Sentences with phrase «of the ice sheets depends»

The size of the ice sheet depends on how much new snow accumulates and how much of the existing ice melts, she said.

The continental - scale behavior of the ice sheets depends upon difficult - to - model physics taking place at a much smaller scale.

Not exact matches

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.

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.

Glacier speed also depends on bottom drag (which is a function of temperature and lubrication by melt water) and also stresses within the ice sheet / shelf as well.

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.

In this regard, I would observe that at least one important AGW effect, rising sea level, does not depend on a specific regional outcome so much as on global mean T. (At least, I think this is so (because my understanding is that most of the rise comes from lower density of warmer water, not from melting ice sheets — though again, not 100 % sure on this point)-RRB-.

What scientists once thought was a fairly simple linear process — that is, a certain amount at the surface of an ice sheet melts each year, depending on the temperature — is now seen to be much more complicated.

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.

Over the long - term, melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could yield as much as 10 to 14 feet of global average sea level rise, with local sea level rise varying considerably depending on land elevation trends, ocean currents and other factors.

Jim D, the water for that 120 or 140 meters (depending on who you believe) of SLR since the LGM came from the Laurentide, Cordilleran, Weichselian, etc. ice sheets.

Deep ocean temperature is approximated as linearly proportional to the fraction of the heavy oxygen istotope (δ18O), though Hansen has concluded that the proportion depends on the size of the continental ice sheets.

Our simple scaling approximation implicitly assumes that ice sheets are sufficiently responsive to climate change that hysteresis is not a dominant effect; in other words, ice volume on millennial time scales is a function of temperature and does not depend much on whether the Earth is in a warming or cooling phase.

These partially offsetting effects lead to the expectation that direct human shifts in water storage on land will not have large effects on sea level in comparison to the effects of ocean warming and mountain - glacier and ice - sheet melting (Wada et al., 2012), although notable uncertainties remain in regards to future groundwater use and reservoir construction, and these effects vary considerably depending on the specific location (NRC, 2012e).

If it melted completely, it would raise global sea level by about 23 feet (7 meters).13 While the ice sheet is unlikely to disappear in our children's lifetimes, the pace of shrinking largely depends on what we do to limit future warming.14 (See Greenland ice sheet hotspot for more information.)

The time scales of the collapse of calving ice sheets depend sensitively on temperature and on the height of the cliff.

The question is how far will the levels of CO2, CH4, N - oxide, CFC and HFC, global land - sea temperatures, melting of ice sheets and glaciers, and sea levels need to rise before the critics realize that the delicate balance of the Earth's atmosphere — the thin lung - like membrane on which advanced life depends — must not be abused as an open sewer for industrial waste products.