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57 Comments
- electromud, on 05/11/2009, -1/+14because the glaciers are huge slabs of ice sitting on top of land
when they melt it adds water that was previously frozen on top of land to the sea - DWatch, on 05/11/2009, -1/+8Water doesn't expand when it cools, it expands when it freezes, but only slightly. That is really besides the point, anyway. They are not talking about ice floating around in the oceans, they are talking about glaciers, which are giant masses of ice built up over centuries, perhaps even eons, on land, which are now melting away. In other words, water that was once captured on land in solid form is now turning to liquid and finding its way via gravity to the ocean, resulting in more water overall in the oceans. This results in sea level rise. However, the sea level rise isn't the biggest impact of global warming, despite the hype in the media.. the biggest problem is that without ice cold polar caps at the north pole, water in the ocean flowing towards the pole doesn't get cooled off, and doesn't take on oxygen (since cold water absorbs more oxygen than warm water) and doesn't sink into the depths of the sea (cold water sinks, warm water rises), thereby drawing more warm water from the equator towards the poles, producing an ocean current. They call this current the 'oceanic conveyor belt'.
Parts of the conveyor belt shut down for 10 days in 2004. The impact of the loss of this current could mean another ice age at the worst, and even if its the best possible case, you have massive ocean stagnation, where the oxygen levels in the seas drop, and a lot of marine life is killed off. Its happened before, though from thousands of years of volcano activity pumping CO2 into the air. This is believed to be where petroleum source rock comes from.... the bottom of a stagnant oxygen deprived ocean, where microscopic plant life falls to the bottom of the ocean, and since there is no oxygen, it can't decay normally or get eaten, it just sits there, becoming an oily shale build up.
Also there is some concern about all the fresh water dumping into the normally salty seas. Altering the salinity of the oceans can also have an impact on the conveyor, as well as marine life.
Simply put, world wide ice melt is bad. - scamper22, on 05/11/2009, -1/+7Here's your answer:
melting Arctic ice = no change in sea levels.
However when the ice is not on the water. For example, it is frozen on the land and then it melts and flows into the ocean... now there is more water in the ocean = rise. - JaseFace, on 05/11/2009, -5/+10The governments of the world are deliberately melting the glaciers in the alps so they can raise taxes! /s
- fourty_two, on 05/11/2009, -3/+8I think it is because most of the ice is/was above sea level.
- thisismydigg, on 05/11/2009, -0/+4wow shrinking glaciers can draw better than me
- neozeed, on 05/11/2009, -2/+6How is it surprising that Earth is dynamic? ZOMG it changes from time to time! give me a break. More silly fearmongering. And HELL NO to paying money to Blood & Gore.
- dododohead, on 05/11/2009, -1/+5i think people are worrying more about falling banks than falling glaciers these days.
whenever something important builds momentum someone breaks something else. brb giving wall street its baby bottle and blanket. - ChewyGUI, on 05/10/2009, -13/+17Good thing this whole global warming stuff isn't real, right?
- twiztidsinz, on 05/11/2009, -4/+7@failtrain: So now you WANT us to change the climate?
The earth goes through periods of warming and cooling on tiny scales (Day -> Night), small scales (Spring -> Summer -> Fall -> Winter) and large scales (simply put, Ice age... not Ice Age...). Look up Milankovitch cycles.
Most of the temperature graphs I've seen show an over all cooling trend (the current 'warming' effect that we are on seems to be correcting from a cold spike).
I'm not a scientist nor do I claim to be, I just make my own judgments based on what I've seen. - jmones, on 05/11/2009, -0/+3Maps or it didnt happen.
- inactive, on 05/11/2009, -7/+10Global warming is just another hoax, just like Y2K and the global freezing claims in the 1960's and 70's were.
Global warming is being used to generate fear and panic.
Those behind this movement are using it to control people's lives and for financial gain. - failtrain, on 05/11/2009, -8/+11Who cares who is to blame? The problem is there and we need to fix it, or at least delay it long enough so we can make technology that can sustain us in the aftermath.
- cyberdork, on 05/11/2009, -1/+4"Many of the global warming deniers are so called highly educated people."
Uhh.. funny, I work at a leading research institute and I never met even one global denier here.
My experience is that people deny global warming because of their political beliefs and not their scientific understanding of the situation. - inactive, on 05/11/2009, -1/+4What?
- inactive, on 05/11/2009, -0/+3What mrboobsman is saying is this:
China and India refuse to be part of any scaling back of their economies aimed at reducing carbon emissions. If the US and Europe do scale back, what that will do is force industry and jobs to the areas that are NOT restricted. China & India.
So China and India will prosper if we voluntarily handcuff ourselves. And they'll be laughing in Hummers while we're peddling our asses of riding bikes in the snow. - inactive, on 09/13/2009, -0/+2Are extreme sports big over there?
- fury420, on 05/11/2009, -3/+5wait... global warming deniers are atheist? seriously?
funny, it always seems to be coming from conservative/right wing crazies - hereticoftruth, on 05/11/2009, -0/+2Any time more useful land becomes available there will be a land grab for it's resources. They are already preparing to divide up the Arctic ocean floor and preparing to divide the Antarctic resources as well. Lucky Denmark if someone doesn't just take it from them in a primitively Capitalistic way.
- mlbdenver, on 05/11/2009, -0/+2@bobby
It's no surprise that he's being dugg up. There are a lot of people out there who are in complete denial about the truth of a lot of things. It's an unfortunate side-effect of democracy. People have the inalienable right to speak their mind, even when they're full of sh!t. - twiztidsinz, on 05/11/2009, -0/+2I realize you're just trolling, but..
Scandinavia isn't a country. - Mike17102, on 05/11/2009, -2/+4You arnt allowed to have doubts! THE GORACLE HAS SPOKEN! Keep your skepticism and good science to yourself, they have no place on Digg. This is only a site for true believers.
I was always hoping one of the diggiots would be able to tell me why the other planets in our solar system are getting warmer too (and see how they could twist that to be our fault too), but so far no luck. - slvrbullet87, on 05/11/2009, -4/+6So because of global warming an imaginary line needs to be redrawn? If a glacier melts there should be no reason to change national borders, this is Italy land grabbing
- assr, on 05/11/2009, -2/+4First off, try this link for more on the glaciers: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119258265537661384 ...
"But local changes vary considerably from that increase."
That is not true.
Yes local temperatures vary, sure, but not because of global warming. And if local temperatures varied so much that glacier would have melted (and maybe refrozen, if it was left, and didn't run off) many many times over the years.
"In this case the temperature increase for that region was significantly higher than a paltry 0.5C."
And I assume you know this by either measuring or reading it somewhere? Or perhaps you just made it up? Because I did do some reading about it (and gave you the link above), and no, the temperature did NOT go up. What changed was more sun - and they know that because the pattern of the melting matched where the sun shines, and not where the temperature changed.
What is it about global warming that makes people so desperate to believe in it that they'll ignore anything, and make up anything, just to justify it? - DrWordSmith, on 05/11/2009, -1/+2Sigh.. surrounding earth is a vacuum which is a pretty damn good insulator. Heat can be transfered by conduction, convection and radiation. The only way heat can escape the earth is by radiation.
Before humans started burning fossil fuels, there was a simple balance of heat hitting the earth, heat generated by radioactive decay within the crust, and the heat being radiated back into outer space.
Burning fossil fuels produces excess heat. However that is not what is the main cause of the globe warming. The additional CO2 released acts to make our sky opaque to infrared rays (heat rays) leaving our planet. If that was all there was too it, the earth could perhaps cope with it. More CO2 would cause more plants to grow which would suck the CO2 right back out of the atmosphere.
Unfortunately we have also been cutting down our forests, essentially impairing earth's ability to balance itself out. - billhanifin, on 05/10/2009, -3/+4I am starting a business to sell kayaks and water wings all across the EU. What do you think?
- bannor78, on 05/15/2009, -0/+1Every one knows Hannible crossed the alps. What most people don't know is that he couldn't do it today, because a glacier is in the way. the earth was warmer then because the axis tilt changed now it is warmer because of CO2 ..it happens
c/o how the earth was made this week on discovery - Jeterocks, on 05/11/2009, -11/+12Yea, global warming may be real but are we (humans) to blame? I have my doubts about that...
- srs2000, on 05/11/2009, -1/+293% of scientists in the American National Academy of Sciences are atheist or agnostic.
- mlbdenver, on 05/11/2009, -0/+1Wow...you really have your head in the sand, don't you? I don't know any scientists who don't say that glaciers are melting from global warming. I had a Geology prof (in Colorado) who did his doctoral dissertation on the subject of glaciers, and his data totally showed the direct relationship between rising global temps and melting glaciers. So there's at least one scientist who says that.
- gerrylazlo, on 07/09/2009, -0/+1Y2K was a hoax? Software really did have two digits to indicate the year and had to be rejiggered to four digits. I had to do some of that at work on many systems. Hell, i got a bag of chips that said it expired in 1900. A lot of people work in a lot of areas to correct this. Nobody knew what the real consequences were going to be for any missed systems. Just because you expected a nuclear holocaust and nothing happened, doesn't mean it was a hoax. What are you even basing that on?
- Erich100, on 05/11/2009, -2/+3And the people who believe refuse to take into account the true cost of the political agenda attached to it. It's not all monetary.
- inactive, on 05/12/2009, -0/+1WAR!! The ice is mine!!
- inactive, on 05/11/2009, -1/+1*citation needed
- Mike17102, on 05/11/2009, -1/+1Until you learn what erosion is, then you will feel like a ***** retard.
- Bobby1978, on 05/11/2009, -4/+4@twiztidsinztwiztidsinz
I question the graphs you claimed to have seen. The overall trend is that of warming, not of cooling. Modern graphs from Nasa stretching back at least to the 1800s, heck even the past thousand years, show a dramatic upwards trend starting from the turn of the previous century. - rephoto, on 05/16/2009, -0/+0If glaciers did not shrink throughout the earths history than how did the earth come out of its last ice age? Global warming is a myth made up by guys like Gore to futher their interests and make them rich. Carbon credits for instance, what a scam.
No reputable scientist will commit to the Global warming fallacy. - scamper22, on 05/11/2009, -1/+1ummm, in layman's terms, Arctic ice melting would not result in any sea level rise.
Arctic:
Take an ice cube, place it in a glass of water... see if the water level rises when the ice cube melts.
The level will remain the same.
Antarctic:
Take a glass of water. Have a slide going into the glass. Put some ice at the top of the slide. Let the ice melt. The water will flow into the glass raising the sea level. As there is additional water represented by the ice on land. - superdarkkronic, on 05/11/2009, -2/+2its human nature to try to solve a problem only when the problem gets more urgent, or to the breaking point.
its just tragic when that thought is applied to huge geosocial problem. - twiztidsinz, on 05/11/2009, -1/+1@amish4play: Oh I guess SOME volcanoes are different than OTHER volcanoes. Must be the cool volcanoes that cause cooling and the hot ones that heat up the planet with their CO2... right?
Or is it magical CO2 from volcanoes cools the earth but regular CO2 from humans causes it to warm?
Why is it that when nature effects things its always OK and we should never think about it, but if humans are the ones doing it, then it's causing irreparable damage? - amish4play, on 05/11/2009, -1/+1@twiztidsinz Some volcanic eruptions release a bunch of sulphides into the atmosphere that reflect light from the sun, which has a cooling effect.
The amount of CO2 volcanoes release is insignificant, less than 1% of human emissions. You shouldn't expect any temperature rise from volcanic eruptions. - amish4play, on 05/11/2009, -1/+1lack of reading comprehension i see...
It isn't the CO2 that caused the cooling but sulphides, that are shot into the atmosphere, which reflect light.
We contribute more than 100 times the CO2 than volcanoes, i think that makes their contribution to global warming negligible, don't you? - twiztidsinz, on 05/11/2009, -4/+3@Bobby1978: Yes. ~1800, maybe a little earlier is when the cold spike ENDED (and subsequently, the "warming spike" that is the correction began. That's why you need to look at larger graphs that show a longer time frame and use that to see the overall trend which just happens to be a slow, but steady decline.
Also... Century = 100 years. You can't really compare 'the past thousand' to the hundred years prior, you'd need to compare it to the 1000 years prior.
@amish4play: Then why have volcanic eruptions shown to lower temperature when they release CO2 into the air? - SoulGrub, on 05/11/2009, -5/+4Humans have burnt like half of the world's accessible oil reserves. It's not hard to believe there's a chance humans are having an impact.
- JebBlack, on 05/11/2009, -2/+1I'm ready to give up all my freedom to save the earth.....NOT! But i'm sure we can find some people that will trust a politician to save them from a NORMAL weather cycle as the earth cools and will rid the earth of all CO2 so we have no food. THE END!
- Bobby1978, on 05/11/2009, -4/+3Come on. Why is this guy even being dugg up? The glacier is almost gone. Something is to blame, what else but a temperature increase?
The average global temperature increase may just be 0.5C. But local changes vary considerably from that increase. In this case the temperature increase for that region was significantly higher than a paltry 0.5C. - pyrator, on 05/11/2009, -2/+1In laymans terms because when water freezes and expands, it is less dense and so floats on top of the liquid water. Approximately 11% of ice stays above the surface. If ice melts then it all adds to global sea level, though only by a small amount. Whilst there is much discussion going on concerning rising sea levels, it's thought that if all the Arctic Ice melted it would raise sea levels by 6m. On the other hand if all Antarctic Ice melted then ocean levels could rise by 70 - 80m, since most of the ice is on land.
- SoulGrub, on 05/11/2009, -2/+1I think he tripped and his talking point fell out.
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