Sentences with phrase «ice reach an equilibrium»

Not exact matches

Ice sheet retreat continues until a new equilibrium temperature state is reached, one determined largely by the end - point of atmospheric CO2.

Hence, when the air temperature decreases, ice and snow fields grow, and this continues until an equilibrium is reached.

However, when there is a lot of ice melting is it possible to reach equilibrium?

Ice sheet retreat continues until a new equilibrium temperature state is reached, one determined largely by the end - point of atmospheric CO2.

For example, if the Earth got cold enough, the encroachment of snow and ice toward low latitudes (where they have more sunlight to reflect per unit area), depending on the meridional temperature gradient, could become a runaway feedback — any little forcing that causes some cooling will cause an expansion of snow and ice toward lower latitudes sufficient to cause so much cooling that the process never reaches a new equilibrium — until the snow and ice reach the equator from both sides, at which point there is no more area for snow and ice to expand into.

Depending on meridional heat transport, when freezing temperatures reach deep enough towards low - latitudes, the ice - albedo feedback can become so effective that climate sensitivity becomes infinite and even negative (implying unstable equilibrium for any «ice - line» (latitude marking the edge of ice) between the equator and some other latitude).

Once the ice reaches the equator, the equilibrium climate is significantly colder than what would initiate melting at the equator, but if CO2 from geologic emissions build up (they would, but very slowly — geochemical processes provide a negative feedback by changing atmospheric CO2 in response to climate changes, but this is generally very slow, and thus can not prevent faster changes from faster external forcings) enough, it can initiate melting — what happens then is a runaway in the opposite direction (until the ice is completely gone — the extreme warmth and CO2 amount at that point, combined with left - over glacial debris available for chemical weathering, will draw CO2 out of the atmosphere, possibly allowing some ice to return).

I suppose that for a 3,7 W / m2 forcing, the additional energy of forcing + feedbacks is used for faster processes (melting ice, evaporation, warming of subsurface oceanic layers, etc.) and the new equilibrium is reach on a quite short timescale.

Antarctic land ice won't reach equilibrium with global climate for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Based on the ice core dCO2 / dT relationship, the increase in temperature since the LIA has added not more than 6 ppmv to the atmosphere to reach a new equilibrium.

Thus even there, a new equilibrium is reached in a few decades (for extra CO2 over current land occupation) to millennia (for ice sheet retraction and plant spread).

When it is warm, ice melts faster and the glacier will retreat until it reaches a new equilibrium between accumulation and ablation.