General Climate Change Discussion

[Gray-Wolf]

The Ross shelf ,being the agglomeration of many glaciers from the EAIS is 'grounded' yet it's base is well below sea level. Recent failures along the front have been partly facilitated by the sea gaining access below the ice front (which towers over 200ft above the Ross sea below). By raising sea levels are you not increasing it's buoyancy by submerging it further? The fact that it is ,in effect a huge, great, grounded, buttress would have me thinking that it's removal would allow the kind of glacial outpouring we saw from behind the Larsen suite of shelves after their demise.....or not?

You also neglect to mention the impact inland (on temps at least) with the removal of shelves. Recent papers dealing with Arctic sea ice retreat suggest that there are positive temp anoms being recorded up to 1500km inland from where sea ice was once a permanent fixture (and is now absent).

With melting up to a mile ASL in the trans antarctic mountains to the rear of Ross already being measured by NASA you have to wonder about increased meltwater peculating into the glacier feeds once the shelf withdraws.

EDIT: No 'gushing' but the slumping of unstable ice (revealing more surface area to ablate from) which propogates up the valley to the feed areas (as was seen in many of the Canadian/Alaskan retreats last century).

Edited January 14, 2009 by Gray-Wolf

[Admiral_Bobski]

The Ross shelf ,being the agglomeration of many glaciers from the EAIS is 'grounded' yet it's base is well below sea level. Recent failures along the front have been partly facilitated by the sea gaining access below the ice front (which towers over 200ft above the Ross sea below). By raising sea levels are you not increasing it's buoyancy by submerging it further? The fact that it is ,in effect a huge, great, grounded, buttress would have me thinking that it's removal would allow the kind of glacial outpouring we saw from behind the Larsen suite of shelves after their demise.....or not?

You also neglect to mention the impact inland (on temps at least) with the removal of shelves. Recent papers dealing with Arctic sea ice retreat suggest that there are positive temp anoms being recorded up to 1500km inland from where sea ice was once a permanent fixture (and is now absent).

With melting up to a mile ASL in the trans antarctic mountains to the rear of Ross already being measured by NASA you have to wonder about increased meltwater peculating into the glacier feeds once the shelf withdraws.

EDIT: No 'gushing' but the slumping of unstable ice (revealing more surface area to ablate from) which propogates up the valley to the feed areas (as was seen in many of the Canadian/Alaskan retreats last century).

I don't see anything catastrophic occurring, certainly with regards to sea level. You talk about sea level rises increasing the buoyancy of grounded ice sheets by further submergence, but where are the significant sea level increases?

No appreciable increase in sea level rise rates for over 100 years. Going back further...

No appreciable increase in sea level rise rates for over 7000 years.

With regards to meltwater increases (I presume you mean percolating, not peculating), I don't think the increased lubrication will have a significant effect, and any effect it does have will decrease as the glaciers melt back.

CB

[Gray-Wolf]

As I am sure you are aware 'freeze /thaw' is one of the primary mechanical weathering mechanisms in areas where temps can drop to freezing. Fill up existing moulins with meltwater and freeze. Result? so the increase in upland melt (as noted) will further brecciated the already flawed glacier as it flows to the sea making an early 'collapse' inevitable (under the pressures exerted by the back pressure).

[Admiral_Bobski]

As I am sure you are aware 'freeze /thaw' is one of the primary mechanical weathering mechanisms in areas where temps can drop to freezing. Fill up existing moulins with meltwater and freeze. Result? so the increase in upland melt (as noted) will further brecciated the already flawed glacier as it flows to the sea making an early 'collapse' inevitable (under the pressures exerted by the back pressure).

But this is an effect that would only occur at the fringes for a short period of time. As glaciers recede they have less and less of an effect on sea levels.

The only way you might have a problem is if the glaciers continue to advance, and for them to continue their advance they need to be fed. Since they are fed largely by precipitation, the balance of meltwater going in and evaporated water coming out of the oceans would be fairly neutral.

CB

[noggin]

President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, said the following:

"Holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must always be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become a captive of a scientific-technological elite."

Too bloomin' late now, folks.......it already has.

The way we live our lives is being dictated to us at all levels.....EU ( ), national government ( ), local government ( ). It's nuts that so much policy is geared around the AGW "stuff", for want of a better word.

Of course we need better fuel sources, but policy is getting beyond a joke.

[Gray-Wolf]

But this is an effect that would only occur at the fringes for a short period of time. As glaciers recede they have less and less of an effect on sea levels.

The only way you might have a problem is if the glaciers continue to advance, and for them to continue their advance they need to be fed. Since they are fed largely by precipitation, the balance of meltwater going in and evaporated water coming out of the oceans would be fairly neutral.

CB

I'm sorry C-Bob but past de-glaciations have not involved increases in upland snow to deplete the ice/snow cover. Ablation is the reduction of snow mass and happens because of temperatures rising to the point that ice turns to water. Some of the dirty puddles of ice that once were glaciers (again North America/Canada) will attest to the facts that warmer temps melt ice in situ. At the start of this 'retreat' you have very large masses of ice that become more and more unstable as melting progresses and meltwater enlarges basal streams/moulins leading to catastrophic failure and the ablation of the debris (or transport out to sea and then ablation).

To support your model you would need to use more water to produce the upland snow field expansion lessening sea levels for the period of transport of snow/ice from the head of the glacier to it's snout. Or am I being a bit dim here?

[Methuselah]

President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, said the following:

"Holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must always be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become a captive of a scientific-technological elite."

Too bloomin' late now, folks.......it already has.

The way we live our lives is being dictated to us at all levels.....EU ( ), national government ( ), local government ( ). It's nuts that so much policy is geared around the AGW "stuff", for want of a better word.

Of course we need better fuel sources, but policy is getting beyond a joke.

Your's might be, nog...But many of us don't have those problems. Or paranoias?

[noggin]

President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, said the following:

"Holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must always be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become a captive of a scientific-technological elite."

Too bloomin' late now, folks.......it already has.

The way we live our lives is being dictated to us at all levels.....EU ( ), national government ( ), local government ( ). It's nuts that so much policy is geared around the AGW "stuff", for want of a better word.

Of course we need better fuel sources, but policy is getting beyond a joke.

Excuse me quoting my own post, but just look at this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11...o-friendly.html and tell me that President Eisenhower was not right to warn of the "danger".

Your's might be, nog...But many of us don't have those problems. Or paranoias?

I'm not paranoid, Pete. I'm realistic.

I had not come across the above article (re the elderly lady) before I posted President Eisenhower's words, but I feel that my case can rest here and now.

Absolutely shocking.

[Thundery wintry showers]

There are lots of problems in politics and I don't deny that the AGW stuff is used to help grind political axes at both extremes of the pro and anti-AGW spectrum. But that, in itself, surely doesn't case doubt on the science itself, only the people preaching it?

[pottyprof]

There are lots of problems in politics and I don't deny that the AGW stuff is used to help grind political axes at both extremes of the pro and anti-AGW spectrum. But that, in itself, surely doesn't case doubt on the science itself, only the people preaching it?

It shouldn't do Ian but unfortunately it does. There will always be doubt cast by involving politics for whatever reason. Afterall.... would you trust anyone who claimed to have iradicated boom and bust?

The IPCC has political roots.. This panel is linked to the closure of most of the deep coal mines in the UK despite being told that this wouldn't happen by a conservative government, a government that instigated the IPCC.. A government that realised that we were throwing money away supporting our own mines when we could be buying coal cheap from eleswhere in the world and poorer in quality.

Surely you can see why the doubt ?

[noggin]

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/oftheMay20...January2009.pdf

IIRC, the MetO are expecting quite a hot 2009 (I will check and post a link, if I can). The expectation in the above link is for a cooler 2009. Will be interesting to see who is nearer the mark!

Ah, yes. here we are http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pres...pr20081230.html

So, in the red corner we have the MetO with 0.4c above the long-term average and UAH with 0.4c below the long-term average. How exciting 2009 looks set to be! Well, it looks exciting to me...........

Edited January 17, 2009 by noggin

[rob48]

Fairly typical local authority behaviour by the zealots at Thanet.

These self-important council demi-gods would do well to remember that they're regarded as nothing more than expensive parasites by the majority of the population who have to live and work in the real world.

[Android]

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/oftheMay20...January2009.pdf

IIRC, the MetO are expecting quite a hot 2009 (I will check and post a link, if I can). The expectation in the above link is for a cooler 2009. Will be interesting to see who is nearer the mark!

Ah, yes. here we are http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pres...pr20081230.html

So, in the red corner we have the MetO with 0.4c above the long-term average and UAH with 0.4c below the long-term average. How exciting 2009 looks set to be! Well, it looks exciting to me...........

Whoops icecap.us have just shot themselves in the foot imo. That's a ridiculous analysis and a ridiculous prediction.

[noggin]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11...--MPs-vote.html

More rubbish. Ah, it's there in the Climate Change Act. Give me strength.

Also, instead of acting on waste this way, why not do it the sensible way and REDUCE the potential for waste e.g. reduce the amount of packaging that manufacturers are forced to use, thanks to stupid health and safety tripe.

Edited January 19, 2009 by noggin

[Roo]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11...--MPs-vote.html

More rubbish. Ah, it's there in the Climate Change Act. Give me strength.

Did you happen to see Russell Howard on Live at The Apollo last week? No? Thought not.... :lol:

The truth is, current worldwide action on climate change means bog all in the scale of things: the country has definitely not gone green, it is not spending anything like the amount of money it is spending on activities will which directly add to pollution and climate change. Big business still has the ear of the world's politicians and is firmly in charge....any concessions there are are just sops to keep people quiet. They don't actually mean ANYTHING.

It is ridiculous to suggest that the Climate Change lobby is ruling the world. It has almost no power, no voice and no action: one only has to look at the ease with which the third runway got through to see that....

The rest is just cynically manipulated oil politics and the scary thing is that people are buying it. :lol:

Edited January 19, 2009 by Roo

[noggin]

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82436

That's the ticket..........we must save the planet. The people can die, but never mind that, as long as we save the planet......

[Guest]

The basic problem is that there are far too many people in the world and as time goes on all will want their cars, fridges, TV's, computers, air travel etc, all of which are made with limited life spans and these things will help cock up our planet.

We need to look at sustainable living, which includes limitation of the world's population and how much crap we are going to put into the atmosphere and how much of the limited resources we are going to use.

It doesn't matter whether we are going to a hot age or an ice age, we need to get these fundamentals sorted.

[noggin]

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080722jk.html

Have we come across Professor Kunihiko Takeda Ph.D., yet? He is Vice Chancellor of Japan's Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and has some very interesting views. Some of them are astonishingly interesting! Plenty of food for thought..........

[Kained]

The basic problem is that there are far too many people in the world and as time goes on all will want their cars, fridges, TV's, computers, air travel etc, all of which are made with limited life spans and these things will help cock up our planet.

So no one else should be allowed the benefits of modern technology, except those who already have it? Can you not see what you will become if you follow this position to it's eventual outcome?

Instead of fighting human nature, it should be nurtured, we should be going forwards as a species; yet your position will only drag us backwards.

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi again Nick B!

There is a lot of what you say I agree with. Man has been forcing 'local' environmental change for many tens of thousands of years and this sure, over time and expansion, has had a great enough impact to bring about global consequences in it's own way and focusing on CO2 maybe a tad myopic when searching for 'drivers' to drive global warming.

We have NASA telling of the impact of Asian stubble burning on the spring melt of Arctic snow. We have CO2 sequestration event after the North/South American population collapse (after meeting with Europeans) and it's probable contributory impact on the LIA. We have increased desertification of sub-Saharan Africa, The impacts of Australian 'controlled burn' land management in Northern Australia. We have the methane output from Asian Paddies and Indian Cow Burps....deforestation of U.K., the list , it appears, could be endless and includes warding off the next ice age!!!

To me ,it seems that to identify a problem area and do nothing about it because it may have 'accomplices' it driving climate change is madness. Surely if your boats sinking and you spot a hole you plug it, you don't say "beggar it ,there's more than one hole so I'll sink rather than fix them as I find them....."???? I can see from paleo,proxy and historical records that CO2 and temps have a relationship, the science tells me the properties of CO2 and I see warming occurring at a rate (I'm informed) not seen in millions of years with no other 'obvious' driver. As temps rise I think we'll see even stranger climatic occurrences as the planet strives to 'balance things out' only to fail and 'step change' to the next stage (in a very Lovelockian way).

Though we know next to nowt about the drivers involved in driving the PDO the recent two short spurt efforts at turning -ve set me to thinking. With Arctic ice pulling such a 'Lovelockian' stunt in 07' and then near repeating it in 08' (with far less 'perfect' conditions to achieve it) could the PDO (and other major oceanic drivers) be able to do a rapid 'change in it's duration/amplitude over such a short period (a 'step change' in behaviour) and could not the Arctic changes be linked with the ability for such a change to occur?

The GISS have recently re-affirmed their forcast of a strong El-Nino late in 09' and 98's global max temp record to be equalled over the next 24 months....someones truely nailing their colours to the mast!!! but why if we are trawling into a (30 to 70 year) period of Negative PDO cooling and a near Nina' equatorial Pacific. Could we be well into the -ve PDO with the two 4 year 'minis' being the low points in it's cycle???? The 1890-1920's PDO was 0.1c cooler than the '27-47' one which was 0.3 c cooler than the 60's 80's one....I see a trend developing here. So maybe warming is now such that the PDO is, in part, indistinguishable from the 'neutral phase'. So, I think that the -PDO will fluctuate a while longer but not be a 'strong' signature and this in it's turn will be over-written by the El-Nino whose signatures apparently already exists at depth (according to GISS)

[Gray-Wolf]

Whoopsie, Linky for GISS forecast

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/

[Guest]

So no one else should be allowed the benefits of modern technology, except those who already have it? Can you not see what you will become if you follow this position to it's eventual outcome?

Instead of fighting human nature, it should be nurtured, we should be going forwards as a species; yet your position will only drag us backwards.

Either I have not expressed myself too well or you did not understand properly what I said - I am not denying anybody the benefits of modern technology because eventually they will get them anyway but what I am saying is that it should be more sustainable, surely this is a way of going forwards. We don't need to have a new car every year, We do not need to have absolutely each new gadget which is being developed or invented. We do not need to keep up with the Jones all the time. In days of old when we bought something we could get it repaired when it was broken then continue to get use out of it, but now because so many objects are made in a unit, we have to throw the whole lot away even if just a small component is broken because financially it is not worth trying to repair.

I think the current economic crisis shows just how unstable the world situation is at the moment.

As for the population we are going from a current 6 billion now to about a 9 billion by the middle of the century, which is going to strain the resources of our planet even more and cause so much more pollution generally and this will eventually get us to a point where instead of advancing we will be dragged backwards because we will have used up too many of the resources - there won't be enough to go round and this will cause resentment and resentment will cause wars.

[Gray-Wolf]

Back in 94' I had a squiffy 'to-do' with a couple of pseudo jet set who were pontificating by the pool at our complex in Spetse. They were busy carving up the African/Indian mobile phone market as they foresaw the saturation point of the '1st world' market rapidly arriving (they didn't count on the technology advancing at the rate it has and our greed to have the "first on the block" of any gadget).

And so it is for all of the goods we, in the developed world, now class as 'essential' Washer,cooker,'lecy,telly,phone,car. The developing world has been exposed to them and are now aspiring to be more '1st world' in their dreams. The resource will be spent as if there are no concerns over sustainability, the planet will continue to be polluted with increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses (including the newly resurgent methane from polar melting of permafrosts) and we will not/cannot halt the process.

We will react when the dam breaks but it will be at the cost of millions of lives that we could save today by changing our ways........hohum

The couple by the pool thought the market infinite and credit limitless. When I asked what happens if someone (Banks) called in the debt on a car manufacturer I was assured 'it could never happen'..........well, I beg to differ, I did then and ,I think, I'd gain more support for my opinions today than back then. They had no concern over the prospects of climate shift or global warming or their part in driving the changes by their stock in trade or their 'apparent' personal greed for 'things' (including status!!) I hope I was not as 'close to the truth' in my predictions for 'climate shift' as I was for 'limitless credit' (I gave them 2015 as 'the date' that the world will know for sure where it was headed.....)

[Thundery wintry showers]

It shouldn't do Ian but unfortunately it does. There will always be doubt cast by involving politics for whatever reason. Afterall.... would you trust anyone who claimed to have iradicated boom and bust?

The IPCC has political roots.. This panel is linked to the closure of most of the deep coal mines in the UK despite being told that this wouldn't happen by a conservative government, a government that instigated the IPCC.. A government that realised that we were throwing money away supporting our own mines when we could be buying coal cheap from eleswhere in the world and poorer in quality.

Surely you can see why the doubt ?

The IPCC does have political roots but if you read the IPCC reports they're not politically influenced- they read more like literature reviews (where the reliability of the assertions does depend on how reliable the papers used are). The conclusions that they draw from the reports are definitely politically influenced though, as they have to get a consensus among the governments- and often the scientists don't get to publish the conclusions that they want to.

I think the above argument misses the point though- the "sceptics" on this thread seem to love involving politics and using them as an ad hominem attack on AGW (AGW is a myth because X believes in it and X wants to establish Communism type arguments). In essence, they are guilty of the same things that they claim the pro-AGW people are guilty of. I agree that it's completely healthy to be sceptical of conclusions derived by people with political agendas- and this includes pro-AGW views- but I don't agree with arguments that say a position is invalid because one person who holds it has other views that are stupid.

[Guest]

Back in 94' I had a squiffy 'to-do' with a couple of pseudo jet set who were pontificating by the pool at our complex in Spetse. They were busy carving up the African/Indian mobile phone market as they foresaw the saturation point of the '1st world' market rapidly arriving (they didn't count on the technology advancing at the rate it has and our greed to have the "first on the block" of any gadget).

And so it is for all of the goods we, in the developed world, now class as 'essential' Washer,cooker,'lecy,telly,phone,car. The developing world has been exposed to them and are now aspiring to be more '1st world' in their dreams. The resource will be spent as if there are no concerns over sustainability, the planet will continue to be polluted with increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses (including the newly resurgent methane from polar melting of permafrosts) and we will not/cannot halt the process.

We will react when the dam breaks but it will be at the cost of millions of lives that we could save today by changing our ways........hohum

The couple by the pool thought the market infinite and credit limitless. When I asked what happens if someone (Banks) called in the debt on a car manufacturer I was assured 'it could never happen'..........well, I beg to differ, I did then and ,I think, I'd gain more support for my opinions today than back then. They had no concern over the prospects of climate shift or global warming or their part in driving the changes by their stock in trade or their 'apparent' personal greed for 'things' (including status!!) I hope I was not as 'close to the truth' in my predictions for 'climate shift' as I was for 'limitless credit' (I gave them 2015 as 'the date' that the world will know for sure where it was headed.....)

I go along with that, though I am not too sure about the date of 2015 - I am just hoping that Obama might make some difference.