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#1 | |
The future is unwritten
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
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Global Warming?
The ESA, European Space Agency, just released theresults of an 11 year study on the thickness of the ice sheets in Greenland.
While the edges of the sheets have been thinning was well known, the great interior was a mystery until now. Quote:
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The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
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#2 |
Radical Centrist
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cottage of Prussia
Posts: 31,423
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![]() I should save it for an IotD, but no. |
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#3 |
still eats dirt
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Tampa, FL
Posts: 3,031
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with a net increase of 6.4 centimetres per year
Oh, good, we have nothing to worry about, then. I'm going to burn some coal to celebrate. |
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#4 |
Guest
Posts: n/a
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Try reading the entire article, people:
The team, led by Professor Ola M. Johannessen of NERSC, ascribe this interior growth of the Greenland Ice Sheet to increased snowfall linked to variability in regional atmospheric circulation known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). First discovered in the 1920s, the NAO acts in a similar way to the El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific, contributing to climate fluctuations across the North Atlantic and Europe... Professor Johannessen commented: "This strong negative correlation between winter elevation changes and the NAO index, suggests an underappreciated role of the winter season and the NAO for elevation changes – a wildcard in Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance scenarios under global warming." He cautioned that the recent growth found by the radar altimetry survey does not necessarily reflect a long-term or future trend. With natural variability in the high-latitude climate cycle that includes the NAO being very large, even an 11-year long dataset remains short. Modelling studies of the Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance under greenhouse global warming have shown that temperature increases up to about 3ºC lead to positive mass balance changes at high elevations – due to snow accumulation – and negative at low elevations – due to snow melt exceeding accumulation. Such models agree with the new observational results. However after that threshold is reached, potentially within the next hundred years, losses from melting would exceed accumulation from increases in snowfall – then the meltdown of the Greenland Ice Sheet would be on |
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#5 |
The urban Jane Goodall
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Florida
Posts: 3,012
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And we still don't have enough accumulated data to build a good long term trend model.
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I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. - Aristotle |
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#6 |
Pump my ride!
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Deep countryside of Surrey , England
Posts: 1,890
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So, presumably, as more peripheral ice melts, then the ocean waters rise which means that the highest parts of the cap are lower, so there is more land below 1500 feet above sea level, which in turn then means that the ice build up is less and possibly even negative (i.e the build-up becomes a draw-down...) - is that right?
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Always sufficient hills - never sufficient gears |
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#7 | |
go ahead, abbrev. it
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Posts: 2,623
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Quote:
eustatic sea-level changes The deal with global warming is that precipitation patterns can change -- some areas will get more, some less. Some of that will be snow. |
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#8 |
Guest
Posts: n/a
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One thing that happens is that the melting of ice in the areas below 1500 feet makes more free water vapor available in the atmosphere. This has the paradoxical effect of causing snowfall amounts to be greater. However, the warmer temperatures also mean that the snow is more likely to melt off the next spring. If this pattern continues long enough the glacial ice caps will begin a permanent retreat.
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#9 | |
still says videotape
Join Date: Feb 2001
Posts: 26,813
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Quote:
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If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. - Louis D. Brandeis |
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#10 |
Guest
Posts: n/a
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Temporary for the next 10,000 years give or take. When I used the word "permanent" that's what I meant - a few thousand years. I figured I'd get called on it, and, sure enough. Sharp crowd around here. First place honors to Griff!
The earth's climate has always undergone natural oscillations. Man's contribution to these oscillations have made the study of chaos theory a fine art. |
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#11 | |
The future is unwritten
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
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From barefoot serpent's link
Quote:
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The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
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