Bush ok's Gulf of Mexico Drilling

[Bill51]

Pardon me for jumping the gun with the political comment.

Still no word about the credibility of junk science..

How about this... Are these glaciers getting any thicker?

According to studies by NASA and the International Glaciological Society the total global ice cap and glacial ice loss from 1992 through 2002 was on the order of 20 billion tons, so yes there has been a loss in ice cover in the past decade just as there has been every decade since 1854. To put that loss for a decade in perspective, that is about equal to the water consumed by businesses, homes, and farms in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia every year. Now to relate that to sea level changes, it amounts to about 2% of the sea level fluctuations during the corresponding time period. Yes, sea level is rising, but melting ice is not the big reason and remember that north pole ice expansion and retreats don’t impact sea level. It does no good to cherry pick locations with increasing or decreasing ice packs to make a point when it must be looked at globally to know whether the increases are keeping up with the decreases and to what extent actual change is taking place. Only when one looks at the global change can one accurately forecast global impact or use that data to validate or refute predictive models.

 

[H2Andy]

Yes, sea level is rising, but melting ice is not the big reason

who said it was?

the point is, average temperatures are rising alarmingly, leading to loss of polar ice and glaciers ...

global warming is here (go ask the Australians if you have any doubt)

 

[lamont]

While there is some evidence that increasing CO2 levels may be warming the planet, there’s as much evidence that a warming planet increases CO2 levels, so no one has an exclusive truth in this debate.

That'd be a good argument but for the fact that CO2 is provably a greenhouse gas. Ignorance of basic science does not win you this debate.

 

[lamont]

who said it was?

the point is, average temperatures are rising alarmingly, leading to loss of polar ice and glaciers ...

global warming is here (go ask the Australians if you have any doubt)

And all of Alaska, and all of Siberia. The cherry picking of locations is not being done by those who are arguing that global warming is occuring.

 

[micks]

According to studies by NASA and the International Glaciological Society the total global ice cap and glacial ice loss from 1992 through 2002 was on the order of 20 billion tons, so yes there has been a loss in ice cover in the past decade just as there has been every decade since 1854. To put that loss for a decade in perspective, that is about equal to the water consumed by businesses, homes, and farms in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia every year. Now to relate that to sea level changes, it amounts to about 2% of the sea level fluctuations during the corresponding time period. Yes, sea level is rising, but melting ice is not the big reason and remember that north pole ice expansion and retreats don’t impact sea level. It does no good to cherry pick locations with increasing or decreasing ice packs to make a point when it must be looked at globally to know whether the increases are keeping up with the decreases and to what extent actual change is taking place. Only when one looks at the global change can one accurately forecast global impact or use that data to validate or refute predictive models.

Granted, the rise and fall of water levels are not mainly due to the the ice caps. There are many other sources, everything that happens has a cause. But it is largely attributed to global warming.

Exhibit 1: Water temperature

The volume of water depends on the temperature, as it gets warmer, it increases and vice versa.

Exhibit 2: Water that was once on land

Due to evaporation of lakes/rivers/etc (refer to Lake Chad) and the shifting of glaciers, etc.. All that displaced water went into the ocean.


Of course, whatever happens in the future and how much time we have is all purely speculation and a calculation based on what is happening right now. But I sure as hell hope that nothing castatrophic will happen and that we will care for the planet regardless of whether global warming is fact or fiction.

 

[micks]

who said it was?

the point is, average temperatures are rising alarmingly, leading to loss of polar ice and glaciers ...

global warming is here (go ask the Australians if you have any doubt)

Oh yeah.. not to mention another global warming topic also widely visible by the masses of us.. coral bleaching..

 

[Bill51]

That'd be a good argument but for the fact that CO2 is provably a greenhouse gas. Ignorance of basic science does not win you this debate.

Once again I see a great thread going totally off topic and being closed by one of the chosen few with the 10 Commandments of science handed down proving their version of the truth and science is the whole truth and all who disagree are intellectually inferior.

CO2 is provably released from permafrost and the oceans by global warming too.

Good bye!

 

[FredT]

The WHOLE point is that "global warming" has been going on for at least 20,000 years with a few minor peaks and valleys. What tripped it to the current conditions was the inundation of the Bearing Sea and the breakup of the arctic ice dam. Based on geologic history we are about 90% to the top of the recent historic water level. We have about another 20 to 30 ft to go before we top out. For that to happen the Antarctic will have to come fully into play and significant amounts grounded ice will have to move rapidly out to sea, as it has done many times in the past. We're not talking the little movements Al is crying about, but thousands to tens of thousands of cubic miles of water in ice form moving from grounded glacier ice to floating sea ice. Shallow benthic shelves are the remains of drowned beaches, which means the sea level rose rapidly enough not to erase the old beach as a new one was created. These shelves can be found worldwide in stable tectonic areas at correlating depth steps of about 10 meters. Once the antarctic ice sheet has expanded the global heat budget changes enough to cause some cooling. Historically this cooling has allowed the sheet to stabilize and the slow warming trend to begin again.

20,000 years ago you could WALK on every reef you've ever dove, if you could get through the grass and bushes growing on it. This is assuming you missed seeing a pack of dire wolves, or better yet THEY missed seeing or smelling you!

Is CO2 helping to cause the warming? Probably. Are western civilizations burning fossil fuels the source of all of the CO2 and other greenhouse gases in play? Not even close. Is CO2 even the major cause of the warming? Not enough data to say so or not, but the data tends to lean to not at this time. A single major volcanic eruption or forest fire tosses enough CO and CO2 into the atmosphere to match the US annual output. The US isn't even in the top ten of total CO2 emission countries. We only get on the list when the "per person" thing is thrown in the mix.

This is a GLOBAL system working on long time scales. Anything short of a million years of track record is a bit shortsighted.

FT

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

2nd MOD POST​

PLEASE KEEP THIS CIVIL. THIS IS THE SECOND TIME I HAVE HAD TO COME IN HERE AND CLEAN UP INSULTS. THIS IS A SCUBA DIVING BOARD. NOT A POLITICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL BOARD. IF YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THESE TOPICS, KEEP IT CIVIL. NEXT TIME THREAD GETS CLOSED.

END MOD POST​

 

[H2Andy]

is that the new policy on threads? two cleanups and then they get closed?