Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 09/07/2009 8:24:00 PM PDT by neverdem
The argument that the Arctic ice could melt and sea levels is a trap and should be avoided. Arctic ice is in the water and therefore already displacing water, so it would not raise sea levels if it melted. However, if the Arctic ice melted, then the glaciers on Greenland and Antarctica would also melt. These are land based and would raise the level of the ocean.
He is correct about the freezes. The ice melts in the summer and freezes in the winter. Henry Hudson could not sail around northern Canada if it was covered by ice. The climate change argument omits this fact, as well as many others. But the melt effect is correct, if misapplied to the Arctic ice. It’s much better to note that the ice melted because it was summer, and then to show images of the ice during the winter when the Arctic Ocean froze up again. This has the effect of showing that the climate change crowd is not just wrong, but hopelessly ignorant of things like summer and winter.
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Actually, your theory hits the mark pretty well (and is not unknown). It’s a well known fact that particulates in the atmosphere prevent some sunlight from hitting the earth, thereby reducing temperatures.
I believe that England used to have far colder winters during the industrial revolution than it does now, because of all the pollution from burning coal back then.
Man is part of the environment....Deal with it, envirowhackos!
Why is taking humans out of the equation considered “Natural”?
If my math is right, it would cover the surface of the earth 1.3 times.
Here’s the latest. It looks like with just a week or so more of melting in the Arctic, the Northwest Passage will not be open this year. http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/daily.html
Notice that Antarctica is above average and still has a slight chance to set the record for MOST ice since records began in 1979.
That’s probably a bad road to travel. I estimated what would happen if Greenland thawed. It would raise sea levels about two feet. This estimate is somewhere on Free Republic. I did not include Anarctica, or other significant glaciers which would be expected to melt if Greenland’s glaciers thawed.
Of course, that ignores the result of the thaw. Greenland, Antarctica, much of Alaska, and significant parts of Europe and Asia would become habitable. The proposition that the atmosphere would contain more water is the idea behind the belief that so called global warming would cause more cyclones and other weather events associated with severe storms, like tornadoes.
The past few years have shown dramatic declines in the number and force of tropical cyclones, which put the lie to one of the “climate change” clown act’s most significant arguments. It is also noteworthy that Greenland, Alaska, Antarctica, the Alps, Siberia, and the Himalayas are not near any tropical cyclone threat zones, so if there was “climate change,” those might be nice places to live.
How about covering the entire surface area of the US about 18 bills deep....:^)
(/nerd mode)
On the other hand, by those particulates blocking sunlight, the particles themselves would be warmed which would, in turn, warm the atmosphere. (While I haven't seen any published data on this, I'd suspect that the two effects would offset each other, at least to some extent.)
.........It’s a well known fact that particulates in the atmosphere prevent some sunlight from hitting the earth, thereby reducing temperatures.
On the other hand, by those particulates blocking sunlight, the particles themselves would be warmed which would, in turn, warm the atmosphere. (While I haven’t seen any published data on this, I’d suspect that the two effects would offset each other, at least to some extent.)...................
However, remember the 1800’s yearless summer, after
Krakatoa (sp) blasted off, spewing billions of pounds of particulates in the air, creating a year of winter for the entire planet for 16 months.
Western mankind’s technology has greatly reduced the particulates in the air. I believe that this enables more sun energy to hit the surface, creating warmth.
Not carbon dioxide problems, as all the pre-historic to last century charts indicate that carbon dioxide builds in the atmosphere - after - an increase in surface temperature.
A cause and effect, not an effect and cause!
God makes the wise, fools.
I am patiently waiting for “MAN MADE” global warming sycophants to explain to me how did the last global warming 12,000 years ago happen and melt the ice age out of existence?
Those concerned about raising sea levels due to global warming are thinking about the Greenland ice sheet, which is massive enough to significantly raise sea level if it were to melt. It would take an enormous amount of energy to melt this glacier. It would be interesting to have some uncorrupted science evaluating this threat. But not in this world. It may be that the risk and damage from an asteroid strike is more significant - and treasure spent on deflecting this threat more beneficial.
I think, in that case, the high level particles would just radiate the heat back out to space. I’ve never seen particulate matter proposed as a means of holding heat in the atmosphere.
Every theory dealing with atmospheric particles assigns them a cooling effect. One of the widely accepted theories of the extinction of the dinosaurs, for instance, posits that an asteroid hitting the earth kicked up a huge cloud of dust, which went high into the atmosphere, blocking enough sunlight that it was too cold for plants to grow and the dinosaurs starved. Back in the 80s, the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo put dust high in the atmosphere, resulting in an unusually cool summer. In the 1800s, atmospheric dust from volcanic eruptions cooled the planet so much that there was summertime snow in New England, and people could not grow food.
The truth is the ice pack is getting larger NOT smaller.
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