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  • Originally posted by Wooglin View Post
    Great argument. Very convincing!
    ]
    I just stated a very typical use of data by those who know almost nothing about the science. Seen it used many times with other scientific data in other fields such as there was this one page out of a 200 page research paper that proves...blah, blah, blah.

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    • Originally posted by FORMBY View Post
      It means .... a lot!
      A lot of what?

      Comment


      • USA today article from today [bold mine]

        Sea ice north of Greenland is usually frozen year-round, and scientists believed it would stay that way longer than virtually anywhere else in the Arctic. That's why some are so surprised — and concerned — that the region has thawed multiple times this year.

        The ice is some of the oldest and thickest in the Arctic, according to reporting by CNN and The Guardian. But scientists have observed something unusual this year: Miles of open water.

        The geography of the area usually helps to pack the ice and keep it from melting. The ice smashes up against Greenland's coast, at times piling 70 feet high, CNN reports.

        The trend is so strong that the region has commonly been called "the last ice area," The Guardian reports.

        "This was the area that was seen as the last bastion," Walt Meier, a research scientist with the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, told CNN. Even as Arctic ice melting increases, scientists thought the region would remain stable longer than anywhere else, he said.

        The melts have occurred twice this year — once in February and again in August, The Guardian reports. Winds and unusually warm weather have pushed the ice off Greenland's coast further than it's ever been observed, since satellite records began in the 1970s, the publication says.

        One scientist called the phenomenon "scary" in a Aug. 13 tweet. Thomas Lavergne, a scientist with the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, commented that the open water was "still there" and moving westward.

        The unusual melt is another example of a concerning trend in Greenland: Between 1995 and 2017, about 4,000 gigatons of ice in Greenland has been lost. That's about as much water as there is in Lake Michigan.

        Scientists say sunnier summer days have contributed to the large ice melt, which is helping to raise sea levels worldwide.
        I guess those "scientists" never heard of Archimides Principle. It's SEA ICE. All of it can melt and not raise sea levels by a millimeter.

        This is why people are so fucking ignorant about GW. Stop reading USA Today, CNN, and especially the Guardian and pick up a 6th grade science book instead.

        Comment


        • The final countdown

          Time is fast running out to stop irreversible climate change, a group of global warming experts warns today. We have only 100 months to avoid disaster. Andrew Simms explains why we must act now - and where to begin

          If you shout "fire" in a crowded theatre, when there is none, you understand that you might be arrested for irresponsible behaviour and breach of the peace. But from today, I smell smoke, I see flames and I think it is time to shout. I don't want you to panic, but I do think it would be a good idea to form an orderly queue to leave the building.
          Because in just 100 months' time, if we are lucky, and based on a quite conservative estimate, we could reach a tipping point for the beginnings of runaway climate change. That said, among people working on global warming, there are countless models, scenarios, and different iterations of all those models and scenarios. So, let us be clear from the outset about exactly what we mean.
          The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere today, the most prevalent greenhouse gas, is the highest it has been for the past 650,000 years. In the space of just 250 years, as a result of the coal-fired Industrial Revolution, and changes to land use such as the growth of cities and the felling of forests, we have released, cumulatively, more than 1,800bn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Currently, approximately 1,000 tonnes of CO2 are released into the Earth's atmosphere every second, due to human activity. Greenhouse gases trap incoming solar radiation, warming the atmosphere. When these gases accumulate beyond a certain level - often termed a "tipping point" - global warming will accelerate, potentially beyond control.

          Faced with circumstances that clearly threaten human civilisation, scientists at least have the sense of humour to term what drives this process as "positive feedback". But if translated into an office workplace environment, it's the sort of "positive feedback" from a manager that would run along the lines of: "You're fired, you were rubbish anyway, you have no future, your home has been demolished and I've killed your dog."

          In climate change, a number of feedback loops amplify warming through physical processes that are either triggered by the initial warming itself, or the increase in greenhouse gases. One example is the melting of ice sheets. The loss of ice cover reduces the ability of the Earth's surface to reflect heat and, by revealing darker surfaces, increases the amount of heat absorbed. Other dynamics include the decreasing ability of oceans to absorb CO2 due to higher wind strengths linked to climate change. This has already been observed in the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic, increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and adding to climate change.

          Because of such self-reinforcing positive feedbacks (which, because of the accidental humour of science, we must remind ourselves are, in fact, negative), once a critical greenhouse concentration threshold is passed, global warming will continue even if we stop releasing additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. If that happens, the Earth's climate will shift into another, more volatile state, with different ocean circulation, wind and rainfall patterns. The implications of which, according to a growing litany of research, are potentially catastrophic for life on Earth. Such a change in the state of the climate system is often referred to as irreversible climate change.

          So, how exactly do we arrive at the ticking clock of 100 months? It's possible to estimate the length of time it will take to reach a tipping point. To do so you combine current greenhouse gas concentrations with the best estimates for the rates at which emissions are growing, the maximum concentration of greenhouse gases allowable to forestall potentially irreversible changes to the climate system, and the effect of those environmental feedbacks. We followed the latest data and trends for carbon dioxide, then made allowances for all human interferences that influence temperatures, both those with warming and cooling effects. We followed the judgments of the mainstream climate science community, represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on what it will take to retain a good chance of not crossing the critical threshold of the Earth's average surface temperature rising by 2C above pre-industrial levels. We were cautious in several ways, optimistic even, and perhaps too much so. A rise of 2C may mask big problems that begin at a lower level of warming. For example, collapse of the Greenland ice sheet is more than likely to be triggered by a local warming of 2.7C, which could correspond to a global mean temperature increase of 2C or less. The disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet could correspond to a sea-level rise of up to 7 metres.

          In arriving at our timescale, we also used the lower end of threats in assessing the impact of vanishing ice cover and other carbon-cycle feedbacks (those wanting more can download a note on method from onehundredmonths.org). But the result is worrying enough.

          We found that, given all of the above, 100 months from today we will reach a concentration of greenhouse gases at which it is no longer "likely" that we will stay below the 2C temperature rise threshold. "Likely" in this context refers to the definition of risk used by the IPCC. But, even just before that point, there is still a one third chance of crossing the line.
          Today is just another Friday in August. Drowsy and close. Office workers' minds are fixed on the weekend, clock-watching, waiting perhaps for a holiday if your finances have escaped the credit crunch and rising food and fuel prices. In the evening, trains will be littered with abandoned newspaper sports pages, all pretending interest in the football transfers. For once it seems justified to repeat TS Eliot's famous lines: "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper."

          But does it have to be this way? Must we curdle in our complacency and allow our cynicism about politicians to give them an easy ride as they fail to act in our, the national and the planet's best interest? There is now a different clock to watch than the one on the office wall. Contrary to being a counsel of despair, it tells us that everything we do from now matters. And, possibly more so than at any other time in recent history.

          It tells us, for example, that only a government that was sleepwalking or in a chemically induced coma would countenance building a third runway at Heathrow, or a new generation of coal-fired power stations such as the proposed new plant at Kingsnorth in Kent. Infrastructure that is fossil-fuel-dependent locks in patterns of future greenhouse gas emissions, radically reducing our ability to make the short- to medium-term cuts that are necessary.

          Deflecting blame and responsibility is a great skill of officialdom. The most common strategies used by government recently have been wringing their hands and blaming China's rising emissions, and telling individuals to, well, be a bit more careful. On the first get-out, it is delusory to think that countries such as China, India and Brazil will fundamentally change until wealthy countries such as Britain take a lead. And it is wildly unrealistic to think that individuals alone can effect a comprehensive re-engineering of the nation's fossil-fuel-dependent energy, food and transport systems. The government must lead.
          In their inability to take action commensurate with the scale and timeframe of the climate problem, the government is mocked both by Britain's own history, and by countries much smaller, poorer and more economically isolated than we are.

          The challenge is rapid transition of the economy in order to live within our environmental means, while preserving and enhancing our general wellbeing. In some important ways, we've been here before, and can learn lessons from history. Under different circumstances, Britain achieved astonishing things while preparing for, fighting and recovering from the second world war. In the six years between 1938 and 1944, the economy was re-engineered and there were dramatic cuts in resource use and household consumption. These coincided with rising life expectancy and falling infant mortality. We consumed less of almost everything, but ate more healthily and used our disposable income on what, today, we might call "low-carbon good times".

          A National Savings Movement held marches, processions and displays in every city, town and village in the country. There were campaigns to Holiday at Home and endless festivities such as dances, concerts, boxing displays, swimming galas, and open-air theatre - all organised by local authorities with the express purpose of saving fuel by discouraging unnecessary travel. To lead by example, very public energy restrictions were introduced in government and local authority buildings, shops and railway stations. This was so successful that the results beat cuts previously planned in an over-complex rationing scheme. The public largely assented to measures to curb consumption because they understood that they were to ensure "the fairest possible distribution of the necessities and comforts of daily life".
          Now, 2008, we face the fallout from the credit crisis, high oil and rising food prices, and the massive added challenge of having to avert climate change.

          Does a war comparison sound dramatic? In April 2007, Margaret Beckett, then foreign secretary, gave a largely overlooked lecture called Climate Change: The Gathering Storm. "It was a time when Churchill, perceiving the dangers that lay ahead, struggled to mobilise the political will and industrial energy of the British Empire to meet those dangers. He did so often in the face of strong opposition," she said. "Climate change is the gathering storm of our generation. And the implications - should we fail to act - could be no less dire: and perhaps even more so."

          In terms of what is possible in times of economic stress and isolation, Cuba provides an even more embarrassing example to show up our national tardiness. In a single year in 2006 Cuba rolled-out a nationwide scheme replacing inefficient incandescent lightbulbs with low-energy alternatives. Prior to that, at the end of the cold war, after losing access to cheap Soviet oil, it switched over to growing most of its food for domestic consumption on small scale, often urban plots, using mostly low-fossil-fuel organic techniques. Half the food consumed in the capital, Havana, was grown in the city's own gardens. Cuba echoed and surpassed what America achieved in its push for "Victory Gardening" during the second world war. Back then, led by Eleanor Roosevelt, between 30-40% of vegetables for domestic consumption were produced by the Victory Gardening movement.

          So what can our own government do to turn things around today? Over the next 100 months, they could launch a Green New Deal, taking inspiration from President Roosevelt's famous 100-day programme implementing his New Deal in the face of the dust bowls and depression. Last week, a group of finance, energy and environmental specialists produced just such a plan.

          Addressed at the triple crunch of the credit crisis, high oil prices and global warming, the plan is to rein in reckless financial institutions and use a range of fiscal tools, new measures and reforms to the tax system, such as a windfall tax on oil companies. The resources raised can then be invested in a massive environmental transformation programme that could insulate the economy from recession, create countless new jobs and allow Britain to play its part in meeting the climate challenge.

          Goodbye new airport runways, goodbye new coal-fired power stations. Next, as a precursor to enabling and building more sustainable systems for transport, energy, food and overhauling the nation's building stock, the government needs to brace itself to tackle the City. Currently, financial institutions are giving us the worst of all worlds. We have woken to find the foundations of our economy made up of unstable, exotic financial instruments. At the same time, and perversely, as awareness of climate change goes up, ever more money pours through the City into the oil companies. These companies list their fossil-fuel reserves as "proven" or "probable". A new category of "unburnable" should be introduced, to fundamentally change the balance of power in the City. Instead of using vast sums of public money to bail out banks because they are considered "too big to fail", they should be reduced in size until they are small enough to fail without hurting anyone. It is only a climate system capable of supporting human civilisation that is too big to fail.

          Oil companies made profits when oil was $10 a barrel. With the price now wobbling around $130, there is a huge amount of unearned profit waiting for a windfall tax. Money raised - in this way and through other changes in taxation, new priorities for pension funds and innovatory types of bonds - would go towards a long-overdue massive decarbonisation of our energy system. Decentralisation, renewables, efficiency, conservation and demand management will all play a part.

          Next comes a rolling programme to overhaul the nation's heat-leaking building stock. This will have the benefit of massively cutting emissions and at the same time tackling the sore of fuel poverty by creating better insulated and designed homes. A transition from "one person, one car" on the roads, to a variety of clean reliable forms of public transport should be visible by the middle of our 100 months. Similarly, weaning agriculture off fossil-fuel dependency will be a phased process.

          The end result will be real international leadership, removing the excuses of other nations not to act. But it will also leave the people of Britain more secure in terms of the food and energy supplies, and with a more resilient economy capable of weathering whatever economic and environmental shocks the world has to throw at us. Each of these challenges will draw on things that we already know how to do, but have missed the political will for.

          So, there, I have said "Fire", and pointed to the nearest emergency exit. Now it is time for the government to lead, and do its best to make sure that neither a bang, nor a whimper ends the show.
          · Andrew Simms is policy director and head of the climate change programme at NEF (the new economics foundation). The material on climate models for this article was prepared by Dr Victoria Johnson, researcher at NEF on climate change. For regular suggestions for what individuals and groups can do to take action, and links to a wide range of organisations supporting the focus on the 100 months countdown, go to: onehundredmonths.org. The Green New Deal can be downloaded at neweconomics.org
          https://www.theguardian.com/environm...arbonemissions

          The article was from July 31.....2008, 121 months ago.

          Since we have already reached the tipping point for a global runaway greenhouse effect 21 months ago, I guess we can do whatever we want now. Ain't nothin's gonna stop it now.
          "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

          Comment


          • But wait....

            Prince Charles extends climate doomsday deadline by 33 years

            By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Tuesday, July 28, 2015

            Prince Charles is warning that there are only 35 years left to save the planet from climate disaster, which represents a 33-year extension of his previous deadline.

            In March 2009, the heir to the British throne predicted that the world had 100 months “before we risk catastrophic climate change,” as pointed out by Climate Depot’s Marc Morano.

            “Prince Charles gives world reprieve: Extends ‘100-Month’ climate ‘tipping point’ to 35 more years,” says the Tuesday headline on the Climate Depot website.

            The British blog Not A Lot of People Know That announced in a July 19 post, “Charlie Gives Us a Reprieve!”

            Prince Charles, who updated his forecast in a July 18 interview with the Western [U.K.] Morning News prior to his visit to the Westcountry, began issuing warnings six years ago about imminent ecological disaster driven by climate change.

            “The best projections tell us that we have less than 100 months to alter our behaviour before we risk catastrophic climate change,” the Prince of Wales said in a speech in Rio de Janeiro, as reported by the [U.K.] Telegraph.
            https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...sday-deadline/

            Whew, His Royal Highness Prince Charles of Wales has decreed that the climate shall take longer to change and thus we have more time to stop it from changing.

            What a relief!
            "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Wooglin View Post
              USA today article from today [bold mine]



              I guess those "scientists" never heard of Archimides Principle. It's SEA ICE. All of it can melt and not raise sea levels by a millimeter.

              This is why people are so fucking ignorant about GW. Stop reading USA Today, CNN, and especially the Guardian and pick up a 6th grade science book instead.
              I'm quite sure they're aware of the Archimedes Principal but you've made a basic scientific error yourself. Look up the term Albedo which is a measurement of a surfaces ability to reflect radiation (including sunlight). Sea ice, indeed any ice has a very high albedo and so a large proportion of the light/heat that strikes it is reflected back into space without heating the Earths surface. Sea water has a low albedo which means it absorbs solar radiation much more effectively than ice does and as a result tends to warm up faster. It also stores that heat fairly effectively and then circulates it around and under any ice floating on its surface as well as warming the air above it.

              Like in most issues around climate change there are multiple complex feedback loops in play. This is just one of them. By all means criticize the science but a least get your science right first.
              Last edited by Monash; 08 Sep 18,, 08:23.
              If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Wooglin View Post
                USA today article from today [bold mine]



                I guess those "scientists" never heard of Archimides Principle. It's SEA ICE. All of it can melt and not raise sea levels by a millimeter.

                This is why people are so fucking ignorant about GW. Stop reading USA Today, CNN, and especially the Guardian and pick up a 6th grade science book instead.
                I'm quite sure they're aware of the Archimedes Principal but you've made a basic scientific error yourself. Look up the term Albedo which is a measurement of a surfaces ability to reflect radiation (including sunlight). Sea ice, indeed any ice has a very high albedo and so a large proportion of the light/heat that strikes it is reflected back into space without heating the Earths surface. Sea water has a low albedo which means it absorbs solar radiation much more effectively than ice does and as a result tends to warm up faster. It also stores the heat it absorbs fairly effectively and circulates that heat under/around any ice floating on it's surface as well as warming the air above it.

                Like in most issues around climate change there are multiple complex feedback loops in play. This is just one of them. By all means criticize the science but a least get your science right first.
                Last edited by Monash; 08 Sep 18,, 01:10.
                If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by gunnut View Post
                  https://www.theguardian.com/environm...arbonemissions

                  Since we have already reached the tipping point for a global runaway greenhouse effect 21 months ago, I guess we can do whatever we want now. Ain't nothin's gonna stop it now.

                  Venus has a 'runaway green house' atmosphere, the Earth doesn't. To the best of my knowledge no scientist has suggested we are going down that path. There may be some alarmist, propaganda driven Greenies saying this but if so that just reflects the yawning gulf of their ignorance.

                  What the scientific literature I have read seems to be saying is that we are fast approached (or have already passed the point) where there will be an inescapable rise in average surface temperatures of 2 to 3C. Such a rise is problematic, even in some cases critical for the developing nations of the world but unlike Venus on Earth lead will not be melting on the surface of the planet until such time as the sun goes nova.
                  Last edited by Monash; 08 Sep 18,, 01:13.
                  If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Monash View Post
                    I'm quite sure they're aware of the Archimedes Principal but you've made a basic scientific error yourself. Look up the term Albedo which is a measurement of a surfaces ability to reflect radiation (including sunlight). Sea ice, indeed any ice has a very high albedo and so a large proportion of the light/heat that strikes it is reflected back into space without heating the Earths surface. Sea water has a low albedo which means it absorbs solar radiation much more effectively than ice does and as a result tends to warm up faster. It also stores that heat fairly effectively and then circulates it around and under any ice floating on its surface as well as warming the air above it.

                    Like in most issues around climate change there are multiple complex feedback loops in play. This is just one of them. By all means criticize the science but a least get your science right first.
                    How could I have made an error regarding albedo and feedback loops when I, and the article I was discussing, mentioned none of those things? Please show me where this is discussed in the article I was commenting on. You've made the error of trying to sound smart while not actually addressing the pertinent point.

                    If you want to make an argument about feedback loops then I suggest you write to the media not making that argument and explain to THEM their basic scientific error. That's kind of the point. In the meantime, the article I'm discussing draws a direct causal relationship between sea ice melting to sea level that contradicts Archimedes Principle (and it's hardly the only one I've seen doing so). It leaves people to believe there's no difference between land ice and sea ice. It leaves them misinformed.

                    If you want to talk about positive feedback loops that the article didn't discuss, but is somehow my fault, then that's another discussion.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Wooglin View Post
                      How could I have made an error regarding albedo and feedback loops when I, and the article I was discussing, mentioned none of those things? Please show me where this is discussed in the article I was commenting on. You've made the error of trying to sound smart while not actually addressing the pertinent point.
                      OK, I went back and read the (brief) article in USA Today you referred to in your original post which BTW did not mention the albedo effect. Unfortunately for your argument it also doesn't link melting sea ice in any way to a rise in sea levels. What is does say in part is -

                      "The unusual melt is another example of a concerning trend in Greenland: Between 1995 and 2017, about 4,000 gigatons of ice in Greenland has been lost. That's about as much water as there is in Lake Michigan."

                      And in that section it is specifically talking about the island of Greenland itself (as in the land mass not the sea around it) where large volumes of meting ice would be expected to lead to a rise in sea levels. In other words where a thick layer pack ice formerly acted as a buffer/insulator blocking runoff from the landmass and keeping it cooler in summer there is now open sea water which has the opposite effect. So again Archimedes principal is not relevant to the story and the authors haven't made any mistake in their article.

                      All we have is (a presumably innocent) misinterpretation of what the article was saying on your part. And FYI I was not trying to be 'smart', just correcting an unfair/inaccurate criticism posted in the thread. As I said previously by all means debate the science around AGW but everyone on both sides of the discussion should at least try to have their facts right first.
                      Last edited by Monash; 11 Sep 18,, 11:56.
                      If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Monash View Post
                        OK, I went back and read the (brief) article in USA Today you referred to in your original post which BTW did not mention the albedo effect. Unfortunately for your argument it also doesn't link melting sea ice in any way to a rise in sea levels. What is does say in part is -

                        "The unusual melt is another example of a concerning trend in Greenland: Between 1995 and 2017, about 4,000 gigatons of ice in Greenland has been lost. That's about as much water as there is in Lake Michigan."

                        And in that section it is specifically talking about the island of Greenland itself (as in the land mass not the sea around it) where large volumes of meting ice would be expected to lead to a rise in sea levels. In other words where a thick layer pack ice formerly acted as a buffer/insulator blocking runoff from the landmass and keeping it cooler in summer there is now open sea water which has the opposite effect. So again Archimedes principal is not relevant to the story and the authors haven't made any mistake in their article.

                        All we have is (a presumably innocent) misinterpretation of what the article was saying on your part. And FYI I was not trying to be 'smart', just correcting an unfair/inaccurate criticism posted in the thread. As I said previously by all means debate the science around AGW but everyone on both sides of the discussion should at least try to have their facts right first.
                        You should have read more carefully. The subject of the article is sea ice on the Greenland coast. They do not specify that they have changed the subject to land based ice in that sentence, or the next. You just assume it. Regardless, even if that sentence was referring to Greenlands landmass, there's no indication the last sentence had changed subjects either.

                        All we have is a misinterpretation of what the article was saying on your part. Really, you should probably read the subject matter and get your facts right before commenting.
                        Last edited by Wooglin; 11 Sep 18,, 16:19.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Wooglin View Post
                          You should have read more carefully. The subject of the article is sea ice on the Greenland coast. They do not specify that they have changed the subject to land based ice in that sentence, or the next. You just assume it. Regardless, even if that sentence was referring to Greenlands landmass, there's no indication the last sentence had changed subjects either.

                          All we have is a misinterpretation of what the article was saying on your part. Really, you should probably read the subject matter and get your facts right before commenting.
                          It seems that Monash is talking about this part of the article:

                          The geography of the area usually helps to pack the ice and keep it from melting. The ice smashes up against Greenland's coast, at times piling 70 feet high, CNN reports.

                          The trend is so strong that the region has commonly been called "the last ice area," The Guardian reports.

                          "This was the area that was seen as the last bastion," Walt Meier, a research scientist with the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, told CNN. Even as Arctic ice melting increases, scientists thought the region would remain stable longer than anywhere else, he said.
                          While you are critical of this point of the article regarding your point about the Archimedes principle:

                          The unusual melt is another example of a concerning trend in Greenland: Between 1995 and 2017, about 4,000 gigatons of ice in Greenland has been lost. That's about as much water as there is in Lake Michigan.

                          Scientists say sunnier summer days have contributed to the large ice melt, which is helping to raise sea levels worldwide.
                          The problem with many science pieces in mainstream media is that it skips a lot of the relevant details involved with the findings for the sake of brevity. In this case you are both right, the Archimedes principle states plainly that melted sea ice would not have a direct increasing effect on sea levels. And the way the article presents the information, it is easy to make this false interpretation.

                          However Monash's point about the loss of albeido provided by melted sea ice is also relevant to the article, as it discusses one feedback mechanism that manifests when sea ice is lost--namely the loss of matter that lessens the heating effect of incoming solar radiation. The melted sea ice may not itself contribute to rising sea levels, but its loss will result in more solar radiation being absorbed into the sea--resulting in more rapid warming which eventually leads to further melting inland. This is what the scientists appear to be most concerned about, not any presumed direct impact on sea level.


                          Furthermore, it would appear that the scientists did in fact take the Archimedes Principle into account. According to the article, they initially seemed to believe that the sea ice barrier would endure.

                          "This was the area that was seen as the last bastion," Walt Meier, a research scientist with the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, told CNN. Even as Arctic ice melting increases, scientists thought the region would remain stable longer than anywhere else, he said.
                          Last edited by Red Team; 11 Sep 18,, 17:42.
                          "Draft beer, not people."

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Red Team View Post
                            It seems that Monash is talking about this part of the article:
                            Which is talking about sea ice so.....????

                            While you are critical of this point of the article regarding your point about the Archimedes principle:
                            No. If I was criticizing one passage I would have highlighted the passage. I am critical of the whole article discussing sea ice and then saying it's raising sea levels. It's just incredibly misleading.

                            The problem with many science pieces in mainstream media is that it skips a lot of the relevant details involved with the findings for the sake of brevity. In this case you are both right, the Archimedes principle states plainly that melted sea ice would not have a direct increasing effect on sea levels. And the way the article presents the information, it is easy to make this false interpretation.
                            The problem with many science pieces is that the author often has no idea what they are talking about because they studied some environment related discipline that didn't touch upon the hard sciences at all, or science at all for that matter, like climate communications. And let's be honest, some of them have a narrative to stick to.

                            However Monash's point about the loss of albeido provided by melted sea ice is also relevant to the article, as it discusses one feedback mechanism that manifests when sea ice is lost--namely the loss of matter that lessens the heating effect of incoming solar radiation. The melted sea ice may not itself contribute to rising sea levels, but its loss will result in more solar radiation being absorbed into the sea--resulting in more rapid warming which eventually leads to further melting inland. This is what the scientists appear to be most concerned about, not any presumed direct impact on sea level.
                            I got what Monash was talking about the first time. I'm not sure why you think it's necessary to repeat it and state that it's relevant, then admit it's not really relevant to direct impact on sea level, which is what I and the seemingly the article are talking about... not sure what the point was, but ok.

                            Furthermore, it would appear that the scientists did in fact take the Archimedes Principle into account. According to the article, they initially seemed to believe that the sea ice barrier would endure.
                            Um....what? What does mass displacement have to due with enduring? I don't follow the logic.

                            Anyway, I put the word scientists in quotes for a reason. I doubt the source for the quote that leads people to believe melting sea ice is directly responsible for sea level rise came from an actual scientist.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Wooglin View Post
                              You should have read more carefully. The subject of the article is sea ice on the Greenland coast. They do not specify that they have changed the subject to land based ice in that sentence, or the next. You just assume it. Regardless, even if that sentence was referring to Greenlands landmass, there's no indication the last sentence had changed subjects either.

                              All we have is a misinterpretation of what the article was saying on your part. Really, you should probably read the subject matter and get your facts right before commenting.
                              All right I'll try one more time. To clarify - the article is expressing concern about the loss of ice cover on the Greenland Sea. That is the topic or if you prefer the theme of the story not rising sea levels. The authors are expressing concern about this topic because the climate research upon which the story is based indicates that a loss of sea ice in that part of the arctic ocean will in turn cause an increase in the rate at which Greenland's ice cover melts. It is this melting which they assert leads to an increase in sea levels and that only gets a mention in the very last paragraph of the story.

                              In other words the equation or theme of the story is not as you imply: melting sea ice = a rise in sea levels.

                              Instead the equation is: melting sea ice = increased Greenland ice melt = rise in sea level. (So Archimedes still gets to sleep quietly in his grave).

                              To repeat, the main topic of the article is the melting of the sea ice and its effect upon Greenland. The the authors did not 'change the topic' of the article as you put it, they stuck to their theme. Your original post however did change the theme by leaping from the beginning of the story to the end without bothering about the bit in the middle.
                              Last edited by Monash; 12 Sep 18,, 09:56.
                              If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

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                              • Originally posted by Monash View Post
                                All right I'll try one more time. To clarify - the article is expressing concern about the loss of ice cover on the Greenland Sea. That is the topic or if you prefer the theme of the story not rising sea levels. The authors are expressing concern about this topic because the climate research upon which the story is based indicates that a loss of sea ice in that part of the arctic ocean will in turn cause an increase in the rate at which Greenland's ice cover melts. It is this melting which they assert leads to an increase in sea levels and that only gets a mention in the very last paragraph of the story.

                                In other words the equation or theme of the story is not as you imply: melting sea ice = a rise in sea levels.

                                Instead the equation is: melting sea ice = increased Greenland ice melt = rise in sea level. (So Archimedes still gets to sleep quietly in his grave).

                                To repeat, the main topic of the article is the melting of the sea ice and its effect upon Greenland. The the authors did not 'change the topic' of the article as you put it, they stuck to their theme. Your original post however did change the theme by leaping from the beginning of the story to the end without bothering about the bit in the middle.
                                Wow. Do you know the author? Because you're introducing a lot of facts not actually established in the story. You even seem to be in the mind of the authors and know what they're real concerns were. Ok Kreskin. If you say so.

                                The entire article is about coastal sea ice. But you want me to believe, that at the very last sentence when they are discussing attribution, and without actually referencing anything other than this region of sea ice, they're suddenly talking about something else. Because they mentioned this melting is part of a larger trend doesn't mean the entire article was actually about some other trend that was never actually discussed in the article. You read one line and ignored the entire article. You don't write an entire article about coastal sea ice and then, at the end when it comes time to answer why this is happening, suddenly switch to something else that was never actually discussed in article.

                                Seriously, the lengths you're going to to stretch this into something else... to try to convince me what they really meant without actually discussing it... it's just gotten silly. Move on already.

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