will melt in anything except geological time.

15 m will flood Oz and make it into a series of islands, if memory serves, and holland and bangladesh will be no more.

[Mr Nobody]

Sorry, read it as 15 m. my bad. ANd that is 5m lotus. Metric when I talk science, imperial for nearly everything else. Product of my age.

Lotus? your post went west.

[Nate M]

Actually about 4.5.

[Mr Nobody]

Yeah, but just checked, sea rise is expected to be 50cm by 2100.

And if all the ice melted, it looks to me like it would be 10m total. Not having a calculator here.

Besides, there is no way they will totally melt for geological ages. And as that happens, then the air holds more as well, a significant amount.

[Lotus Eater]

It went west 'cos I opened up the odd brain cell and redid the calculation!

[Nate M]

Ok, total volume of ice in Antarctica: 30 million cubic kilometers
www.fossweb.com/popecoweb/ecoregion/pdfs/Ecoregion_PolarIcecap.pdf
Ice density vs Water density: Approximately 92%
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice
Total Area of the earth's oceans: 361 million kilometers
www.meer.org/M3.htm

So, looking at that, dividing the volume of the Antarctic ice caps by the total surface area of the earth's oceans, we get:

30,000,000/361,000,000= approximately .083km depth in ice
83 meters of ice * 0.92= 76 meters potential rise. That's a hell of a lot more than "a few meters" in my book.

[Nate M]

I should add that if Greenland's icecap melted that would throw another 6.5 meters or so into the equation.

[Mr Nobody]

Ok, the figures I used included greenland, but I used a cone shape for the ocean not a linear one like a fishtank.

I made some assumptions about the shape of the cone, though. I would think that the sides would have a very sharp incline.

And don't forget the previous pointers, like, how slow it will melt, how much into the atmosphere, how much will remain etc.

I didn't include those, I have no figures for them.

Also total water volume of all ice packs was only 36 million cubic km.

[Nate M]

daoding said:

Yeah, but just checked, sea rise is expected to be 50cm by 2100.

Where did you check? Even if that is the case, there's a lot more to worry about than simply the level of the ocean rising. It's not simply the level of the ocean's rising that's got people concerned. A melting of the icecaps could effect the salinity of the water, and could also be accompanied by a change in water temperature that could effect those algae that produce most of our oxygen.

[Mr Nobody]

hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/HannaBerenblit.shtml

I am aware of those pointers. I also am aware how often it has already happened and what happened at those times. Not a whole lot.

We might become extinct, though, if we cant deal with change. That is always a possibility.

But we are talking geological time, you see. Not next week.

[Nate M]

daoding said:

Ok, the figures I used included greenland, but I used a cone shape for the ocean not a linear one like a fishtank.

I made some assumptions about the shape of the cone, though. I would think that the sides would have a very sharp incline.

What are you referring to, exactly? Even if the entire earth's surface were water, melting the polar icecaps would raise the levels by about 54 meters. I don't understand where you're getting 10 meters out of this.

[Nate M]

Then I don't understand how you could be getting 10 meters out of this for total rise potential. It says right in your source:

"Geographic region: Greenland
Percent: 10.82
Volume: 2,600,000 km3
Percent: 7.9
Maximum sea level rise potential: 6.5 m
Area: 1,736,095 km2"

"Geographic region: Antarctica
Percent: 84.64
Volume: 30,109,800 km3
Percent: 91.49
Maximum sea level rise potential: 73.44 m
Area: 13,586,400 km2"

[Mr Nobody]

well, if that is the case, I stuffed up my calculations. I don't have a calculator here, did it in my head. Maybe my cone was so sharply inclined that it had a greater surface area than the world. Heh.

Ok, I only looked at the total. So that is fine. YOu win that bit. I was wrong there.

But refer to previous discussion. There are other factors at work. It isn't like a fishtank.

At no time in the history of the planet has the whole world been under water. Well, maybe it was in the PreCambrian, can't recall, before continent building occurred. But not since.

And it aint all gunna melt anyway.
Read this maybe.

www.answers.com/topic/paleoclimatology

Current ave temp 12 degrees. Has been averaging 10c warmer without the disasters predicted. Even worse case scenarios only predict a 4c change max.

[Nate M]

daoding said:

I am aware of those pointers. I also am aware how often it has already happened and what happened at those times. Not a whole lot.

Ummm, I would say that the Ice ages were pretty significant. It wasn't quite, "the earth being blown up by the death star" significant, but frankly I don't think it should have to be for us to decide we should try and do something about it.

But we are talking geological time, you see. Not next week.

You don't really know what kind of time we're talking about. For starters, we don't even know how long some of these changes in the past took place. There's still a heck of a lot of debate on the subject. Secondly, none of those previous changes were accompanied/augmented/or caused by the actions of humans. It's a new chapter and you can't necessarily apply the same standards.

[Nate M]

At no time in the history of the planet has the whole world been under water. Well, maybe it was in the PreCambrian, can't recall, before continent building occurred. But not since.

And the fact that around 30 percent of the world's surface area is covered means that the effect of melting glaciers is going to be more significant in terms of how much the ocean levels rise.

And it aint all gunna melt anyway.

It doesn't have to. Even if only, say 20 percent melts, (which is a very realistic figure given the rate at which temperatures are rising), that would raise the world's oceans approximately 45 feet. That is significant.

[Mr Nobody]

OK. Have it your way.

Let us wait and see. If in 20 years we aren't under water, I win, OK?

1c in 150 years doesn't sound immediatley threatening to me.

Geological time.

[Nate M]

I never said it was going to happen in one year. However, we're setting in motion a chain of events that might surpass our ability to bring it under control, and that might happen in 20 years. Like you said before, there's a lot of intertia in nature. It takes a long time for results to show, but then it can also mean once it really gets going it's hard to stop.

I can, however, pretty much guarantee that it'll raise a heck of a lot more than 1 c in 150 years. Heck rising sea levels are already starting to mess people up.

news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050615/sc_afp/bangladeshclimate_050615171653

[Mr Nobody]

No, sorry, I said it HAS risen 1c in 150 years, i wasn't guessing. Note previous comment re bangladesh.

And that study has misled you a little. Global warming has changed currents which are causing erosion. It isn't sea levels rising, I betcha.

And as regards the future, you can't guarantee anything. I guarantee that it didn't happen before, so it won't happen again. That is a prediction based on experience.

Species evolve fast enough to adjust I bet also that we are capable of doing it faster than teh changes.

Also when calculations do not match reality, there is somethign wrong with the calculations. Since we didn't have complete flooding during the warm periods, then why would we from a temperature rise that is only a small fraction of that?

Right now, it is a cold period, and we have icecaps on both poles. 10 degrees to go for a warm period.

And not only inertia, but controlling feedback as well.

This is getting remarkably silly.