In relation to fossil fuels and global warming, as the planet heats up, the oceans expand due to
the melting of polar ice sheets.
Yet the climate science orthodoxy continues to push the catastrophic scenario that Earth's major coastal and island regions will be submerged due to
the melting of the polar ice sheets found in Antarctica.
The Mercer (1978) ``... a threat of disaster» paper introduced above was fraught with presumptions, guesswork, and spectacularly wrong predictions about the connections between fossil fuel consumption by humans and future carbon dioxide (CO2) parts per million (ppm) concentrations,
the melting of polar ice sheets, and an impeding sea level rise disaster.
An additional 3.9 to 7.8 inches (10 to 20 cm) are possible if the recent surprising
melting of polar ice sheets continues.
Rising Seas: Warmer ocean water temperatures, the pumping of ground water, and
melting of the polar ice sheets have added water to the oceans, contributing to sea level rise.
Atmospheric warming is followed by ocean warming is followed by
a melting of polar ice sheets is followed by sea level rise.
Not exact matches
Impacts
of thermal expansion and
melting mountain glaciers can be predicted with moderate confidence, but more uncertainty remains in the potential behavior
of polar ice sheets.
Operation IceBridge, NASA's airborne survey
of polar ice, is flying in Greenland for the second time this year, to observe the impact
of the summer
melt season on the
ice sheet.
In the San Francisco Bay area, sea level rise alone could inundate an area
of between 50 and 410 square kilometres by 2100, depending both on how much action is taken to limit further global warming and how fast the
polar ice sheets melt.
GRACE showed that the
melting polar ice sheets are contributing more to sea level rise than the demise
of mountain glaciers.
A new review analyzing three decades
of research on the historic effects
of melting polar ice sheets found that global sea levels have risen at least six meters, or about 20 feet, above present levels on multiple occasions over the past three million years.
On its own, sea level rise could inundate between 50 and 410 square kilometres
of this area by 2100, depending on how much is done to limit further global warming and how fast the
polar ice sheets melt.
The IPCC has taken a crack at that, identifying 26 «key vulnerabilities» in its most recent assessment, ranging from declines in agricultural productivity to the
melting of ice sheets and
polar ice cover as well as determining how to judge if they are spiraling out
of control.
Because
of the warming, «there are some potentially catastrophic events that must be considered,» including sea level rise from
melting polar ice sheets, according to the document.
In the long term, changes in sea level were
of minor importance to rainfall patterns in north western Sumatra With the end
of the last
Ice Age came rising temperatures and melting polar ice sheets, which were accompanied by an increase in rainfall around Indonesia and many other regions of the worl
Ice Age came rising temperatures and
melting polar ice sheets, which were accompanied by an increase in rainfall around Indonesia and many other regions of the worl
ice sheets, which were accompanied by an increase in rainfall around Indonesia and many other regions
of the world..
Apparent global warming that was progressively
melting more and more
of the north
polar ice sheet each year has been countered by progressive expansion
of the south
polar ice sheet.
Polar amplication is
of global concern due to the potential effects
of future warming on
ice sheet stability and, therefore, global sea level (see Sections 5.6.1, 5.8.1 and Chapter 13) and carbon cycle feedbacks such as those linked with permafrost
melting (see Chapter 6)... The magnitude
of polar amplification depends on the relative strength and duration
of different climate feedbacks, which determine the transient and equilibrium response to external forcings.
The Planet Earth series by the Discovery Channel has video
of a
polar bear dying because
of the
melted ice sheets.
The great unknown, which the recent Hansen paper suggests at several metres, is the 21st century eustatic rise, due primarily to
ice sheet melting (also
melting of polar and mountain glaciers, and
of ice shelves).
I've actually seen videos
of the
melting polar ice and a
sheet of ice the size
of (was it Delaware?)
For example, conditions at the poles affect how much heat is retained by the earth because
of the reflective properties
of ice and snow, the world's ocean circulation depends on sinking in
polar regions, and
melting of the Antarctic and Greenland
ice sheets could have drastic effects on sea level.
Air pressure changes, allergies increase, Alps
melting, anxiety, aggressive
polar bears, algal blooms, Asthma, avalanches, billions
of deaths, blackbirds stop singing, blizzards, blue mussels return, boredom, budget increases, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north, cannibalistic
polar bears, cardiac arrest, Cholera, civil unrest, cloud increase, cloud stripping, methane emissions from plants, cold spells (Australia), computer models, conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink, cold spells, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, damages equivalent to $ 200 billion, Dengue hemorrhagic fever, dermatitis, desert advance, desert life threatened, desert retreat, destruction
of the environment, diarrhoea, disappearance
of coastal cities, disaster for wine industry (US), Dolomites collapse, drought, drowning people, drowning
polar bears, ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt, early spring, earlier pollen season, earthquakes, Earth light dimming, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out
of control, Earth wobbling, El Nià ± o intensification, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis,, Everest shrinking, evolution accelerating, expansion
of university climate groups, extinctions (ladybirds, pandas, pikas,
polar bears, gorillas, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang - utan, elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, penguins, a million species, half
of all animal and plant species), experts muzzled, extreme changes to California, famine, farmers go under, figurehead sacked, fish catches drop, fish catches rise, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, floods, Florida economic decline, food poisoning, footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frosts, fungi invasion, Garden
of Eden wilts, glacial retreat, glacial growth, global cooling, glowing clouds, Gore omnipresence, Great Lakes drop, greening
of the North, Gulf Stream failure, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, heat waves, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, human fertility reduced, human health improvement, hurricanes, hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths,
ice sheet growth,
ice sheet shrinkage, inclement weather, Inuit displacement, insurance premium rises, invasion
of midges, islands sinking, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, Kew Gardens taxed, krill decline, landslides, landslides
of ice at 140 mph, lawsuits increase, lawyers» income increased (surprise surprise!)
Rapidly rising seas resulting from
melting glaciers as well as
polar ice sheet nearly wiped out the Great Barrier Reef some 125,000 years earlier, according to University
of Sydney researchers.
They concluded the influx
of freshwater from
melting ice sheets in modern times would essentially shut down the ocean's circulation, causing cool water to stay in the Earth's
polar regions and equatorial water to warm up even faster.
Higher temperatures in
polar regions and a decrease in the salinity
of surface water due to
melting ice sheets could interrupt such circulation, the report says.
We are already in territory that will
melt catastrophic portions
of the
polar ice sheets, and create havoc with weather extremes, agriculture, and infrastructure around the world in coming decades.
Endless stories about glaciers
melting,
polar bears,
ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and sea
ice form the view that there is virtually no
ice left on the surface
of the planet.
«When I talk to people who don't really know about
polar science, they look at that picture
of Greenland covered in red, and they think the whole
ice sheet is
melting», says Brandon.
Since to me (and many scientists, although some wanted a lot more corroborative evidence, which they've also gotten) it makes absolutely no sense to presume that the earth would just go about its merry way and keep the climate nice and relatively stable for us (though this rare actual climate scientist pseudo skeptic seems to think it would, based upon some non scientific belief — see second half
of this piece), when the earth changes climate easily as it is, climate is ultimately an expression
of energy, it is stabilized (right now) by the oceans and
ice sheets, and increasing the number
of long term thermal radiation / heat energy absorbing and re radiating molecules to levels not seen on earth in several million years would add an enormous influx
of energy to the lower atmosphere earth system, which would mildly warm the air and increasingly transfer energy to the earth over time, which in turn would start to alter those stabilizing systems (and which, with increasing ocean energy retention and accelerating
polar ice sheet melting at both ends
of the globe, is exactly what we've been seeing) and start to reinforce the same process until a new stases would be reached well after the atmospheric levels
of ghg has stabilized.
Based on what he's seen in the Arctic, and on the latest science, Zukunft said he's planning for six feet
of sea level rise by the end
of the century, as
polar ice sheets and glaciers
melt.
According to the most highly - cited analyses
of polar ice sheet melt and contribution to sea level rise, the Antarctic
ice sheet as a whole changed in mass by -71 gigatonnes (GT) per year between 1992 and 2011.
Instead
of fixing the black carbon (soot) pollution they are responsible for, the EU activists continue to rail about the atmospheric trace gas CO2, which, by the way, doesn't
melt glaciers, sea
ice or
polar ice sheet caps.
They based their findings on analysis
of the chemical isotopes locked in ancient
ice from the Weddell Sea embayment, and the evidence suggests that in the past, when
polar waters became more stratified, the
ice sheets melted much more quickly.
The
Melting Arctic
Melting Ice Displaces Walruses In The Russian Arctic Ice Melt Causing Death of Polar Bears And there were the pictures of polar bears stranded on sheets of floating ice, accounts of their deaths «as a result of Global Warming» and even a documentary about the plight of the polar bea
Ice Displaces Walruses In The Russian Arctic
Ice Melt Causing Death of Polar Bears And there were the pictures of polar bears stranded on sheets of floating ice, accounts of their deaths «as a result of Global Warming» and even a documentary about the plight of the polar bea
Ice Melt Causing Death
of Polar Bears And there were the pictures
of polar bears stranded on
sheets of floating
ice, accounts of their deaths «as a result of Global Warming» and even a documentary about the plight of the polar bea
ice, accounts
of their deaths «as a result
of Global Warming» and even a documentary about the plight
of the
polar bears.
That's because under this much warmth, parts
of Greenland and Antarctica - the great
polar ice sheets - will slowly
melt and waste away like a block
of ice on the sidewalk in the summertime.
Melting Arctic
ice -
sheets will reduce ocean salinities (IPCC, 2001), causing species - specific shifts in the distribution and biomass
of major constituents
of Arctic food webs, including poleward shifts in communities and the potential loss
of some
polar species (such as the narwhal, Monodon monoceros).