If all of the sea ice melted ...

Discussion in 'Science' started by bricklayer, Mar 24, 2019.

  1. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Which is absolutely meaningless.

    Can this be replicated? Can it be validated? Is what is happening now never happened before without humans?

    This is why it continues to fail, but people worship it like it was a new religion.
     
  2. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Actually the government funded organization, the IPCC, paid to inform policy makers only have a few at the top that make these confidence decisions and that process is secret.
     
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  3. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Absolutely. And, we need to take that seriously when forming public policy.
     
  4. Gary/Dubya

    Gary/Dubya Well-Known Member

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    When you ask this question, you have to consider there is sea ice in the northern and southern hemispheres and as one is being reduced, the other is increasing. Therefore there has to be a big difference in the time the arctic sea ice can be removed and the southern will follow, without any arctic sea ice reforming. It's also a fact that the two hemispheres are very different, even when examined at similar times and not times like it is summer in one, while it's winter in the other.

    That said, lack of sea ice doesn't have a great effect on sea level rise by itself. Calling it melt doesn't really fully identify the cause of the reduction, such as conditions can exist to not allow sea ice to form. If you want to call it melting, so be it. By the time all the sea ice around Antarctica melted to be considered reduced or melted and sea ice in the north wasn't forming, enough melt in ice caps would have happened to really cause destruction in coastal cities. Clocking it back to only when the arctic sea ice (northern) "melted" at some point in a year, that could happen very soon with no substantial increase in sea level. Once that reflective (white) area is removed even for a short periods of time, a clock will be ticking to rapidly destroy ice and cause rapid sea level rise from Greenland ice cap loses. There would be also major influences with land masses near the area.

    Bottom line, sea ice by itself doesn't cause significant sea level rise. Most of the thick multi-year sea ice is long gone and won't be coming back. Sea ice is on the surface, because just like a ship, it displaces liquid water equal to it's weight. Melting it all doesn't add that much liquid water to be significant, but the process to melt even one hemisphere of sea ice in the north would cause large sea level rise, due to increase solar radiance by extreme changes in the albedo near the world's second largest ice cap in Greenland. Surrounding the Greenland ice cap with areas not reflecting sunlight would cause rapid sea rise level, even if it starts with a day and length of that time expands.
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2019
  5. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Amen.

    Plus, with the albedo change seas warm - and thus expand.

    And, when glaciers end in sea ice, melting the sea ice means the glaciers can move faster. The result is sea rise due to glacier ice being added at an increased rate.
     
  6. Gary/Dubya

    Gary/Dubya Well-Known Member

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    What is happening now hasn't happened before with or without humans. The Earth entered ice age cycles, when it became sensitive to Milankovitch Cycles due to the position of the continents and thermohaline circulation. The continents had already positioned themselves to make the Earth prone to ice ages, having a large land mass at one pole and an ocean nearly surrounded by land masses at the other pole. When North and South America became connected with Panama, it interrupted a circum-equatorial current that had existed for a couple hundred million years. The conditions that started the ice age cycles are unique. We don't have an example in the past of what happens when the glaciation of an ice age cycle is prevented.

    The atmospheric range of CO2 in the latest ice ages was about 120 ppm ranging from 300 ppm to 180 ppm, so in a few years we will have added an amount of CO2 equal to the ice age range.

    The people who are worshiping a new religion are the people who believe adding that much CO2 to the atmosphere doesn't produce the changes scientists believe it produces.
     
  7. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    We have never had an ice age end before?

    Ohh, and the claim about continental placement? We have had at least 5 major ice ages, and over a dozen lesser ones. And as far as geologists are aware, there has never been a continent over the North Polar region. But Antarctica, ahhh, Antarctica. It has largely rested in the same place for over 45 million years.

    That covers 2 and a half of the last major Ice Ages at least.

    So care to try again?
     
  8. Gary/Dubya

    Gary/Dubya Well-Known Member

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    There is big difference between an ice age and an ice age cycle sensitive to Milankovitch Cycles, which has only happened once.

    I said having an ocean surrounded by large amounts of land mass at the pole, like the north pole has and a continent at the pole, like Antarctica. There are other continental ways to encourage an ice age, like supercontinent along the equator, but they can't apply to us at present.

    Antarctica is very isolated, it has a both shallow and deep circumpolar currents.
     
  9. CourtJester

    CourtJester Well-Known Member

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    Except of course " progressive America" will buy the flyover country.
     
  10. CourtJester

    CourtJester Well-Known Member

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    Thinking that paving over the world and dumping hugh amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere doesn't change the world climate is just silly or perhaps ostrich head in the sand behavior.
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2019

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