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 Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 5:26 am |
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On Nov 3, 3:54 am, Martin Brown <|||newspam... at (no spam) nezumi.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
[quote]Bill Ward wrote:
On Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:20:40 +0000, Martin Brown wrote:
Peter Muehlbauer wrote:
"John M." <jmorgan1234... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
On Nov 1, 6:36 am, eunome... at (no spam) yahoo.com.au wrote:
Incidently if an iceberg melts it doesn't raise sea levels one single
millionth of a meter. That's called archidmedes principal. The ice
contracts as it melts and so the level can't change.
Idiot. Learn some science before posting to science oriented NGs.
When the iceberg left the land and entered the ocean, it displaced an
amount of water equal to its own weight. Simple experiment will show
this to be the case. Put an ice-cube in a brim-full glass of water. Or
melt the cube and add that water to the glass. In each case the water
that spills over is the same quantity. But in fact water always spills
over.
[/quote]
•• ROTFLMAO - If the glass is 'brim full'
anything added will create over spill.
[quote]Adding water to a brim-full ocean means water will spill over - onto
the land, of course.
[/quote]
There is no place where the oceans are "brim" full.
[quote]And where did the water initially come from, eh?
Do the same experiment, but make an ice cube from the water in the
glass first, and then put the ice cube back into the glass.
[/quote]
•• Just take a bottle of water, cap it and put in the
freezer. Be prepared to clean up a mess of
broken glass
[quote]You are wrong as far as the oceans are concerned. The polar ice flows
and icebergs are of essentially pure water and are floating in ice cold
*brine* with a typical density of around 1.028 g/cm^3 at 0C.
The ice displaces its own *WEIGHT* of water which when floating in ice
cold brine is 0.972 cm^3. When it melts its maximum density as cold
fresh water is ~1.000 g/cm^3 is reached at 4C. And at all other
temperatures it occupies a greater volume.
So every cubic metre of floating ice that melts creates a roughly 3%
increase in total oceanic volume.
Don't you even sanity check your posts? That's a pretty wild claim. Try
dimensional analysis - it will usually catch that kind of faux pas.
You really should pay more attention. There is no mistake here. When
floating sea ice melts the result is that it occupies about 3% more
volume than it displaced when it was a solid. My phrasing could perhaps
have been more precise to avoid wilful misinterpretation by dittoheads.
[/quote]
•• Well Mr Dittohead Brown, this is not a matter
of misinformation or disinformation ... that is
your style. If you saw AlGore's mockumentory
flic there was a polar bear on a small ice pan.
With the weight of the bear 90+% of the water
was submerged
[quote]The density of the cold brine seawater matters and it is not the same as
fresh water. It would be a lot more obvious if you floated an ice cube
on a pool of mercury and then let it melt.
Attacking the messenger does not help. Dittohead science is once again
shown to be a pack of lies. And then dittoheads jump in to try and fake
the real world to match their delusional beliefs.
[/quote]
•• ROTFLMAO Come back to the real world
Mr 'Dittohead' Brown.
–– ––
In real science the burden of proof is always
on the proposer, never on the sceptics. So far
neither IPCC nor anyone else has provided one
iota of valid data for global warming nor have
they provided data that climate change is being
effected by commerce and industry, and not by
natural phenomena. |
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 5:30 am |
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Guest
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On Nov 2, 5:47pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah... at (no spam) peoplepc.com> wrote:
[quote]Chump change compared to the $100 trillion that will go over seas for
oil.
Bullshit!!!!!!
We could save $80 trillion over the next few decades by getting off
oil.
Bret Cahill
[/quote]
Learn how to post, you idiot |
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| Bret Cahill... |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:45 am |
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Guest
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[quote]In the past two decades, the evidence for global warming has piled so
high it is no longer disputed by mainstream scientists..
Much of this evidence has come from Greenland, as have the long
climate records that have allowed scientists to predict the future
progress of global warming.
From The Financial Times, 10/30/09:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/91635aac-c207-11de-be3a-00144feab49a.html
Greenland is warming up
By Fiona Harvey
................................................................................................................
Every year, 35 billion tonnes of ice break free of the Greenland ice
sheet here.
Only the mammoth glaciers of Antarctica can compare.
The Isbrae also known as Sermeq Kujalleq moves at 40m a day.
For glaciers, this is pretty quick.
Glaciers have always made their way to the sea.
Snow falls on the vast Greenland ice sheet this is by far the
worlds biggest island and the weight pushes out the ice at the
edges.
But the remarkable thing about the Jakobshavn Isbrae and nearly all
of Greenlands glaciers, and most of the glaciers in the world is
how fast those outward waves are flowing now.
In 2002, when researchers measured the Jakobshavn Isbrae, which drains
6.5 per cent of the Greenland ice sheet, it was moving only half as
quickly as it is today, and pouring only half the present volume of
ice into the fjord.
The earliest known maps of this glacier date from the 1850s, but
observations of it have intensified since the 1950s.
They track the marked acceleration of the ice over recent decades, and
show its speed increasing dramatically in the past few years.
The Hellheim glacier, draining 4 per cent of the Greenland ice sheet,
tells a similar story.
Its speed increased from 8km a year in 2000 to 11km a year in 2005,
and has since accelerated.
The reason the glaciers are speeding up is simple:
Greenland is getting warmer.
Jacqueline McGlade, director of the European Environment Agency, says:
The amount of ice that is being lost is far more than we thought.
Greenland is warming faster than the computer models predicted, and
that is a worry.
The Arctic has warmed at three times the rate of the rest of the world
in the past 100 years, and temperatures continue to rise.
Ola Johannessen, chief of Norways Nansen Environmental and Remote
Sensing Centre, has worked on ice for more than 30 years.
He has never seen anything like the current situation.
There is no doubt that what we are seeing is the result of global
warming. The glaciers are moving faster. Ice is being lost from the
Greenland ice sheet, and that will raise sea levels.
In the past two decades, the evidence for global warming has piled so
high it is no longer disputed by mainstream scientists..
Much of this evidence has come from Greenland, as have the long
climate records that have allowed scientists to predict the future
progress of global warming.
.....................................................................................................................
The tale the ice cores tell is full of foreboding.
Climate changes of the past have not been slow, gradual increases in
temperature.
Rather, they have been abrupt sudden and steep warmings and
coolings, sometimes over a matter of decades.
This has led researchers to suggest that certain feedback loops, or
tipping points, exist in the earths climate system points at which
the warming or cooling becomes self-reinforcing and much more rapid.
Some feedback effects are already at work in Greenland..
Stand on top of a glacier, far from where the bergs calve with loud
cracks, and you hear a strange background murmur, a ceaseless
whispering that appears to have no source.
This is the sound of meltwater rushing down through fissures in the
ice.
When it reaches the bottom, the water lubricates the flow of the ice
over the rocks beneath, speeding the glaciers on their way.
The more meltwater, the more lubrication and the faster the ice moves.
Other tipping points might include the rapid disappearance of the
Amazon rainforest, which could be caused by drought.
If that happened, all the carbon the forests absorb would be released,
and global warming would accelerate.
If temperatures rose more than 4C above pre-industrial levels,
catastrophe would ensue, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
More than one-third of the worlds species would disappear; hundreds
of millions of people would face famine; floods and storms would whip
rich and poor countries alike.
...................................................................................................................................
Kyoto was greeted as a triumph in 1997 when it was signed, but
scarcely was the ink dry than the whole project collapsed.
It became clear the US Congress would never ratify it.
.............................................................................................................................
When George W. Bush took office, Kyoto looked to be on the scrapheap
of history.
...................................................................................................................
Things have changed since Bush left office.
Now no country wishes to be left out and all profess eagerness for a
deal.
........................................................................................................................
The real threat of climate change is not that the ice will melt
(though when it does, we are in trouble because the departure of
reflective ice leaves dark sea that absorbs more of the suns heat,
increasing the rate of global warming in another feedback loop).
The real disruptions of climate change will be felt far from here:
in sub-Saharan Africa, where the heat will become unbearable;
in south-east Asia, where rising sea levels will claim more and more
land and typhoons will destroy towns and villages;
in southern Europe, where drought will render the land unsuitable for
agriculture.
The biggest threat of all is to the worlds social and political
stability the famines, droughts, floods and storms of a warming
world could cause prolonged conflict, mass migration on a scale we
shudder to imagine, and a counter-reaction to that migration from the
lucky northern countries.
Its just that Greenland, and the rest of the Arctic, are where we see
the first and clearest signs of rapidly increasing temperatures and
their effects on the natural world.
________________________________________________________
Harry
If it warms enough maybe we will get to see why Greenland was named
Greenland.
Too late by years, Mr Clumps.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1001/p01s02-wogn.html?page=1
Wow, they can grow potatoes now. Will the horrors of global warming
ever cease? Let's spend trillions of dollars to stop this horrible
disaster.
It doesn't alter the fact that you implicitly posted mis-information.
Not that you can expect a serious response from anyone posting under a
handle like "Monkey Clumps" but first rightards deny AGW or at least
treat it with a great deal of levity and when presented with
irrefutable evidence it exists they then suggest it's a good thing.
Which is entirely consistent. If the greentards want us all to spend
untold amounts of money attempting to cut carbon emissions, at the
minimum they need to demonstrate 4 things.
1. Global warming is actually happening.
Already proven beyong any doubt. Only shills, creationists and other
wackadoodles dispute that.
2. The warming is due to human CO2 emissions and not natural cycles.
Already proven beyong any doubt. Only shills, creationists and other
wackadoodles dispute that.
3. Warming can be controlled by cutting carbon emissions
Already proven beyong any doubt. Only shills, creationists and other
wackadoodles dispute that.
and this is
a more sensible approach than adjusting to climate change.
If we must adjust, why not adjust in a way that won't kill off large
populations of humans as well as other species.
4. We have the technology to significantly cut carbon emissions in an
economically and politically viable fashion.
The technology can be developed with enough funding.
If we must get off oil anyway, why not do it _before_ we give $100
trillion to the Iranians?
Greenland getting warmer only helps your position on item 1.
Rightards who once disputed that now think they have credibility on
the other issues.
. . .
People are becoming less and less concerned with global warming.
The GOP tax cut recession - financial meltdown was quite a
distraction.
An even bigger distraction will be peak oil.
Bret Cahill
The 1.4 trillion dollar annual deficit might end up being a
distraction too.
Chump change compared to the $100 trillion that will go over seas for
oil.
We could save $80 trillion over the next few decades by getting off
oil.
Bret Cahill
You have no comprehension of what a Trillion is
(one million - million dollars), there will not be that much
money available to buy oil,
[/quote]
In that case we'll starve as there won't be any way to plant and
harvest crops or haul them to market or back to people's kitchens.
Thanks for helping me make the case for roadbed electrification.
Bret Cahill |
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| Last Post... |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 9:18 am |
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Guest
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On Nov 3, 1:45pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah... at (no spam) peoplepc.com> wrote:
[quote] You have no comprehension of what a Trillion is
(one million - million dollars), there will not be that much
money available to buy oil,
In that case we'll starve as there won't be any way to plant and
harvest crops or haul them to market or back to people's kitchens.
Thanks for helping me make the case for roadbed electrification.
[/quote]
ROTFLMAO
She made a case for your total ignorance!!!
Learn how to post properly |
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| I M at (no spam) good guy... |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:49 pm |
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Guest
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On Tue, 3 Nov 2009 07:26:13 -0800 (PST), Last Post <last_post at (no spam) primus.ca>
wrote:
[quote]On Nov 3, 3:54 am, Martin Brown <|||newspam... at (no spam) nezumi.demon.co.uk
wrote:
Bill Ward wrote:
On Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:20:40 +0000, Martin Brown wrote:
Peter Muehlbauer wrote:
"John M." <jmorgan1234... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:
On Nov 1, 6:36 am, eunome... at (no spam) yahoo.com.au wrote:
Incidently if an iceberg melts it doesn't raise sea levels one single
millionth of a meter. That's called archidmedes principal. The ice
contracts as it melts and so the level can't change.
Idiot. Learn some science before posting to science oriented NGs.
When the iceberg left the land and entered the ocean, it displaced an
amount of water equal to its own weight. Simple experiment will show
this to be the case. Put an ice-cube in a brim-full glass of water. Or
melt the cube and add that water to the glass. In each case the water
that spills over is the same quantity. But in fact water always spills
over.
•• ROTFLMAO - If the glass is 'brim full'
anything added will create over spill.
Adding water to a brim-full ocean means water will spill over - onto
the land, of course.
There is no place where the oceans are "brim" full.
And where did the water initially come from, eh?
Do the same experiment, but make an ice cube from the water in the
glass first, and then put the ice cube back into the glass.
•• Just take a bottle of water, cap it and put in the
freezer. Be prepared to clean up a mess of
broken glass
[/quote]
Maybe the laws of physics are different in some
places, but I think I have heard of motor blocks being
cracked when the water freezes.
But maybe its gossip, anybody want to test to
see if water expands when it freezes by not putting
antifreeze in?
Maybe it never freezes in some places, could
that explain some opinions? |
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| I M at (no spam) good guy... |
| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 7:59 pm |
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Guest
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On Tue, 3 Nov 2009 10:45:50 -0800 (PST), Bret Cahill
<BretCahill at (no spam) peoplepc.com> wrote:
[quote]In the past two decades, the evidence for global warming has piled so
high it is no longer disputed by mainstream scientists.
Much of this evidence has come from Greenland, as have the long
climate records that have allowed scientists to predict the future
progress of global warming.
From The Financial Times, 10/30/09:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/91635aac-c207-11de-be3a-00144feab49a.html
Greenland is warming up
By Fiona Harvey
...............................................................................................................
Every year, 35 billion tonnes of ice break free of the Greenland ice
sheet here.
Only the mammoth glaciers of Antarctica can compare.
The Isbrae – also known as Sermeq Kujalleq – moves at 40m a day.
For glaciers, this is pretty quick.
Glaciers have always made their way to the sea.
Snow falls on the vast Greenland ice sheet – this is by far the
world’s biggest island – and the weight pushes out the ice at the
edges.
But the remarkable thing about the Jakobshavn Isbrae – and nearly all
of Greenland’s glaciers, and most of the glaciers in the world – is
how fast those outward waves are flowing now.
In 2002, when researchers measured the Jakobshavn Isbrae, which drains
6.5 per cent of the Greenland ice sheet, it was moving only half as
quickly as it is today, and pouring only half the present volume of
ice into the fjord.
The earliest known maps of this glacier date from the 1850s, but
observations of it have intensified since the 1950s.
They track the marked acceleration of the ice over recent decades, and
show its speed increasing dramatically in the past few years.
The Hellheim glacier, draining 4 per cent of the Greenland ice sheet,
tells a similar story.
Its speed increased from 8km a year in 2000 to 11km a year in 2005,
and has since accelerated.
The reason the glaciers are speeding up is simple:
Greenland is getting warmer.
Jacqueline McGlade, director of the European Environment Agency, says:
“The amount of ice that is being lost is far more than we thought.
Greenland is warming faster than the computer models predicted, and
that is a worry.”
The Arctic has warmed at three times the rate of the rest of the world
in the past 100 years, and temperatures continue to rise.
Ola Johannessen, chief of Norway’s Nansen Environmental and Remote
Sensing Centre, has worked on ice for more than 30 years.
He has never seen anything like the current situation.
“There is no doubt that what we are seeing is the result of global
warming. The glaciers are moving faster. Ice is being lost from the
Greenland ice sheet, and that will raise sea levels.”
In the past two decades, the evidence for global warming has piled so
high it is no longer disputed by mainstream scientists.
Much of this evidence has come from Greenland, as have the long
climate records that have allowed scientists to predict the future
progress of global warming.
....................................................................................................................
The tale the ice cores tell is full of foreboding.
Climate changes of the past have not been slow, gradual increases in
temperature.
Rather, they have been abrupt – sudden and steep warmings and
coolings, sometimes over a matter of decades.
This has led researchers to suggest that certain feedback loops, or
tipping points, exist in the earth’s climate system – points at which
the warming or cooling becomes self-reinforcing and much more rapid.
Some feedback effects are already at work in Greenland.
Stand on top of a glacier, far from where the bergs calve with loud
cracks, and you hear a strange background murmur, a ceaseless
whispering that appears to have no source.
This is the sound of meltwater rushing down through fissures in the
ice.
When it reaches the bottom, the water lubricates the flow of the ice
over the rocks beneath, speeding the glaciers on their way.
The more meltwater, the more lubrication and the faster the ice moves.
Other tipping points might include the rapid disappearance of the
Amazon rainforest, which could be caused by drought.
If that happened, all the carbon the forests absorb would be released,
and global warming would accelerate.
If temperatures rose more than 4°C above pre-industrial levels,
catastrophe would ensue, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
More than one-third of the world’s species would disappear; hundreds
of millions of people would face famine; floods and storms would whip
rich and poor countries alike.
.................................................................................................................................
Kyoto was greeted as a triumph in 1997 when it was signed, but
scarcely was the ink dry than the whole project collapsed.
It became clear the US Congress would never ratify it.
...........................................................................................................................
When George W. Bush took office, Kyoto looked to be on the scrapheap
of history.
..................................................................................................................
Things have changed since Bush left office.
Now no country wishes to be left out and all profess eagerness for a
deal.
......................................................................................................................
The real threat of climate change is not that the ice will melt
(though when it does, we are in trouble because the departure of
reflective ice leaves dark sea that absorbs more of the sun’s heat,
increasing the rate of global warming in another feedback loop).
The real disruptions of climate change will be felt far from here:
in sub-Saharan Africa, where the heat will become unbearable;
in south-east Asia, where rising sea levels will claim more and more
land and typhoons will destroy towns and villages;
in southern Europe, where drought will render the land unsuitable for
agriculture.
The biggest threat of all is to the world’s social and political
stability – the famines, droughts, floods and storms of a warming
world could cause prolonged conflict, mass migration on a scale we
shudder to imagine, and a counter-reaction to that migration from the
lucky northern countries.
It’s just that Greenland, and the rest of the Arctic, are where we see
the first and clearest signs of rapidly increasing temperatures and
their effects on the natural world.
________________________________________________________
Harry
If it warms enough maybe we will get to see why Greenland was named
Greenland.
Too late by years, Mr Clumps.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1001/p01s02-wogn.html?page=1
Wow, they can grow potatoes now. Will the horrors of global warming
ever cease? Let's spend trillions of dollars to stop this horrible
disaster.
It doesn't alter the fact that you implicitly posted mis-information.
Not that you can expect a serious response from anyone posting under a
handle like "Monkey Clumps" but first rightards deny AGW or at least
treat it with a great deal of levity and when presented with
irrefutable evidence it exists they then suggest it's a good thing.
Which is entirely consistent. If the greentards want us all to spend
untold amounts of money attempting to cut carbon emissions, at the
minimum they need to demonstrate 4 things.
1. Global warming is actually happening.
Already proven beyong any doubt. Only shills, creationists and other
wackadoodles dispute that.
2. The warming is due to human CO2 emissions and not natural cycles.
Already proven beyong any doubt. Only shills, creationists and other
wackadoodles dispute that.
3. Warming can be controlled by cutting carbon emissions
Already proven beyong any doubt. Only shills, creationists and other
wackadoodles dispute that.
and this is
a more sensible approach than adjusting to climate change.
If we must adjust, why not adjust in a way that won't kill off large
populations of humans as well as other species.
4. We have the technology to significantly cut carbon emissions in an
economically and politically viable fashion.
The technology can be developed with enough funding.
If we must get off oil anyway, why not do it _before_ we give $100
trillion to the Iranians?
Greenland getting warmer only helps your position on item 1.
Rightards who once disputed that now think they have credibility on
the other issues.
. . .
People are becoming less and less concerned with global warming.
The GOP tax cut recession - financial meltdown was quite a
distraction.
An even bigger distraction will be peak oil.
Bret Cahill
The 1.4 trillion dollar annual deficit might end up being a
distraction too.
Chump change compared to the $100 trillion that will go over seas for
oil.
We could save $80 trillion over the next few decades by getting off
oil.
Bret Cahill
You have no comprehension of what a Trillion is
(one million - million dollars), there will not be that much
money available to buy oil,
In that case we'll starve as there won't be any way to plant and
harvest crops or haul them to market or back to people's kitchens.
Thanks for helping me make the case for roadbed electrification.
Bret Cahill
[/quote]
It isn't either a Trillion for oil or nothing
for oil, that is a common fallacy in extremist
thinking.
The US has about 6 million barrels a day
that would go for farming before anything else
if your extreme scenario were to develop.
What I meant is, a Trillion is still not a
number to throw around, only the US government
gets into that range of numbers, and chances are
there will be more and more problems because of
it, there is less than 65 Trillion total assets in the
world even though the US GNP might be as much
as 15 Trillion.
The problem is, very little "money" is available
without taking it from investments it is already in,
borrowing will become worse than taxes or creating
computer money because it has to take money from
someplace else, nearly all money is already invested. |
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| Van Chocstraw... |
| Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:58 pm |
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Guest
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| You mean Whiteland is turning into Greenland? |
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| BDR529... |
| Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 12:40 am |
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Guest
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Harry Hope wrote:
[quote]In the past two decades, the evidence for global warming has piled so
high it is no longer disputed by mainstream scientists.
Much of this evidence has come from Greenland, as have the long
climate records that have allowed scientists to predict the future
progress of global warming.
From The Financial Times, 10/30/09:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/91635aac-c207-11de-be3a-00144feab49a.html
Greenland is warming up
By Fiona Harvey
...............................................................................................................
Every year, 35 billion tonnes of ice break free of the Greenland ice
sheet here.
[/quote]
That number is just wrong. The real value is presently 270 billion ton
or 270 Gton/year.
This is measured with the GRACE satellites since 2003.
Q
[quote]
Only the mammoth glaciers of Antarctica can compare.
The Isbrae also known as Sermeq Kujalleq moves at 40m a day.
For glaciers, this is pretty quick.
Glaciers have always made their way to the sea.
Snow falls on the vast Greenland ice sheet this is by far the
worlds biggest island and the weight pushes out the ice at the
edges.
But the remarkable thing about the Jakobshavn Isbrae and nearly all
of Greenlands glaciers, and most of the glaciers in the world is
how fast those outward waves are flowing now.
In 2002, when researchers measured the Jakobshavn Isbrae, which drains
6.5 per cent of the Greenland ice sheet, it was moving only half as
quickly as it is today, and pouring only half the present volume of
ice into the fjord.
The earliest known maps of this glacier date from the 1850s, but
observations of it have intensified since the 1950s.
They track the marked acceleration of the ice over recent decades, and
show its speed increasing dramatically in the past few years.
The Hellheim glacier, draining 4 per cent of the Greenland ice sheet,
tells a similar story.
Its speed increased from 8km a year in 2000 to 11km a year in 2005,
and has since accelerated.
The reason the glaciers are speeding up is simple:
Greenland is getting warmer.
Jacqueline McGlade, director of the European Environment Agency, says:
The amount of ice that is being lost is far more than we thought.
Greenland is warming faster than the computer models predicted, and
that is a worry.
The Arctic has warmed at three times the rate of the rest of the world
in the past 100 years, and temperatures continue to rise.
Ola Johannessen, chief of Norways Nansen Environmental and Remote
Sensing Centre, has worked on ice for more than 30 years.
He has never seen anything like the current situation.
There is no doubt that what we are seeing is the result of global
warming. The glaciers are moving faster. Ice is being lost from the
Greenland ice sheet, and that will raise sea levels.
In the past two decades, the evidence for global warming has piled so
high it is no longer disputed by mainstream scientists.
Much of this evidence has come from Greenland, as have the long
climate records that have allowed scientists to predict the future
progress of global warming.
....................................................................................................................
The tale the ice cores tell is full of foreboding.
Climate changes of the past have not been slow, gradual increases in
temperature.
Rather, they have been abrupt sudden and steep warmings and
coolings, sometimes over a matter of decades.
This has led researchers to suggest that certain feedback loops, or
tipping points, exist in the earths climate system points at which
the warming or cooling becomes self-reinforcing and much more rapid.
Some feedback effects are already at work in Greenland.
Stand on top of a glacier, far from where the bergs calve with loud
cracks, and you hear a strange background murmur, a ceaseless
whispering that appears to have no source.
This is the sound of meltwater rushing down through fissures in the
ice.
When it reaches the bottom, the water lubricates the flow of the ice
over the rocks beneath, speeding the glaciers on their way.
The more meltwater, the more lubrication and the faster the ice moves.
Other tipping points might include the rapid disappearance of the
Amazon rainforest, which could be caused by drought.
If that happened, all the carbon the forests absorb would be released,
and global warming would accelerate.
If temperatures rose more than 4C above pre-industrial levels,
catastrophe would ensue, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
More than one-third of the worlds species would disappear; hundreds
of millions of people would face famine; floods and storms would whip
rich and poor countries alike.
.................................................................................................................................
Kyoto was greeted as a triumph in 1997 when it was signed, but
scarcely was the ink dry than the whole project collapsed.
It became clear the US Congress would never ratify it.
...........................................................................................................................
When George W. Bush took office, Kyoto looked to be on the scrapheap
of history.
..................................................................................................................
Things have changed since Bush left office.
Now no country wishes to be left out and all profess eagerness for a
deal.
......................................................................................................................
The real threat of climate change is not that the ice will melt
(though when it does, we are in trouble because the departure of
reflective ice leaves dark sea that absorbs more of the suns heat,
increasing the rate of global warming in another feedback loop).
The real disruptions of climate change will be felt far from here:
in sub-Saharan Africa, where the heat will become unbearable;
in south-east Asia, where rising sea levels will claim more and more
land and typhoons will destroy towns and villages;
in southern Europe, where drought will render the land unsuitable for
agriculture.
The biggest threat of all is to the worlds social and political
stability the famines, droughts, floods and storms of a warming
world could cause prolonged conflict, mass migration on a scale we
shudder to imagine, and a counter-reaction to that migration from the
lucky northern countries.
Its just that Greenland, and the rest of the Arctic, are where we see
the first and clearest signs of rapidly increasing temperatures and
their effects on the natural world.
________________________________________________________
Harry[/quote] |
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