Thursday, December 18, 2008
Will melting Arctic ice raise sea levels? A simple experiment at home will give you the answer
Um, isn't ice less dense than water? And if so, why would it take up more space when it melts?
7 comments:
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OMG!!! You do realize that what is being discussed is the Greenland Ice Cap and associated glaciers, not sea ice????
ReplyDeleteUm, what anonymous said.
ReplyDeleteMartin says:
ReplyDelete"Will melting Arctic ice raise sea levels? A simple experiment at home will give you the answer
Um, isn't ice less dense than water? And if so, why would it take up more space when it melts?"
Alas Martin, science is not your strong point. The vast majority of ice in the Greenland Ice Cap and associated glaciers is above sea level. Melting this ice will raise world sea levels. You and the site you link to have confused the Greenland Ice Cap with sea ice.
Have you considered taking a college level physical geology class?
Yes I saw the comment on the post I linked to before I posted it, which is why I titled it the way I did.
ReplyDeleteI understand the situation with above sea level ice, but unfortunately there seems to be a misapprehension among a lot of people (I encounter this often in conversation with my global warming alarmist friends) that the melting of Arctic ice is going to contribute to dramatic rises in sea levels. That's what I specifically addressed here.
Oh, and even taking the melting of above sea level ice into account, I'm still waiting for the 20 foot rise in sea levels Al Gore predicted.
You have lots to learn about science, Martin. You should write for the Associated Press.
ReplyDeleteJust the other days, Seth Borenstein of AP -- humorously, their "Science Writer" -- stated that the cooler temps we're seeing this year are more evidence of global warming.
So let's see.
Warming temps are evidence of global warming.
Cooling temps are evidence of global warming.
Does anyone wonder what evidence of global non-warming could possibly look like?
It's like arguing that the latest rally in the stock market only proves it's going even lower. Maybe the marker is going lower. Maybe it won't. The rally certainly doesn't disprove the notion that it's going lower. But only an AP science writer could cite it as evidence that it is indeed going lower, based on that rise.
You saw the waves this created, did you not?
ReplyDeletehttp://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/13/something-is-rotten-in-norway-500000-sq-km-of-sea-ice-disappears-overnight/
OK, this is just to tease...
ReplyDeleteThe article references GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate EXPERIMENT) as the means of judging the changes in ice. OK, so these satellites look toward the Earth and report that gravity (mass) is less in Greenland. MAYBE... there's another cause than 'less ice'?
I don't know, maybe the mantle is thinning under the crushing accumulation of ice. Ice is less dense than rock, so there's less mass (crust plus ice) above the mantle.
Can you come up with an alternate hypothesis? Consider it a brain teaser to exercise your neurons.
Oh yeah, the name includes "EXPERIMENT." So, how serious does anyone want to be in using data from a government experiment 6 or 7 years into a climate study? It's not like glaciers have a half-life measured in months.