"WE'RE DOOMED!!!!"
Posted on 03/02/2006 8:44:40 AM PST by quantim
For the first time ever, scientists have confirmed that the Earth is melting at both ends.
They have long predicted that up in the Arctic, global warming would start to melt Greenland's 2-mile thick ice sheet, but scientists have been predicting - and hoping - that the far more massive ice sheet covering Antarctica would actually increase in the 21st century.
Yet, the scientists' new measurements find that, despite the increasing snowfall that comes with global warming, Antarctica's ice sheets are losing far more than the snow is adding:
Dr. Jay Zwally - NASA Glaciologist: "The warmer ocean comes underneath the ice shelves and melts them from the bottom, and warmer air from the top melts them from the top, so they're thinning and eventually they get to a point they go poof!"
Rising sea level is the great danger to coastal villages and cities, say scientists, if the melting speeds up past a tipping point and becomes a rapid runaway process - and that depends on global warming.
Dr. James Hansen - Director NASA Earth Sciences: "If we pass a point of no return then we're going to get large sea level rise - even though it would take a centiry or two or three to play out."
Time to invest in beach front property in the Rocky Mountains and Applichians.
Well then, ships won't need to worry 'bout icebergs any more.
Poor Archimides. I guess he lived in vain.
The melting of ice shelves will not raise the sea level one millimeter. The melting of ice caps would. It's idiotic to confuse the two, as this article does.
That's it! We're Doomed!
Ping.
"WE'RE DOOMED!!!!"
For the first time ever, scientists have confirmed that the Earth is melting at both ends.
They have long predicted that up in the Arctic, global warming would start to melt Greenland's 2-mile thick ice sheet, but scientists have been predicting - and hoping - that the far more massive ice sheet covering Antarctica would actually increase in the 21st century.
Can't we pass a law to stop this? I mean.. how can we let this earth thing do whatever it wants?
How do they get away with publishing this crap?
Where is their proof?
Why hasn't President Bush declared a State of Emergency already?
Fear, Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century
http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speeches/complexity/complexity.html
"...It’s this simplistic, cause-and-effect thinking that must go. .."
"We must embrace complexity theory."
"..[it is] Our human predisposition [to] treat all systems as linear when they are not. .."
"The science that underlies our understanding of complex systems is now thirty years old. A third of a century should be plenty of time for this knowledge and to filter down to everyday consciousness, but ... not much has penetrated ordinary human thinking. ... complexity theory has raced through the financial world. It has been briskly incorporated into medicine. But organizations that care about the environment do not seem to notice that their ministrations are deleterious in many cases. Lawmakers do not seem to notice when their laws have unexpected consequences, or make things worse. Governors and mayors and managers may manage their complex systems well or badly, but if they manage well, it is usually because they have an instinctive understanding of how to deal with complex systems. Most managers fail. .."
"...who believes that the complex system of our atmosphere behaves in such a simple and predictable way that if we reduce one component, carbon dioxide, we will therefore reliably reduce temperature? CO2 is not like an accelerator on a car. It’s not linear (and by the way, neither is a car accelerator.)
And furthermore, who believes that the climate can be stabilized when it has never been stable throughout the earth’s history?
We can only entertain such an idea if we don’t really understand what a complex system is. We’re like the blonde who returned the scarf because it was too tight. We don’t get it. .."
"If we want to manage complexity, we must eliminate fear. Fear may draw a television audience. It may generate cash for an advocacy group. It may support the legal profession. But fear paralyzes us. It freezes us. And we need to be flexible in our responses, as we move into a new era of managing complexity ..."
"Is this really the end of the world? Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods?
No, we simply live on an active planet. Earthquakes are continuous, a million and a half of them every year, or three every minute. A Richter 5 quake every six hours, a major quake every 3 weeks. A quake as destructive as the one in Pakistan every 8 months. It’s nothing new, it’s right on schedule.
At any moment there are 1,500 electrical storms on the planet. A tornado touches down every six hours. We have ninety hurricanes a year, or one every four days. Again, right on schedule. Violent, disruptive, chaotic activity is a constant feature of our globe.
Is this the end of the world? No: this is the world. It’s time we knew it." ~ Michael Crichton
I guess we better not sell the sailboat after all...
Well, they're smarter and more caring then us. You just have to believe them. They know best.
I'm afraid it's got a mind of it's own!
Go buy duct tape! Fast!
I cannot believe it has not been said yet. "Its Bush's Fault."
"Our Sun, the biggest variable in the equation, is always conviently left out of all leftist Global Warming theories."
What are you smoking?
How the heck can a ball of burning gas 1 million times the earths volume possibly affect our weather?
Fool.
[/sarc]
^^
You're missing an important aspect of this, RWP (who I esteem most highly, by the way). Ice shelves are considered to act as "brakes" on ice flow to the ocean. If the shelves collapse (as happened for Larsen B and a few other smaller ones recently), then the ice sheets may flow more rapidly to the ocean -- not a happy harbinger. I'll leave it at that for now.
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