Ice Cap Melting...

[CavsSuperFan]

Arctic ice cap melting 30 years ahead of forecast...

Link... (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070501/sc_nm/globalwarming_ice_dc)

I am glad that I can ride my Schwinn for transportation...Maybe some of you should get a Prius before this Global Warming thing gets worse....

[Nbadan]

According to the lastest wing-nut pundit spin, global warming, even if it does exist, is ineviatable and won't affect you at all.

[CavsSuperFan]

I wonder if residents in New Orleans still think that way....

[sabar]

Remember, if it doesn't affect you in your lifetime, it's okay!

I have no doubt that if aliens ever visit this planet that they will wipe us off the planet in sheer disgust at our speciesism.

[gtownspur]

About Scambos in the article posted and his website.


http://nsidc.org/noaa/index.html#disclaimer

Disclaimer: This internet site was prepared by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), with support in part from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, under cooperative agreement NA17RJ1229 and other grants. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or the Department of Commerce.

[xrayzebra]

Arctic ice cap melting 30 years ahead of forecast...

Link... (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070501/sc_nm/globalwarming_ice_dc)

I am glad that I can ride my Schwinn for transportation...Maybe some of you should get a Prius before this Global Warming thing gets worse....

Just stay on the side of the road instead of the middle
otherwise I may run over you with my SUV.

[Yonivore]

Same damn thing is happening on Mars. Go figure; the Sun is hot.

[101A]

Arctic ice cap melting 30 years ahead of forecast...

Link... (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070501/sc_nm/globalwarming_ice_dc)

I am glad that I can ride my Schwinn for transportation...Maybe some of you should get a Prius before this Global Warming thing gets worse....

Funny story about the Prius; they took all the electric stuff out of one; batteries, motors, regeneration stuff; amounted to nearly 1,000 lb's. Car got better milage w/o it!

[Nbadan]

Meanwhile, back in reality...

We can avert global thirst - but it means cutting carbon emissions by 60%. Sounds ridiculous? Consider the alternative
By George Monbiot


It looks dull, almost impenetrable in places. But if its findings are verified, it could turn out to be the most important scientific report published so far this year. In this month's edition of the Journal of Hydrometeorology is a paper written by scientists at the Met Office, which predicts future patterns of rainfall and evaporation. Those who dispute that climate change is taking place, such as Melanie Phillips of the Daily Mail, like to point out that that the predicted effects of global warming rely on computer models, rather than "observable facts". That's the problem with the future - you can't observe it. But to have any hope of working out what might happen, you need a framework of understanding. It's either this or the uninformed guesswork that Phillips seems to prefer.

The models can be tested by means of what climate scientists call backcasting - seeing whether or not they would have predicted changes that have already taken place. The global climate model used by the Met Office still needs to be refined. While it tracks past temperature changes pretty closely, it does not accurately backcast the drought patterns in every region. But it correctly reproduces the total global water trends over the past 50 years. When the same model is used to forecast the pattern over the 21st century, it uncovers "a net overall global drying trend" if greenhouse gas emissions are moderate or high. "On a global basis, drought events are slightly more frequent and of much longer duration by the second half of the 21st century relative to the present day." In these dry, stodgy phrases, we find an account of almost unimaginable future misery.

Many parts of the world, for reasons that have little to do with climate change, are already beginning to lose their water. In When the Rivers Run Dry, Fred Pearce, who is New Scientist's environment consultant, travels around the world trying to assess the state of our water resources. He finds that we survive today as a result of borrowing from the future.The great famines predicted for the 1970s were averted by new varieties of rice, wheat and maize, whose development was known as the "green revolution". They produce tremendous yields, but require plenty of water. This has been provided by irrigation, much of which uses underground reserves. Unfortunately, many of them are being exploited much faster than they are being replenished. In India, for example, some 250 cubic kilometres (a cubic kilometre is a billion cubic metres or a trillion litres) are extracted for irrigation every year, of which about 150 are replaced by the rain. "Two hundred million people facing a waterless future. The groundwater boom is turning to bust and, for some, the green revolution is over."

In China, 100 million people live on crops grown with underground water that is not being refilled: water tables are falling fast all over the north China plain. Many more rely on the Huang He (the Yellow river), which already appears to be drying up as a result of abstraction and, possibly, climate change. Around 90% of the crops in Pakistan are watered by irrigation from the Indus. Almost all the river's water is already diverted into the fields - it often fails now to reach the sea. The Ogallala aquifer that lies under the western and south-western United States, and which has fed much of the world, has fallen by 30 metres in many places. It now produces half as much water as it did in the 1970s.

...

As these two effects of climate change - global drying and rising salt pollution - run up against the growing demand for water, and as irrigation systems run dry or become contaminated, the possibility arises of a permanent global food deficit. Even with a net food surplus, 800 million people are malnourished. Nothing I could write would begin to describe what a world in deficit - carrying 9 billion people - would look like.

Linky (http://www.turnuptheheat.org/?page_id=7)

[Yonivore]

Funny story about the Prius; they took all the electric stuff out of one; batteries, motors, regeneration stuff; amounted to nearly 1,000 lb's. Car got better milage w/o it!
Not to mention the plant where they make batteries for the Prius is one of the most polluted pieces of real estate in the world.

[Nbadan]

Enviromentally concious? Think of the Guatemalans!

High corn prices threaten Guatemalans with hunger
02 May 2007 17:25:04 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Mica Rosenberg


SUCHIQUER PINALITO, Guatemala, May 2 (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of landless Guatemalan laborers clustered in drought-prone hamlets could face a hunger crisis if corn prices rise further, the United Nations says.

...

"The increase in the price of maize has left this sector of the population much more vulnerable than they were before ... and weather affecting crops is increasingly unpredictable due to climate change," said Ian Cherret, head of the U.N. Food and
Agriculture Organization, or FAO, in Guatemala.

...

Growing ethanol demand is now partly to blame for the danger. The environmentally friendly fuel promoted by the U.S. government as a way to reduce oil imports has pushed international prices for the yellow corn used to make it near 10-year highs.

The white corn grown in Guatemala for human consumption but also imported from the United States, trades internationally at a premium over yellow corn, helping push up local prices.

"If prices continue rising we may see increases in acute malnutrition," said Willem van Milink, director of the United Nations World Food Program in Guatemala.

Alertnet (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02299550.htm)

And so comes the beginning of the end of the experiment of burning food for fuel...

[xrayzebra]

Enviromentally concious? Think of the Guatemalans!

High corn prices threaten Guatemalans with hunger
02 May:25:04 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Mica Rosenberg



Alertnet (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N02299550.htm)

And so comes the beginning of the end of the experiment of burning food for fuel...

Hey, it is you Libs idea.

[Nbadan]

http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/05/02/mn_arctic_sea.jpg

Arctic sea ice smaller than ever, melting faster than predicted, satellite images show
..Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
Wednesday, May 2, 2007


The Arctic Ocean sea ice area was smaller last month than any other April since NASA starting taking satellite images nearly 30 years ago, climate scientists said. The National Snow and Ice Data Center uses the daily satellite data to continually measure the vast floating pack ice, and is releasing the April findings today."It's safe to say that this April will be a new record low. Up until now, last year had been the lowest,'' said Walt Meier, a research scientist at the University of Colorado's snow and ice center.

What happens in the Arctic affects the rest of the planet because the sea ice provides a cooling effect as it reflects sunlight back into space.

Between 1979 and 2006, the summertime icepack shrank 9 percent each decade, according to the satellite data. It is at its smallest each year in September, which is the end of summer in the Arctic. The ice is largest in March. Although it is also getting smaller each year during winter, those changes aren't happening nearly as quickly as they are during the summer.

Sea ice could disappear during the summertime between 2050 and 2100, leaving the polar bear, walrus, ring seals and other Arctic creatures without habitat, according to estimates of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

San Francisco Gate (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/02/MNGTCPJ7A51.DTL&type=science)

...but when WW3 starts because of food and oil shortages that will be a good thing according to Manny.

[Phenomanul]

http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/05/02/mn_arctic_sea.jpg

Arctic sea ice smaller than ever, melting faster than predicted, satellite images show
..Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
Wednesday, May 2, 2007



San Francisco Gate (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/02/MNGTCPJ7A51.DTL&type=science)

...but when WW3 starts because of food and oil shortages that will be a good thing according to Manny.


So why haven't the docks on global ports been submerged yet?

[Yonivore]

So why haven't the docks on global ports been submerged yet?
I was thinking the same thing...shouldn't sea levels have been rising at the same pace -- that is, faster than models projected?

[spurster]

So why haven't the docks on global ports been submerged yet?

Melting ice that is floating on water does not increase the water level. You can do this experiment at home.

[Yonivore]

Melting ice that is floating on water does not increase the water level. You can do this experiment at home.
So, then, what's the problem?

[dallaskd]

Its Sad.

[Yonivore]

Its Sad.
Melting ice is sad? How so?

[boutons_]

They're talking about ARCtic ice melt, not ANTarctic ice melt, nor other land ice.

Inundation of low-lying coastal areas will occur only with land ice melts.

Arctic icepack is already in the ocean. When it melts, it does not contribute much if anything to ocean levels.

[Phenomanul]

Melting ice that is floating on water does not increase the water level. You can do this experiment at home.

Yes this is true for ice floating over fresh water... the effect, however, is a little more pronounced over salt water.

Not to mention the fact that Artic Ice is not your typical freezer ice... it is highly compacted, much like glacial ice. Its density is closer to that of water's.

[SRJ]

Remember, if it doesn't affect you in your lifetime, it's okay!

I have no doubt that if aliens ever visit this planet that they will wipe us off the planet in sheer disgust at our speciesism.

1) So tell us what to do about it; you seem to be wiser than everyone

2) Chances are you'll be first in line to ask the aliens for a laser rifle, since you yourself are so sheerly disgusted at our speciesism. It ain't murder, since sabar is on the right side of things!

3) Since we are so speciesist, bloodthirsty, and primitive, we'll kick the bloody shit out of those invading aliens (with nukes, of course), then go back to burning fossil fuels, dumping pollutants into reservoirs, and ivory hunting. Goddamn, I love being a speciesist asshole human! I love not caring about anything at all!

[RighteousBoy]

So, then, what's the problem?


Haven't you been watching the planet earth series? Where are the penguins going to go to freeze their butts off when all the ice is gone? Expect green peace to lobby for a mega size ice machine to be built to begin replacing the ice cap melt-off.

[Nbadan]

Yes this is true for ice floating over fresh water... the effect, however, is a little more pronounced over salt water.

Not to mention the fact that Artic Ice is not your typical freezer ice... it is highly compacted, much like glacial ice. Its density is closer to that of water's.

Ice over water doesn't increase water level, it acts much like ice in a glass, but much of the ice in the North Pole and especially over Greenland is glaciers over land, and when that melts it will increase ocean levels and may even have an effect on ocean currents as all that fresh water rushes into the Atlantic. It's happened before and it sent Europe into a 900 year long ice age.

[Yonivore]

Ice over water doesn't increase water level, it acts much like ice in a glass, but much of the ice in the North Pole and especially over Greenland is glaciers over land, and when that melts it will increase ocean levels and may even have an effect on ocean currents as all that fresh water rushes into the Atlantic. It's happened before and it sent Europe into a 900 year long ice age.
So, what the fuck's it gonna be? Warming or cooling? Ice age or Global furnace?

[Wild Cobra]

Too bad the truth about our receding ice caps is not reported. We know the cause. Industrial pollution from China and other parts of developing Asia.

You think I'm joking?

See Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth?" The title screen on the DVD and another segment shows the truth, but he doesn't say a single word about it. Just look at all that black carbon on the broken up icebergs.

What's happening?

The winds are carrying the black carbon pollution from China, and they fall out over the northern ice cap. Greenland too. Now, instead of most the sun being reflected, this black coating heats up and melts the ice. It is compounded in that once the ice recedes, the ocean absorbs most of the suns energy rather than the ice reflecting it.

FYI:

This is the only verifiable man made global warming! CO2 does not contribute to global warming as it is already at saturation levels. It does however create a more divisive change in temperature. The lower atmosphere does heat more rapidly keeping it from being caught in the upper atmosphere. This more dramatic temperature differential causes more severe climate. The now colder upper atmosphere is denser, and from time to time, changes places with the lower atmosphere. Rather abruptly. Notice how we can have record heat and record cold in the same short period of time? Larger hurricanes and larger tornados? Man's increasing the CO2 does not change global warming. It does change the weather however!

[TDMVPDPOY]

shouldnt we builda huge fuckn freezer over the alps? :D