Posted on 01/24/2015 7:07:43 AM PST by PROCON
The U.S. has caused more global warming than any other country. Heres how the Earth will get its revenge.
Last year, we learned what is probably the worst global warming news yet that we may have irrevocably destabilized the massive ice sheet of West Antarctica, which contains the equivalent of nearly 11 feet of sea level rise. The rate of West Antarctic ice loss has been ominously increasing, and there are fears that if too much goes, the slow and long-term process of ice sheet disintegration could accelerate.
Humans have a hard time conceiving of the incredible scale of an ice sheet, so the consequences of such a change can be lost upon us. But in a new paper in the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers Forensic Engineering, researchers Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., and John Abraham of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. summarize what we now know about West Antarctica. That includes a finding that may serve as a wake-up call for Americans in particular.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The temperature this morning has already gone up 5 degrees. If this trend continues, it’ll be blistering hot by midnight.
Blue states hardest hit!
If it comes up another 4000 feet, I’ll have me some mighty nice beach front property. Copious amounts of dihydrogen monoxide coming your way. :>}
Is it only the square of the desperation? I thought the curve broke quicker than that, on the order of cube or fourth power.
And because West Antarctica is so massive, it has a dramatic gravitational pull on the objects around it. This is Newton 101. Its really fundamental. What you might almost call high school physics, explains Jonathan Bamber, a professor of physical geography at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.
In this case, West Antarctica is so large that it pulls the global ocean toward it, which slopes upward toward the ice sheet and the Antarctic continent in general. But if West Antarctica were to lose a substantial part of its ice, then the gravitational pull would relax, and sea level would actually decrease near the ice sheet even as it spreads and increases across the global ocean.
But not evenly. Instead, areas farther from West Antarctica would get more sea level rise, and North America and the United States might get more than any other inhabited place on Earth. The water that had been held close to West Antarctica spreads out across the ocean, explains Penn State glaciologist Richard Alley, and were far enough away that we werent in the pile that was held close to West Antarctica when the ice sheet was there and its gravity attracted the water to make the pile, but
Now that is some convoluted Sh!t right there.
In 2005 Mooney’s first book, The Republican War on Science, was released. The book explored the premise that the presidential administration of George W. Bush regularly distorted and/or suppressed scientific research to further its own political aims. His most recent book is The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Scienceand Reality.
Mooney is presently a correspondent for The Climate Desk magazine and for Mother Jones. In October 2014 the Washington Post announced that Mooney would begin writing a new, environmentally focused blog for the paper.
Hey, all that ice and snow is WHITE!
There’s roughly 33 million cubic kilometes of ice on the polar ice caps, most of it in Antarctica. The world’s oceans cover 361 million square kilometers. If all the ice on the polar caps melted it would increase sea level by something like 361/33 = 0.09 kilometers ~ 300 feet, to one significant figure.
The polar ice caps are not going to completely melt, regardless of what you read in the Washington Post. There is plenty of potential for disaster, but most serious oceanographers admit that there is only potential, actual evidence of imminent disaster is lacking. (And who, really, would count it as a disaster if Washington, Boston, ... okay, don’t go there.)
It’s gonna rise another million feet!!! ;)
Wait. What? I thought the million number thing was what algore said the core of the erf was temp wise.
University of St Thomas is in Minnesota. Kool Aid drinking is mandatory there.
Humans have a hard time conceiving ! The most truthful part of this dribble.
West Antarctica is so much more “massive” than the molten rock/metal core of the planet, that it causes the ocean to pool up around it more than any other place on earth?
If this were so, the planet would have slung itself apart eons ago. But, I dont have PhD (Piled high and DEEP) from Bouler, Co.
Its called the “center of gravity” for a reason and any given body in space can only have one.
Another thing that the alarmists choose to ignore is the amount of water saturated in the crust of the earth and how much more it can absorb.
Some scientists theorize that even if all the ice were gone, the sea level would settle back to within a few feet of where it is today. They point to the fact that the land to water ratio was really no different during the hot periods and today. Some modern seabeds were dry land and some modern dry land were sea beds but the mean sea levels were never really much higher. Basically, they say we’re pretty close to the max possible sea level now given the amount of water available.
Isn't it odd that global warming can only cause bad things to happen? Dead polar bears, broiling heat, boiling oceans, cities underwater. If it even existed, it is a natural force; it is not sentient. Wouldn't global warming be a least responsible for one or two good things by accident? Milder Winter perhaps, or an early Spring?
How can it be evil personified as presented by the MSM? It can only be so because the writers and so called scientists have an underlying hated of man, and ultimately themselves. When they say they want to stop global warming, what they are saying is they want to stop man.
This is why we must listen to this guy!!!!
Idiot.
But then I realized I made the mistake first of calling this out.
The. Facts. Are. Irrelevant.
The Issue is NOT The Issue.
The Issue is the Revolution.
What can be done to advice the cause of The Socialist Revolution.
I guess they never watched an episode of deadliest catch where the ice cap can grow seven miles in 24 hours
So we have done more than anyone else to extend growing seasons and make the planet more habitable. Where’s the “thank you”?
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