WatchYou're going to be seeing headlines on this in about two weeks. That's when I'm guessing the arctic ice melt will reach an all time record and most of the arctic ocean will be free of ice and navigable.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
The blue starts in 1979. The more red the line, the more recent the year. (dark red is 2011) Each horizontal line is 1 million sq. kilometers. When the graph reaches the bottom, the north pole is completely melted. x-axis is day of the year.
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thomaswong.1986 says
1. One cannot make peace with a fictitious entity.
2. If there were a god and it wanted us to believe in its existence, it would make its existence unambiguously clear.
3. Any entity that demands worship is too petty to be worthy of the title god.
4. No just god would condemn a person for not believing in it especially when that god did little or nothing to clarify its existence and morality. Any god that relies on profits, priests, and holy books full of contradictions is a retarded god.
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CaptainShuddup says
Ergo, you don't believe that Al Gore was wrong in his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. For if you truly believed that there was no reasonable chance that Florida will be underwater as a result of rising sea levels, then you would not put any conditions, particularly a grossly expensive and burdensome one, on the insurance policy I proposed.
Again, it all comes down to talk is cheap and putting your money where your mouth is. I don't know whether or not Florida will be underwater in 80 years. And that's the problem. It damn well could be.
That risk has an enormous impact on anyone living in Florida or buying real estate there. Even the most expensive land is nearly worthless if you can't leave it to your heirs. And when people buy land and build houses or buy existing houses, they are doing so on the belief that the house will continue to exist for decades and the land for centuries.
If you republicans honestly believed that the idea of Florida being underwater is ridiculous, a zero-risk essentially, then you would have no problem providing the insurance I suggested. After all, it would cost you nothing if you are right. And doing so would quite your political opposition and encourage all that private spending you want.
The thing is, republicans do believe in Climate Change and the disastrous effects of it. They just believe they'll be in a position to cheat the system before they get caught holding the bag. Republicans want to reap the short-term benefits of wrecking the planet and at the last minute dump the costs, which far out-weigh the benefits in terms of money alone, onto someone else. There's a word for that: pillaging.
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michaelsch says
Not even close and easily dis-proven. In fact atmospheric CO2 concentrations are showing very early signs of turning parabolic.
The NOAA chart is correct however you read it wrong. The amount of CO2 removed from the atmosphere is roughly equal to HALF the amount added to the atmosphere. Furthermore CO2 sinks are not infinite and do saturate at some point.
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The ice cores tell some interesting tales, like a time machine, they tell us that climate change is quicker than we think, often happening in a matter of decades. They can find Hiroshima in the cores, supernova's, super volcanoes, all kinds of interesting goodies. They now know that a rise in gases conspires with a rise in temperatures NO MATTER WHAT, but is it rising temperatures that make for the rise in gases, or vice versa. Michael admitted this was true in discussing permafrost. It's easy enough to see the domino effect in all of this if you try.
Since humanity is collectively stupid, we pollute all over the world, some countries worse than others in their own way. I think if we get a few hotter years in a row with resulting agriculture disasters, people may start coming around.
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everything says
Yep. It's sort of like how we don't fix dangerous intersections until a certain number of people are killed.
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I fear the knee-jerk actions to news like this. It is one thing about showing temperature trend. It is another to link extreme climate events to global warming. We just do not have enough data.
Whenever you have scared people, you bet they will be manipulated by special interest groups.
We should have an energy policy to move towards nuclear power. However, we must not have a climate policy to dictate economic behavior.
In the end, the climate problem will fix itself regardless. Choose certain paths for the future may or may not make it easier for our next generations. Let them face the problem and they will live around it. Or perhaps they have have a better understanding of nonlinear systems? I seriously doubt that.
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Peter and I both have some first hand experience with the business & economics of all this, by the way.
Among other factors which drove me away from the "industry" entirely, one of the larger was the utter unwillingness of those on the side of intervention to reduce/control/reverse global warning to talk about large scale nuclear power.
Nuclear energy is the ONLY current technology which is economically viable and capable of producing the necessary amounts of energy required to maintain a productive economy. With nuclear energy we could get serious about various forms of electrical transportation and conveyance. But the greens are unwilling to even entertain the discussion, generally for the usual set of reasons to do with waste, security or regulatory-induced economics. Since all of those are solvable problems, more easily solvable than scale solar, wind or fanciful "return to mother earth" hairshirt crap, I conclude that pretty much none of the stop global warming crowd are intellectually honest.
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Randy is right.
All industrial nations just want to look good in front of poor countries. So they always agree to agree later. How lame!
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Peter P says
If nuclear energy is the special interest that wins out due to global warming fears, are you then basically okay with the whole public knowledge leads to fear and manipulation ?
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Randy H says
I think that even "the greens" are very aware that more nuclear energy is inevitable, but I like the fight, which will lead to doing it safely, possibly give time for thorium to prove itself (if many of the theorists are right), and give time to scale up all the renewable forms of energy as much as possible.
Germany is up to 25% !!
http://grist.org/news/medal-less-germany-generates-25-percent-of-electricity-from-renewables/
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Randy H says
Absolutely. That's why I think the whole Green movement is bankrupt. Wishing and hoping for a magical energy source with *no* environmental impact won't make it happen.
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marcus says
Yeah...in the summer.
Good luck with that in the winter that far north.
Why aren't you folks in sunny CA using more solar power? I'd love to use it but we only have sunshine for 6 months of the year where I live.
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freak80 says
I've got 7.5 kilowatts of solar panels on my roof in Lafayette.
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iwog says
Sweet.
How common is that though? Aren't solar panels still pretty expensive?
Will you be extending that to your rentals? Maybe you could charge more for tenants to live in "green buildings."
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iwog says
Iwog, your reply is not related to my statement. Let me make it clearer:
1. The amount of CO2 removed from the athmosphere is proportional to its concentration in the athmosphere (both may be growing parabolically.
That's because photosyntesis is limited by three factors: amount of available sunlight, amount of water, and amount of available CO2. In 90% of Earth forests areas there is more than enough sunlight, in about 50% there is more than enough water, so the limitation is mainly the CO2 concentration. Possible climat changes may change these figures, but not too much. Some tropical areas may become even drier than today, but overall amount of water in the athmospher will sharply increase, so in avarage plants will have more water than they get today.
2. Getting more carbon to burn will be harder and harder. Eventually the amount of carbon we burn will go down. The amount of absorbed carbon will still go up at the same time. So inevitably we'll hit a ballance when the emission will equal the absorbtion.
3. Now, please hear my main point: In case we slow down the emission process the absorbtion increase will be still parabolic. The point of ballance in this case will come when the total CO2 concentration is lower. That's why it does matter burning "all" carbon in 100 years or in 200 years.
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michaelsch says
1. I don't agree with your first conclusion at all. The limiting factor for plant growth is phosphorous and to a lesser extent free nitrogen. CO2 is never a limiting factor for the simple reason that all plants currently living have systems in place to metabolize CO2 at current concentrations. Crops fail due to lack of phosphorous and nitrogen, which is why they are used in fertilizer. Never CO2.
2. I don't agree with your second conclusion at all. Getting more CLEAN carbon to burn will be harder and harder. Getting more dirty coal, especially in the United States which is the world's coal superpower, is as easy as digging it up and burning it. As we use up our clean natural gas and less clean crude oil, we will be utilizing greater and greater amounts of coal. Coal puts an order of magnitude more carbon into the atmosphere than any other fuel source. Things are going to get much MUCH worse, not better.
3. This isn't true for both the premise and the conclusion. Nearly all absorption of CO2, in the oceans for example, depend on only two things: Temperature and atmospheric concentrations. CO2 removal is growing for the simple reason that CO2 concentrations and temperature are growing.
There's no reason for CO2 removal to be parabolic, in fact there's a tipping point where temperatures get so high that plant life is stunted. There's an equilibrium point where oceans get saturated. Marine life can fix CO2 in calcium carbonate, especially coral, but not in a few hundred years.
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Climate myths: Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11655-climate-myths-higher-co2-levels-will-boost-plant-growth-and-food-production.html
"Studies of past climate changes suggest the land and oceans start releasing more CO2 than they absorb as the planet warms. The latest IPCC report concludes that the terrestrial biosphere will become a source rather than a sink of carbon before the end of the century."
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Solar is great and will only get better. But it will never be more than a way to "top off" nuclear in the current energy era. I'm all with marcus about using the current economic pressure to advance nuclear technologies. We can certainly do way better than our current designs.
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Looky here you two....stop acting like you have shit for brains.
Water molecules in the frozen state are closer together, and take up less volume, than water in the liquid state.
So those melting icebergs WILL raise the ocean level.
And if you have a glass of ice with water, filled to the top. Let it melt and it will overflow, as long as the room temperature is not high enough to cause some of the water to vaporize..
Goddamn stoners....
Dan8267 says
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For Iwog: Example #3 of "facts bouncing off peoples brains...or whatever the hell it was..."
xrpb11a says
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xrpb11a says
xrp just gave a wonderful explanation of why ice doesn't float and sinks to the bottom.
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xrpb11a says
To bad it was a complete fail.
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It was a test.
You luckily passed....not sure about Dan..
iwog says
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Randy H says
But I was playing SimCity 2000 once and my nuclear plant had a meltdown! ;-)
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For Iwog: example #3
xrpb11a says: "I have never ceased to be amazed at how facts manage to bounce off people’s consciousness like pebbles off armor plate."
iwog says: Name a single FACT that you think people on the left refuse to accept.
"
Well, you obviously cannot accept that melting icebergs will cause the sea level to rise...
Case Closed.
Fresh water, of which icebergs are made, is less dense than salty sea water. So while the amount of sea water displaced by the iceberg is equal to its weight, the melted fresh water will take up a slightly larger volume than the displaced salt water. This results in a small increase in the water level.
iwog says
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xrpb11a says
Fail. The north polar cap is not made up of icebergs. It is made of seawater that freezes over every year.
Nice try however. Don't give up.
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iwog says
True. There is some freshwater ice on the top from snow though, right? Is enough of the sea ice "permanent" (i.e. lasting all year) to allow for freshwater ice to accumulate on top to be "significant"? I really don't know, that's why I ask.
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freak80 says
There is so little snow on the north and south poles that they are considered deserts.
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freak80 says
I always turn off the disaster feature. I only want a perfect world. ;-)
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Pass.
the polar ice caps are made up of fresh water.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/29/science/q-a-salt-water-and-fresh.html
Thank you everyone!
Case Closed.
iwog says
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xrpb11a says
The article you linked doesn't say this.
The South pole is on land and is therefore made up of snow. The North Pole is created almost entirely from seawater freezing. Greenland is fresh water, but again it's on land and not floating in the ocean.
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iwog says
Very true. But over many decades and centuries it could add up, at least on the parts of the arctic sea ice that last year-round. That's why I'm wondering. It may very well be trivial, but I don't know.
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John Bailo's website
Ice free arctic?
Shorter shipping times from China to Europe...from the Middle East to the Pacific.
Go Global Warming...the best thing that ever happened to Mankind!
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John Bailo says
Sweet! Better access to slave labor!
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When water freezes (crystallizes), the salt crystals are no longer dissolved (salt ions separated and weakly bonded to the polarized water molecules). If you keep the water frozen long enough, the salt eventually leaches out, leaving you with a block of frozen 'fresh-water' ice.
But it takes years.
Old sea ice -- very slightly salty (and hard as steel -- icebreakers try to avoid it)
young sea ice (e.g., brash) is just about as salty as the seawater it came from.
Looks like a "draw" to me....
iwog says
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Well, I learned something new today. Apparently salt does seem to "leave" water when it freezes.
"While their ship was imprisoned in the ice off Antarctica, the crew of the
Endurance melted the sea ice and used it for their drinking water. How is
that possible? Why wasn't it too salty?
The reason has to do with the behavior of ocean water when it freezes.
When salt water freezes, much of the salt is expelled from the ice or gets
trapped in pockets of salty liquid water within the ice. Eventually, most of
the salt makes its way into the water just under the ice. This creates a layer
of water under the ice that is saltier than the water below it. Because this
layer of cold salty water is very dense, it sinks to the bottom levels of the
ocean. As it sinks, it is replaced by water that is either warmer, less salty, or
both. As ice continues to form, expelling more salt into the surface waters,
this new layer of water in turn becomes saltier and it begins to sink, too. In
this way, water circulates under the sea ice in a cycle that lasts the entire
Antarctic winter."
From this link (it includes a little experiment you can do at home as well):
http://www.studyofplace.info/ActivityContent/Materials/Antarctica_A3_student.pdf
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leoj707 says
Weird.
Once I accidently kept a can of soda/pop in the freezer. Thankfully it didn't burst. After opening the can for a drink, I noticed the ice tasted like mostly plain water. The remaining liquid soda/pop was sweeter and more concentrated than usual.
Maybe something similar is going on with salt water?
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leoj707 says
The difference is Antarctica. The ice surrounding that continent is fresh because most of it calved off of glaciers. The ice shelves surrounding Antarctica are sloughed off the landmass.
In contrast, the main source of icebergs in the northern hemisphere is Greenland while the huge majority of icecap is simply frozen seawater.
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Which has been there for eons, leeching salt to the bottom of the ocean, until there is no more salt to leech, leaving a mammoth slab of fresh water ice.
Which is why the overwhelming percentage of fresh water in the arctic ice cap is verified "fresh water".
Which is why when the icecap melts, pouring fresh water into the salty ocean, more volume is displaced thereby raising the level of the sea.
Which is why all your condos in florida are destined to become part of Sea World.
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iwog says
I did not run the little experiment myself, but salt "squeezing" out the ice seems to be the case.
xrpb11a says
I am not sure if this would be the case.
Relative densities:
more dense
Sea water = 1020-1030 kg/m³
Fresh water = 1000kg/m³
Ice water = 920 kg/m³
less dense
The ice would first "contract" as it turns into fresh water. The then less dense fresh water would occupy less space than the ice did. I am not a physicist, but looking at the relative densities there may be a slight reduction of the over all ocean level.