Global Warming

[Bo D]

http://www.grit.com/daily-commute/Farmers-Almanac-Offers-Frigid-2010-Forecast.aspx

Yessirree!!!!!! Now THERE'S a well respected Scientific Journal! 

[Sandy Eggo]

Oh well, thanks to our highly qualified forum scientists with unparalleled discernment, objectivity and scientific knowledge it's all clear to me now; global warming IS a hoax.

[Henry Hawk]

Oh well, thanks to our highly qualified forum scientists with unparalleled discernment, objectivity and scientific knowledge it's all clear to me now; global warming IS a hoax.

Okay, you are right, we just wont discuss it any further...you win.

Is that what you want?

[Sandy Eggo]

It's kind of disingenuous to claim that you want to "discuss" it. Discussion implies that you actually have an intention of being objective. Based on my history of posting with you, you have no such intention, so why bother?

Had you simply said, "I want to beat you over the head with my theories on the subject because I have no intention of considering anything other than what I want to believe regardless of what the facts say, but I enjoy watching you all work so hard trying to have a valid discussion", then I would have bought it.

[Henry Hawk]

It's kind of disingenuous to claim that you want to "discuss" it. Discussion implies that you actually have an intention of being objective. Based on my history of posting with you, you have no such intention, so why bother?

Had you simply said, "I want to beat you over the head with my theories on the subject because I have no intention of considering anything other than what I want to believe regardless of what the facts say, but I enjoy watching you all work so hard trying to have a valid discussion", then I would have bought it.

and just because what YOU deem as "emperical" evidence...you just assume that everyone is okay with that....I have posted several links that has clearly indicated that some scientific therories just MIGHT have a few flaws in them....but, honesly, I have nothing to gain here...except let you show off in front of your buddies with wise cracks....that is okay though, I choose to stay here and take your abuse....and Oh, I see you contribute much to the cause with your highly credible posts from the Onion or the Huffington post...

it is all good though...

[Sandy Eggo]

You get abused b/c you set yourself up. I submit that the source doean't matter to you. It could be a source of the highest authority and you'd say, "That doesn't prove anything" and follow up with "because I believe". You've done it countless times. In fact, you even went as far as saying that you get your information from YOUR observations and "common sense". Surely I don't have to tell you how skewed your information is when you disregard anything that doesn't parrot what you'd like to believe. You're not inquisitive and the empirical evidence is contained w/in your posts in this form.   

[Palehorse]

Fry baby, fry!

[The Troll]

Fry baby, fry!

  Global Warming.  I thought and thought about it and I decided that nothing really big is going to happen for at least 30 years.  Well, that would make me 103 years old and I don't think I'm going to have to worry about it.

  I going to leave it up to the Pro's.  The Democrats want to do something about it and the Republicans want to set on their asses and do nothing.

  It's just like World War II, the Republicans did not want to go to war against Germany until it was almost to late and Germany controlled Europe and we were poorly armed.  The more things change, the more things stay the same.

[Palehorse]

  Global Warming.  I thought and thought about it and I decided that nothing really big is going to happen for at least 30 years.  Well, that would make me 103 years old and I don't think I'm going to have to worry about it.

  I going to leave it up to the Pro's.  The Democrats want to do something about it and the Republicans want to set on their asses and do nothing.

  It's just like World War II, the Republicans did not want to go to war against Germany until it was almost to late and Germany controlled Europe and we were poorly armed.  The more things change, the more things stay the same.

You are probably right about it really not having any impact whatsoever upon most of us reading this. . .But then again it is not myself I am worried about. Truth be known, if my death would reverse the trending I would gladly submit to it in order to assure the future of my grandchildren and great grandchildren. But it will not, so instead I must attempt to enlighten those who would be enlightened, and hopefully create a baste for those who are determined to fry. . .

[The Troll]

You are probably right about it really not having any impact whatsoever upon most of us reading this. . .But then again it is not myself I am worried about. Truth be known, if my death would reverse the trending I would gladly submit to it in order to assure the future of my grandchildren and great grandchildren. But it will not, so instead I must attempt to enlighten those who would be enlightened, and hopefully create a baste for those who are determined to fry. . .

  I have one son and he's 47 and no grandchildren.  So I won't have have anything is this fight.  Good luck, but you know your fighting the super rich predatory capitalist who worship only the dollar.  It will be a tough fight.

[Palehorse]

  I have one son and he's 47 and no grandchildren.  So I won't have have anything is this fight.  Good luck, but you know your fighting the super rich predatory capitalist who worship only the dollar.  It will be a tough fight.

So. . . what else are we doing?

[The Troll]

So. . . what else are we doing?

  One thing would really help.  All Democrats and all middle class and poor people should vote out and against all Republicans candidates.  If there was an evil empire, it's the Republican Party.  No kidding, that's how I really feel.  They're totally evil.

[Henry Hawk]

You are probably right about it really not having any impact whatsoever upon most of us reading this. . .But then again it is not myself I am worried about. Truth be known, if my death would reverse the trending I would gladly submit to it in order to assure the future of my grandchildren and great grandchildren. But it will not, so instead I must attempt to enlighten those who would be enlightened, and hopefully create a baste for those who are determined to fry. . .

Again, for the zillionth time....who said we are not in favor of making this a better, cleaner earth?....we just don't buy in the garbage that IF we don't figure out a way to keep cows from farting or if we don't all start driving toy cars we are going to die...it appears to me that the left wants to destroy economys because you think that the ocean is going to drown us all if we don't....it is a knee jerk reaction to some hypothetical stories....we got to find common ground and quit the politics of this.....and yet there are those on the left who act as this is not about politics, and that is the farthest from the truth.

[Palehorse]

(CNN) -- A massive ice island four times the size of Manhattan that broke off the Petermann Glacier early last month has split in two.
Satellite images show that the ice island broke in two after repeatedly smashing into Joe Island, a small rocky outcrop in the Nares Strait, west of Greenland.
"In the satellite imagery, you can hardly see the island because it's so much smaller than the ice island, but it's there; it's a piece of rock," said Andreas Muenchow, an associate professor at the University of Delaware.
The ice island hit Joe Island last week, and since then, combined forces of ocean currents and strong winds have weakened its structure.
"The forces of the ocean currents and the winds wiggling it on and off the island were too much," Muenchow said.
The largest piece is approximately 152 square kilometers in diameter, or around 2.5 times the size of the New York borough of Manhattan, while the smaller piece is around 84 square kilometers, he said.
The exciting stuff as far as we are concerned is trying to understand the physics of the piece intact.
The ice island made headlines in early August, when it split from the Petermann Glacier, before moving up the Petermann Fjord and then into the Nares Strait in early September.
It was the biggest break-off in 140 years, according to Muenchow, whose team consulted the earliest known reports about the glacier.
"We went back to 1876 to find all glacier positions that have ever been reported. From this analysis, we found that this indeed was the largest event that has been observed at Petermann, but that the trend of area lost by this glacier over the last 140 years is indistinguishable from zero," Muenchow said.
He and international teams spanning at least nine time zones have been tracking the ice island hourly since it broke off from the main glacier. Muenchow predicts the main pieces will be found off the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador in two to three years' time.
While the floating ice island has captured the public's imagination, he says, scientists are more interested in what its departure means for the glacier left behind.
"The exciting stuff as far as we are concerned is trying to understand the physics of the piece intact," Muenchow says. "As far as I'm concerned, the piece that has broken off has gone."
He said it is still unclear how the Petermann Glacier will react after losing such a large proportion of its mass.
"Because you're changing the balance of forces by removing a large piece, what will happen next is that it will probably start moving forward faster than it has been before because it has to find a new equilibrium."
By studying NASA satellite images, his team has determined that Petermann Glacier has been moving forward and backward in 20- to 30-year cycles. What is not clear how much global warming has contributed to its melting and movement, and how much is attributable to the cycle observed.
"Ice that is floating that is in contact with the ocean. If you melt that from below, faster, then it's getting thinner. As it's getting thinner it keeps flowing faster so it's using more mass, and that mass is being replaced by ice that's sitting on Greenland, that's sitting on land. That's where the main worry is, that you get an accelerated rate of upstream ice that's sitting on land out into the ocean."
Greenland is known to have been losing mass over the past 10 to 20 years.
In testimony to the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming last month, Richard Alley, professor of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, said the ice loss was due to "a warming world."
"Greenland is losing mass at an accelerated rate and that appears to be because it's melting more on top from warmer air, and it is dumping more icebergs into the ocean from warmer water as well as warmer air," he said.
To try to understand what may happen in future, Muenchow is delving further into the past. He is trying to secure access to classified spy satellites which may provide more clues to the movement of the ice.
"Right now I'm looking at the data already has been declassified and I'm hoping that there are people within governments that make decisions or have decision making powers on what data to declassify that they will consider declassifying imagery to further our understanding of climate change."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/09/10/petermann.ice.island/index.html?hpt=T2

[dan foster]

(CNN) -- A massive ice island four times the size of Manhattan that broke off the Petermann Glacier early last month has split in two.
Satellite images show that the ice island broke in two after repeatedly smashing into Joe Island, a small rocky outcrop in the Nares Strait, west of Greenland.
"In the satellite imagery, you can hardly see the island because it's so much smaller than the ice island, but it's there; it's a piece of rock," said Andreas Muenchow, an associate professor at the University of Delaware.
The ice island hit Joe Island last week, and since then, combined forces of ocean currents and strong winds have weakened its structure.
"The forces of the ocean currents and the winds wiggling it on and off the island were too much," Muenchow said.
The largest piece is approximately 152 square kilometers in diameter, or around 2.5 times the size of the New York borough of Manhattan, while the smaller piece is around 84 square kilometers, he said.
The exciting stuff as far as we are concerned is trying to understand the physics of the piece intact.
The ice island made headlines in early August, when it split from the Petermann Glacier, before moving up the Petermann Fjord and then into the Nares Strait in early September.
It was the biggest break-off in 140 years, according to Muenchow, whose team consulted the earliest known reports about the glacier.
"We went back to 1876 to find all glacier positions that have ever been reported. From this analysis, we found that this indeed was the largest event that has been observed at Petermann, but that the trend of area lost by this glacier over the last 140 years is indistinguishable from zero," Muenchow said.
He and international teams spanning at least nine time zones have been tracking the ice island hourly since it broke off from the main glacier. Muenchow predicts the main pieces will be found off the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador in two to three years' time.
While the floating ice island has captured the public's imagination, he says, scientists are more interested in what its departure means for the glacier left behind.
"The exciting stuff as far as we are concerned is trying to understand the physics of the piece intact," Muenchow says. "As far as I'm concerned, the piece that has broken off has gone."
He said it is still unclear how the Petermann Glacier will react after losing such a large proportion of its mass.
"Because you're changing the balance of forces by removing a large piece, what will happen next is that it will probably start moving forward faster than it has been before because it has to find a new equilibrium."
By studying NASA satellite images, his team has determined that Petermann Glacier has been moving forward and backward in 20- to 30-year cycles. What is not clear how much global warming has contributed to its melting and movement, and how much is attributable to the cycle observed.
"Ice that is floating that is in contact with the ocean. If you melt that from below, faster, then it's getting thinner. As it's getting thinner it keeps flowing faster so it's using more mass, and that mass is being replaced by ice that's sitting on Greenland, that's sitting on land. That's where the main worry is, that you get an accelerated rate of upstream ice that's sitting on land out into the ocean."
Greenland is known to have been losing mass over the past 10 to 20 years.
In testimony to the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming last month, Richard Alley, professor of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, said the ice loss was due to "a warming world."
"Greenland is losing mass at an accelerated rate and that appears to be because it's melting more on top from warmer air, and it is dumping more icebergs into the ocean from warmer water as well as warmer air," he said.
To try to understand what may happen in future, Muenchow is delving further into the past. He is trying to secure access to classified spy satellites which may provide more clues to the movement of the ice.
"Right now I'm looking at the data already has been declassified and I'm hoping that there are people within governments that make decisions or have decision making powers on what data to declassify that they will consider declassifying imagery to further our understanding of climate change."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/09/10/petermann.ice.island/index.html?hpt=T2

We are, pretty much fucked.  If the growing temperature doesn't send us into a spiraling global war over water, food, etc, the glacial dump of greenland, et al, icesheets into the Atlantic basin will cause the global heat conveyor of the ocean currents to stop and drop us into a deep freeze.  The next 5-10 years of unchecked heat increase will raise the sea leve from 20 - 200 feet, depending on what goes first (greenland, Antarctica, et al), or a sudden dump of greenland could shoot cause most of the coastal inhabitants to die, quickly.  So, yep, we are pretty much fucked.  Will we stop it?  No.