Larson B Ice Shelf In Antarctica To Disintegrate Within 5 Years 293
BarbaraHudson writes: A new study (abstract) from NASA scientists predicts an Antarctic ice shelf half the size of Rhode Island will disintegrate around 2020. The shelf has existed for roughly 10,000 years. "Ice shelves are the gatekeepers for glaciers flowing from Antarctica toward the ocean. Without them, glacial ice enters the ocean faster and accelerates the pace of global sea level rise." At its thickest point, the ice shelf remnant is a half kilometer tall, and spans approximately 1,600 square kilometers. "The glaciers' thicknesses and flow speeds changed only slightly in the first couple of years following the 2002 collapse, leading researchers to assume they remained stable. The new study revealed, however, that Leppard and Flask glaciers have thinned by 65-72 feet (20-22 meters) and accelerated considerably in the intervening years. The fastest-moving part of Flask Glacier had accelerated 36 percent by 2012 to a flow speed of 2,300 feet (700 meters) a year."
Good, now we can drill for oil in the Antarctic (Score:2)
Are you reading this Shell, Exxon and Chevron?
Good thing climate change isn't real! (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee, it's a good thing Anthropogenic Global Warming is just a Big Leftist Conspiracy, or imagine how bad things would be!
How much evidence is required before denialist clowns will be convinced that Global Warming is a thing, and it is almost certainly Our Fault? It's kind of amusing that the same people that will shovel 100's of $B and sacrifice thousands of lives to counter theoretical threats posed by countries all over the world somehow require absolute irrefutable "I must personally get burnt before I'll ever admit fire exists" proof when it comes to climate change?
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How much evidence is required before denialist clowns will be convinced that Global Warming is a thing, and it is almost certainly Our Fault?
I am sorry but your assumption is invalid: that denialists are actually looking at the evidence. Denailists are watching the clowns on Fox News and listening to clowns on Talk Radio who tell them that the snow storm they just experienced is all the proof they need that Global Warming is a hoax. They consider Scientific American to be a liberal rag and scientists to be liberal elitists and therefore; to be ignored. No, I am not making that up. I was paraphrasing my Rush and Hannity listening neighbor.
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My understanding is that we are in an Interglacial Period and we would expect things to warm naturally. At the current rate of melt (159 GT/year) Antarctica will take around a quarter of a million years to melt down (given its ice mass of approx 26400000 GT). From the historical perspective this seems to be a particualrly SLOW rate of natural melting.
Over the past few millenia we've seen the Roman Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period, and Little Ice Age. We are now recovering from the Little Ice Age which
Re:Good thing climate change isn't real! (Score:5, Insightful)
that's an awful long post.
too bad its all bullshit.
such a waste of time and effort.
-no one is asking to give politicians "unlimited power to regulate every aspect of your life"
-lots of people, far smarter than you, have already investigated, tested, and evaluated all the various natural process candidates.
-no one is saying we need to get below 100ppm CO2
-you ask for scientific evidence, when there are already tens of thousands of scientific reports and papers and findings already published.
-actually all of the observations DO support the theory. in fact they are the basis of it.
-actually all of the satellite data DOES support it.
-funny you mention the "adjustments". all the adjustments made actually lower the amount of apparent warming. it's not adjusted to match the theory, its adjusted to account for changes in instruments over the years, or location, or other factors. yeah, that's right. without the adjustments, the apparent amount of warming would be 20% higher.. this may be a shock to you, but a thermometer int he sun will read a higher temperature than one in the shade just a few inches away. so that way all the data is on the same baseline.
-nope, the models havent failed.
seriously, just fuck off.
your tropes are so tired and out of date, its getting boring repeatedly rebutting them every day.
you are the equivalent of a drunk in a bar questioning Einstein. Or more accurately, several thousand Einsteins.
(and seriously, who modded that bullshit insightful?)
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you are the equivalent of a drunk in a bar questioning Einstein.
I think this is the single best quote I have ever heard regarding climate change "skeptics". Thanks for that.
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I'll see your http://www.tempdatareview.org/ [tempdatareview.org] link and raise you a http://www.davidicke.com/forum... [davidicke.com] link.
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Re:Good thing climate change isn't real! (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi, geologist here.
Your understanding is wrong. Or at least you misinterpret it.
We are indeed in an interglacial period, but were at the end of one before we fucked it all up. The warming period you expect happened 20-14 thousand years ago, and stabilized to what was the current climate between 10 and 6 thousand years ago. Indeed the stability of the climate over the last 10k years is widely credited with providing the right conditions for the development of agriculture and thus civilization. Those days are now done, what comes next is uncharted territory.
But the relevant laws of chemistry and physics are indisputable, known since Fourier's time in the early 1800s, and immune to PR and politics. The fine details of second order and tertiary feedback effects will only ever tweak the result, those won't and can't overcome the basic fundamental gross effect dictated by physics.
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I will bet you 500USD right now that on May 15, 2020, this ice shelf will still exist and will have shrunk by not more than 606 square miles. (50% of the area of Rhode Island)
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It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it! -Upton Sinclair
There's just too many people making money on fossil fuels.
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Gees, take it easy, you make it sound like they are denying man made climate change without reason or that they don't actually accept the reality of it. The main reason for global climate change denial, is so that existing corporations that generate profits with the polluting side affect of global man made climate change, can continue to generate profits doing so for as long as possible. The second reason and now becoming the major reason for the denial of man made global climate change is the offloading o
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I will believe man made global warming is a crisis when the powers that be start acting like it. A few examples:
- Secretary Clinton is *proud* of how many miles she traveled in an airplane to far off nations. She couldn't make a phone call?
- POTUS and family vacation in Hawaii at least once a year, a long way to go to play in the ocean.
- Congress would not approve nuclear powered ships due to costs, built oil fired ships instead. That's not how someone would act if they actually believed that global warm
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As a professional stats guy, let me just say that "correlation doesn't imply causation" is important to keep in mind for any scientist. However, it's also the laziest, most transparent tool used by idiots on the internet to discard any facts or information that they find inconvenient for their cause. Correlation doesn't NECESSARILY imply causation, but when you have strong reasons to expect a causal relationship based on first principles, and when correlations back that up, that is decent evidence that yo
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As a professional stats guy, let me just say that "correlation doesn't imply causation" is important to keep in mind for any scientist. However, it's also the laziest, most transparent tool used by idiots on the internet to discard any facts or information that they find inconvenient for their cause. Correlation doesn't NECESSARILY imply causation, but when you have strong reasons to expect a causal relationship based on first principles, and when correlations back that up, that is decent evidence that your hypothesis is correct. Correlations are what underpin about 99% of our scientific understanding of the world, and when you chuck them aside as evidence so glibly, you show only that you are biased and completely ignorant of the scientific process.
All fair points, I would say that is a reasonable reply.
My concern is that the "the world is ending" people are just as nuts as the "CO2 isn't a problem, drill baby drill" people...
It reminds me of talking to people about politics, "your guy" can do no wrong" and "their guy" is evil incarnate. People who say things like "Republicons" and "Dumbocrats" really add nothing useful to the conversation. So it is true with global warming/climate change. When it became about money and politices, a lot of truth we
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Truth, and reality, are often in the middle.
Not really. Most often one side or the other in an argument is actually correct. I'd say it's actually fairly unusual for both sides to be equally wrong.
Re:Good thing climate change isn't real! (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly it doesn't matter to me if this is being caused by use Humans or not. The real question is should we attempt to do something to slow down or stop the global warming? If the answer is yes, then we need to start working on that and a prime place to start is the factors that we can control, such as CO2 emissions. Playing the blame game at this point is a waste of time and effort.
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Honestly it doesn't matter to me if this is being caused by use Humans or not. The real question is should we attempt to do something to slow down or stop the global warming?
If it is caused by humans, it seems to me that we should do something about it.
If it isn't, I'd be really cautious before trying to engineer the planet.
It goes through cycles, it has many times. We might make the problem worse by trying to control something that we don't understand nearly as well as we might think we do.
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If it isn't, I'd be really cautious before trying to engineer the planet.
Depends on what that means. If it means reducing CO2 output to the same level it was a few decades ago, the risks are minimal.
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Depends on what that means. If it means reducing CO2 output to the same level it was a few decades ago, the risks are minimal.
That seams like a reasonable statement... I don't know if it is true or not, I don't know if the increase in CO2 is really our doing, or if there is another cause...
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But lets say for a second that it is our fault, that it would be best if we reduced CO2 to what it was a few decades ago.
What is the chance of that actually happening?
I've looked at the charts, the numbers, and the world. I would submit that the chance is approaching 0%. It just isn't going to happen.
This isn't an academic debate about wha
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That seams like a reasonable statement... I don't know if it is true or not, I don't know if the increase in CO2 is really our doing, or if there is another cause...
The total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere can be calculated, and we also have data on fossil fuels we're burning. If you do the math, it shows that the CO2 produced by fossil fuel burning is about twice the increase in the atmosphere. The other half is taken up by plants and the ocean. So, yes, it is our doing.
Also, if the cause were something like increased volcanic activity, you'd see sudden spikes in the graph at times of large eruptions, instead of a gradual increase (the yearly wave is due to seasonal
Re:Good thing climate change isn't real! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Oh i dont know....
Maybe because of the shelfs extreme long stability resulting from the relative climate stability of hte past tens of thousands of years, such stability in fact that if only natural processes were at work the planet would be slightly cooling at the moment? Just an educated guess.
Fuck off troll.
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so what do your models say?
how do you explain the sharply rising CO2 levels compared to the historical rate of increase?
the increasing temperatures?
oh thats right.
you cant.
cause you dont have anything but bullshit, since all the actual science is over here.
call it religion all you want, but until you get some science and basic facts on your side, there's only one of us subscribing to a religion based on faith instead of observational and testable facts. and it aint us.
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You're wasting your breath. To an AGWer, "historical" starts at about 1750. Nothing before that exists. No amount of pointing out that what we're seeing now is a repeat of innumerable previous changes will do anything, because they can't see back that far.
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No amount of pointing out that what we're seeing now is a repeat of innumerable previous changes
Please explain what is causing the changes we're seeing now. Magic ?
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What part of "The shelf has existed for roughly 10,000 years" is so difficult to understand?
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How about: "Yes, the earth is warming slightly. We're probably causing a little bit of it, but there have been continual climate fluctuations for millions of years, without any human cause, so it's entirely likely that this is at least somewhat natural, as well. As a natural process, it will reverse itself with time, just like it has every other time in the past."
Or maybe: "Yes, the earth has warmed marginally over the past 50 years. It seems to have paused at the moment, though, so maybe it's going to start cooling by itself within the next couple of decades, so maybe we're not causing it at all."
Or even: "Well, there is a bit of warming, but it's not anywhere near as quick as it was at the end of the ice age. We're probably causing most of it, but we're looking at a temperature that's still lower than it was 10,000 years ago, so we're certainly not at a point of no return yet, regardless of what the extremists are shouting."
All of those statements include verifiable facts, and when those facts are checked they do not support the opinions expressed. So none of them are tenable positions for rational people to hold.
Temperatures would be declining without human activity, so we are entirely responsible for the increases. The temperature 10,000 years ago was lower than today's temperatures. There's no no known mechanism for why temperatures would cool off. We know that we're adding a greenhouse gas to the atmosphere in massive
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because something made it melt when it otherwise would likely last another 10000 years.
that something is warmer temperatures.
5 years (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:5 years (Score:5, Informative)
File:Arctic-death-spiral.png [wikipedia.org]
Not hard to say at all, it's clear where that spiral is heading. Zero Ice at the north pole.
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he'll ignore your post because he's paid to not pay attention to factual statements.
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only on the topic of global warming is the stereotypically abysmal quality of science reporting of major media ignored and their statements treated like the absolute Gospel of what every scientist involved has ever believed, ever.
here's a clue: news reporters != scientists
so just cause they say it, doesnt mean the scientific community is saying it.
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Here's a clue: just because one scientific paper says something, doesn't mean the scientific community is saying it.
Half the size of Rhode Island? (Score:2)
Isn't there anywhere that's half the size of Rhode Island that this ice shelf could be compared to?
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It formed during the Holocene? (Score:3)
Please forgive me for hijacking this thread with a question related to the Larson B Ice Shelf rather than global warming, but I was hoping someone could shed some light on how this ice shelf formed during the current interglacial. I would've thought more or less all of the major ice shelves and glaciers around the world were relics of the Pleistocene, but it sounds like this formed during the hottest part of the Holocene (with the possible exception of today).
Re:It formed during the Holocene? (Score:4, Informative)
Saying that it formed during the current interglacial is misleading. This is an ice shelf, and ice shelves are the result of glaciers moving into the ocean and not breaking off. So it probably formed because the glaciers started moving a bit more rapidly, and it also probably had ice at the oceanwards side that broke off and melted, and which may well have been older.
FWIW, glaciers are always moving, but as the start to melt their motion speeds up. For a glacier to grow it needs to be accumulating new ice faster than it looses it through moving into an area where the ice is removed faster than its formed. This was said in a sort of general way, because some glaciers live high in the mountains, and when they descend they drop chunks of ice down hill. In the case of an ice shelf, the glaciers are pushing out onto the ocean and floating, so the weight of the terminus is suspended. This "ice shelf" creates back pressure that tends to hold the glacier in place, but the glacier is also pressing the ice shelf to move further out to sea, where it becomes unstable.
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That explanation makes sense, thank you. So was there probably a different kind of ice formation there during the Pleistocene, or did the lower sea levels mean that the parent glacier of this ice shelf either didn't reach the ocean or had a very different-looking ice shelf attached?
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Sorry, I can give general explanations about how ice shelves work, but I don't know the specifics of Larson B. But clearly different sea levels would mean that the ice shelves would form in different places. As to what name they would have ...
As an aside a lot of the argument among paleontologists, and others of the ilk, is about names rather than about facts. E.g. there often isn't enough solid information available to say whether two fossils are of different species...so people guess. Some people like
when it melts... (Score:2, Funny)
...maybe we'll see more of that petrified wood from Antarctica.
You know, from when it wasn't snow and ice? (Yet somehow the world didn't end?)
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...maybe we'll see more of that petrified wood from Antarctica.
You know, from when it wasn't snow and ice? (Yet somehow the world didn't end?)
The world doesn't need to end for it to be the end of the world. [joyreactor.com]
Science Deniers, cry out (Score:2)
la la la la I CAN'T HEAR YOU la la la la
bet (Score:2)
I'd be interested in a small wager on the outcome of this prediction. Without knowing much about it, I'll bet that it comes true in slightly more than five years, say seven years. Anyone want to bet a small sum that it doesn't come true? A small sum to me is, oh, between five and two hundred dollars.
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Quick, we need everyone to pile on for why this proves catastrophe is imminent and favored policy changes must be passed. Then the other half can pile in and explain why this means nothing and the next ice age is still coming...
Actually that's only two thirds of the choir, the remaining third are the right wing free market fundamentalists who think climate change is a hoax and even if it isn't it just represents a fresh influx of profitable business opportunities.
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and how many of those were caused by man?
Who gives a shit if the giant asteroid that caused an extinction event wasn't caused by man?
Preventing man from causing another extinction event is what we give a shit about.
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Quick, we need everyone to pile on for why this proves catastrophe is imminent and favored policy changes must be passed. Then the other half can pile in and explain why this means nothing and the next ice age is still coming...
Why can't we have a middle ground?
How about we set reasonable targets to improve our overall energy efficiency, without being so drastic that we hurt people in the process?
Of course, the whole world has to do it, just one nation won't be enough...
Re:Fight! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is really more a case of, "Do nothing because our profit margins are set for the current situation and we do not want to incur any additional costs by recognizing risks that upset our current plan".
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The well-known CAFE standards? Phased-in. Light-bulb ban? Not an immediate ban, but also phased in. CFC ban? Also phased in. HVAC standards? Phased-in. Vacuum cleaner standards? Phased in. Need I go on?
I don't have a problem with any of that... The issue is that the extremist AGW people want to triple all of it and do it tomorrow at any cost...
Or at least that is how it comes across sometimes...
I've read comments on Slashdot in the past from people saying that any car that doesn't get 50 MPG should be illegal, or that we should make trucks get the same MPG as light small cars (which simply isn't realistic).
HVAC is currently at 13 SEER and has been there for awhile. The price difference between 13 and 16
Re:Fight! (Score:4, Insightful)
While I'm sure there are nut cases who have no idea of the reality that things just can't change that fast without huge hardship, there is also the old negotiation tactics, ask for 50MPG for all cars and maybe get 30MPG, then ask for 60 and maybe get 35. This has been working, car mileage has improved quite a bit in recent years.
Unluckily due to the nature of CO2 and its emitters, we're not going to get much more then a slowdown in the release of CO2, we're just too dependent on fossil fuels so really we should be planning on changes, many of which won't be for the better, at least short term.
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I don't have a problem with any of that... The issue is that the extremist AGW people want to triple all of it and do it tomorrow at any cost...
Looking at the graph of the CO2, http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/c... [noaa.gov] I don't see any signs of slowing down thanks to the changes we've already implemented. Clearly, it's not enough.
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Looking at the graph of the CO2, http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/c [noaa.gov]... I don't see any signs of slowing down thanks to the changes we've already implemented. Clearly, it's not enough.
I actually agree with you, the changes won't really alter the outcome.
I've come to the conclusion that the increase is irreversible, at least within our lifetimes. All we can do is slow the increase and make long term plans for it.
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The changes required around the world to actually stop, then reverse, the increase, simply aren't going to happen. One could argue and debate all day long about if they "should" or not, but in reality, it simply isn't in the cards.
Americans can cut all we like, right now Amer
Only two choices? (Score:3)
I'm of the third position, that we could have fixed this 50 years ago. But now it's too late and we're all screwed. Time to stock up on supplied for the apocalypse and ride this thing out.
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When 300 million Americans head for the hills and you're living in the hills, how do you plan to deal with that?
When the oceans rise 6 inches, you won't have 300 million Americans headed for the hills. Even if you did, America is big and the open spaces are vast...
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And besides, in this state we almost have prenatal carry.
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You're arming fetuses? Or you're carrying around pregnant women?
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It will be Arizona's alternative to religious laws as a way of preventing abortions.
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Actually the article clearly explains what will happen. No piling on is necessary, unless you didn't bother to RTFA.
The CBC article does poorly actually, but if you meant the linked actual journal article then you are correct. In either case you missed my sarcasm, apparently with a good number of mods keeping you company.
The issue isn't worth fighting over (Score:4, Insightful)
One must note that the ice sheet has **ONLY** existed for 10,000 years.
It's very important to stress this point, as those who do not understand geologic time are at risk of thinking that 10,000 years is a long time.
It's a nanosecond on the geologic clock.
This is a very young icesheet. It's loss is noteworthy, but does not have significance when viewed on macro timeframes.
Re:The issue isn't worth fighting over (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that this isn't an issue on geologic scales isn't what's concerning people. We're worried about whether or not this is something that will be a problem for the current and foreseeable human generations.
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Exactly. Our civilization is also "a nanosecond on the geologic clock."
Re:The issue isn't worth fighting over (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but this is one of the most idiotic comments ever. Yes, this ice shelf has been stable/in equilibrium for 10,000 years, which admittedly, is drop in the bucket of our full Earth history. But those measly 10,000 years include the entire time period during which modern humans shed their hunter-gatherer past, developed farming and became more sedentary, organized higher-level civilizations and social constructs, etc. Yeah, the Holocene has been relatively stable climate-wise, and indeed, it's relatively stability has been indicated as one of the factors that permitted many of the technological and social innovations mentioned above. So now that the climate system is showing signs of instability, and going out of kilter, that doesn't worry you???
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On geologic timescales, we have not existed for very long so...
By that standard our civilization, much less our species, seems trifling
Thanks I can relax now
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It's a nanosecond on the geologic clock.
So is the existence of the human species. Some nanoseconds count.
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geological timescales when talking about the loss of an ice shelf and the reason for it is an irrelevant misdirection.
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Ten thousand years ago was at the end of the last ice age (whose interglacial may still be warming up). What was that ice sheet doing then?
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Being a glacier sitting on land rather then an ice sheet floating on water.
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There are no volcanoes under the Larsen B ice shelf.
I'll tell you what I don't do (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't decide that the science must be wrong.
Gravity's pull on objects is settled science. Things really do fall down when you let them go. I do not therefore go and think that there's no such thing as gravity.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Settled science.
CO2 increases are from humans. Settled science.
Most or more than all (it would normally be continuing the cooling trend if not for us) of the recent warming is settled science.
How much, precisely? Not settled.
None or less than none? Settled. Both are bollocks.
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On what precedent do you base that?
I recall NASA predicting complete loss of arctic sea ice by 2013, and the navy predicting the same in 2016.
The first didn't happen, not even close, and the second doesn't seem likely to happen.
It's like listening to the news about the doomsday clock; it just gets old after a while, and I don't give a damn what supposed bright minds are behind it.
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Are you trying to apply the scientific method to climate change predictions? Which oil company do you work for? Something something Fox News argle bargle!
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You forgot GMO, vaccines cause autism, and electromagnetic allergies.
Re:Fight! (Score:5, Informative)
You 'recall' a lot of bullshit. Unsourced bullshit.
But, BTW, the arctic sea ice is decreasing by about 12% per decade.
http://www.wunderground.com/cl... [wunderground.com]
Nothing to worry about, right? Not even close to worrying?
Re:Fight! (Score:5, Informative)
OP:
I recall NASA predicting complete loss of arctic sea ice by 2013, and the navy predicting the same in 2016.
You:
after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."
US Department of Energy-backed research project led by a US Navy scientist predicts that the Arctic could lose its summer sea ice cover as early as 2016 - 84 years ahead of conventional model projections.
Are you unable to see the difference?
One NASA climate scientist said "the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012", not "NASA predicted complete loss of arctic sea ice by 2013".
As it happened we hit the lowest sea ice extent since 1979 in September 2012.
A US Navy scientist predicted that "the Arctic could lose its summer sea ice cover as early as 2016", not "the Navy predicted complete loss of arctic sea ice by 2016".
As it happens we're currently only just inside 2 std deviations of the average, looking much like 2014 and 2013.
Anyway, to see what's happening go here http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/ [nsidc.org].
Re:Fight! (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you really criticizing that scientists failed to accurately predict the demise of a 10,000 year old structure to a better precision than ~10 years? You're really that cynical over a change of like 0.1%? If I predicted that apple stock would double in a 2 year span, and in fact it only went up 99.9%, would you really not listen to my next stock prediction?
The age of the structure is irrelevant to the precision of when it will disappear. If they say it will disappear in 5 years, but it really takes 15, it's not inaccurate by .1% because the structure is 10,000 years old. It's inaccurate by 300%, because their 5 year prediction took 15 years to come true. Considering how many of these "sky is falling" predictions have been made over the past few decades, virtually none of which are even close to accurate when the end date of the prediction comes along, I'd say being cynical is quite appropriate.
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I've got five dollars that says it won't.
Not because I have any particular expertise in ice or in Antarctica; my degree is in physics, not climatology - but because NONE of these quasi-apocalyptic predictions are true, or have ever come true. Not when predicted, and not after. We were supposed to have been swarmed by a billion starving climate refugees by now. It didn't happen. The Arctic Ocean was supposed to be ice free, and the snows of Kilimanjaro were supposed to all have melted by now. Didn't
Re:Half the size of Rhode Island? (Score:4, Funny)
Rhode Island is supposed to be an island. The rising sea levels are only helping it to achieve its natural state!
Re:Half the size of Rhode Island? (Score:5, Informative)
Rhode Island is supposed to be an island. The rising sea levels are only helping it to achieve its natural state!
Probably not enough rise to make that happen. [wikipedia.org]
Although it is believed that the melting of floating ice shelves will not raise sea levels, technically, there is a small effect because sea water is ~2.6% more dense than fresh water combined with the fact that ice shelves are overwhelmingly "fresh" (having virtually no salinity); this causes the volume of the sea water needed to displace a floating ice shelf to be slightly less than the volume of the fresh water contained in the floating ice. Therefore, when a mass of floating ice melts, sea levels will increase; however, this effect is small enough that if all extant sea ice and floating ice shelves were to melt, the corresponding sea level rise is estimated to be ~4 cm.
However, if and when these ice shelves melt sufficiently, they no longer impede glacier flow off the continent, so that glacier flow would accelerate. This new source of ice volume would flow down from above sea level, thus resulting in its total mass contributing to sea rise.
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That joke is so old it dates back to when Harry Shearer was the voice of Monty Burns.
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Interglacial temperatures don't follow a standard deviation normal curve type graph. They spike up very quickly after the ice age ends, drop back down, and generally fluctuate a significant amount without any human input at all. At the beginning of the current interglacial, the global temperature spiked up by at least 4 degrees in just a few hundred years. That's a massively faster increase than the current warming trend that everybody seems to be so worried about. It's also cooler now than it was durin
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And what about the acidification of the ocean, should we just continue releasing CO2 and kill all ocean life?
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Interglacial temperatures don't follow a standard deviation normal curve type graph.
Correct.
They spike up very quickly after the ice age ends, drop back down, and generally fluctuate a significant amount without any human input at all.
Not according to any the historical temperature graphs [wikipedia.org] that I've seen. The temperature rises rapidly at the end of the ice age and then levels off an eventually begins to fall again.
At the beginning of the current interglacial, the global temperature spiked up by at least 4 degrees in just a few hundred years.
Seems plausible. It's often noted that the difference between a mile of ice in Northern United states and today is about 4 degrees.
That's a massively faster increase than the current warming trend that everybody seems to be so worried about.
Only if by "massively faster" you actually mean "about the same". The worst case scenario is about 3.5 degrees by the year 2100. The expected rise is between 2 and 6 degrees by 2400. So
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They spike up very quickly after the ice age ends, drop back down, and generally fluctuate a significant amount without any human input at all.
Not according to any the historical temperature graphs [wikipedia.org] that I've seen. The temperature rises rapidly at the end of the ice age and then levels off an eventually begins to fall again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene#/media/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png [wikipedia.org]
The graph in the page you linked to shows temperature doing exactly what I claimed it does.
Re:Melting is normal (Score:4, Interesting)
"They spike up very quickly after the ice age ends, drop back down, and generally fluctuate a significant amount without any human input at all.
Not according to any the historical temperature graphs [wikipedia.org] that I've seen. The temperature rises rapidly at the end of the ice age and then levels off an eventually begins to fall again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org]
The graph in the page you linked to shows temperature doing exactly what I claimed it does."
Acually it does not. The spikes you talk about are changes of about 0.3 degrees Celsius during hundred of years. Check the diagram more closely and you will also see that. The last "downspike" is what's called the little ice age and is still just about a dip which is about half a degree during a couple of hundred of years.
Never before in history has the temperature changed with more then 1 degree over 100 years. Even the during the sharp raise in the beginning in the diagram was that the case.
Natural variation in temperature are very slow and does not change as fast as today. The variations in temperature we see today are unprecedented for the last 10 000 years. Thats why scientist are saying its AGW. We, humankind has caused it.
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I would classify avoiding having glacial ice sheets covering large tracts of the northern hemisphere as a good thing, yes. As in almost everything, moderation is best.
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Where does it mention the Larson B ice shelf in either of those? You do realize that it does not make up the entirety of the antarctic right?
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mod parent up, the alarmists are winning
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Fun fact: Alarm is a completely rational response to alarming events, regardless of frequency.
Except that in this case the "Alarm" being raised is due to the output of some computer simulations that are trying to predict the future.... Simulations I might add which have been wildly wrong in the past, but they claim to have fixed now. Of course none of this "alarm" has anything to do with political and financial power either....
Riiight...
So in this case, the RATIONAL thing to do is to be a bit skeptical of all the alarmist rhetoric about things where there obviously is a potential for political and
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that in this case the "Alarm" being raised is due to the output of some computer simulations that are trying to predict the future....
No, the alarm is triggered by events on the ground. The models are just responding to those.
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Really? What's different about this change? The fact that we're using direct temperature measurements for the last 145 years, rather than less accurate lower resolution proxies like ice cores, so we can more clearly see year to year changes in the time since 1870? Is that the difference you mean?
Welcome to civilization (Score:2, Insightful)
Except you're wrong: On the timescales of human civilization, climate is virtually static. Civilization is pretty solidly predicated on world temperature and climatic patterns being what they are, and the oceans being the height they are (ports and coastal cities having been a Thing since the beginning of civilization). The collapse of more than one civilization can be attributed to shifts in climatic patterns over centuries, and we are now driving measurable, substantial changes on scales not comparable to
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Except you're wrong: On the timescales of human civilization, climate is virtually static
Quite wrong. Gradual climate change has been extinguishing civilizations since the Dilmun were driven out of Bahrain. That's the point.
As long we're taking the long term perspective, sure climate change happens all the time. So population displacements, economic crises, civilization collapses -- we should all regard them as a natural feature of human society. That doesn't mean you want to be around when that happens.
Forest fires are natural. That doesn't mean you should play with matches when you're cam
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Except you're wrong: On the timescales of human civilization, climate is virtually static.
Bullshit. Human civilization has been through significant temperature changes with the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, and the Little Ice Age. Both these Warm Periods were at least as warm as we are now, and a lot of analyses show them to be even warmer. Even the pro-AGW Wikipedia articles on these two periods claim an ocean surface temperature as much as a degree warmer than today. The Little Ice Age is part of a pattern of 1-2 degree cooler periods that happen every 1500 years. Of course, warming fr
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That's because your math sucks.
2300 feet/year / 365.25 days/year
= just less than 6.3 feet/day
Divide by 24 hours/day = just over 3 inches/hour.
Divide that by 60 minutes/hour, and you get about 0.05 inches/minute.
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What's your point? Considering all of my calculations were approximate, some rounded high and some low, they'll balance out reasonably well.
Regardless, GGP calculated an amount of travel per hour, and tried to pass it off as a per minute travel, making it seem much worse than it is. Whether it was an accident, or a "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIIIIIEEE!!!1111" alarmist statement, I have no idea, but it was flat out wrong. My calculations are much more accurate, regardless of my approximations.