Global Warming

[bigboab]

During the recent heat wave, I am sure, like me, you have heard the following wherever you went:-
"This is the start of the global warming", "All the icecaps are going to melt and we will all be flooded" and so on. I have also read in all the papers over the last decade of the various things that global warming is going to cause.

1. A rise in global temperature of so many degrees, creating drought and all things associated with it.

2. The melting of all the icecaps creating vast floods all over the world and raising the sea levels by anything from six inches to 10 feet.

Excuse my complete ignorance (I know you have!). I find all these predictions a lot of rubbish. Unless I am completely stupid (O.K!) and my education of over 50 years ago was uninformed or not properly digested. As an old man, (Some of you will say ancient!), I appeal to the younger generation to tell me where I m going wrong.

My Theories:-

GLOBAL WARMING: How come we are having this global warming,"0wing to the hole in the ozone layer"?
Yet we are only producing temperatures equal to the ones they had over a 100 years ago?

RISE IN SEA LEVELS: In order for the sea levels to rise 1 inch, it would require about 12 inches of snow covering the whole of the earths land mass to melt, or, 2 inches of rain (Where is that going to come from?) over the entire land mass of the earth. Any extra rainfall is taken out of the seas therefore it must reduce there level proportionately. (Without being pedantic, JP note! The above is based on a 1 to 2 land ratio to sea.)

MELTING of the ICECAPS: The South Pole and southern regions and other icecaps except the North Pole, as I will explain later. If all of this were to melt, which I cant see happening, because, surely the extra rainfall would fall as snow in these regions, because the earth tilt would still produce these cold regions. Most of the other icecaps are created because of height and this would continue.

The NORTH POLE: As far as I am aware the North Pole is one giant ice cube. If you fill a glass with ice cubes and then topped it with water to the level of the glass, when the ice cubes melt the water in the glass remains level with the top without any spillage(Except on a Saturday night!). So how can the North Pole melting affect the sea level?

I expect that you will discount all of the above as the rambling of an old man. All I am asking is for you to tell me where I am basically wrong. If I am not wrong we may see this theory appearing in some college like Cardonald or some such place in the near future with a new author. :ph34r:

Hope I have not bored you for a few minutes. :rolleyes:

[titey]

Pffffft.... <_<

Old news, "old man" ;)

I heard all this same crap 10 years ago when we were having an uncharacteristically warm spell.

Pure http://members.roadfly.com/tite-wad/poop.gif :rolleyes:

[thewizeard]

No I have not been bored&#33;

It would be the melting of land based ice masses which will cause the oceans to rise.

There is evidence that the antartic climate is warming.

Some scientists (still) believe we are at the beginning of a new iceage.

We will just have to wait and see....

Edit: Many of the glaciers are retreating.

[bigboab]

Dont forget&#33; TITEY I have Alzheimers so it is news to me every day.

[titey]

Originally posted by bigboab@14 August 2003 - 15:28
Dont forget&#33; TITEY I have Alzheimers so it is news to me every day.
I wasn&#39;t saying that you should&#39;ve heard it before... I was speaking of stories going around here in the US a decade ago. :P

[bigboab]

And what was the definitive answer 10 years ago?

[Ron]

Originally posted by titey@14 August 2003 - 22:23
Pure http://members.roadfly.com/tite-wad/poop.gif&nbsp; :rolleyes:
Is that the same as
http://users.skynet.be/Ron/Fly1.jpghttp://users.skynet.be/Ron/Fly.jpg
http://www.nature-source.com/graphics/turtle-shit.jpg

???

:blink: :blink: :blink:

[titey]

Originally posted by bigboab@14 August 2003 - 15:36
And what was the definitive answer 10 years ago?
They were "definitely" stupid&#33; ;)

It was only 10 or 15 years earlier that they were predicting the onset of a new ice-age.
(We&#39;d had a couple of blizzards in the mid &#39;70s) :rolleyes:

Just a bunch of paranoid doomsdayers... nuthin real to get worked up about. <_<


@ Ron - yes it is essentially the same as the turtle crap (TC), but balamm was so offended by the posting of images of feces, that I thought it best to use a cartoon drawing instead to soothe his mind. :P

[Biggles]

Global warming (or cooling) is a simple fact. The climate varies considerably over any period of time. In the 11th century it was extremely warm and vineyards grew as far north as York and Greenland was .. well a lot greener. In the 6th and 17th centuries there were mini ice-ages and thousands starved in northern Europe as crops failed and winters were brutally cold (lots of lovely paintings of Thames frozen over etc., from the latter period though)

So the question is not whether there is global warming, one only needs to look at the records to see that average temperatures have been higher over the last 10 years than at any point over the last 150 years, but rather are we causing the global warming. That is, are we are experiencing something outwith normal weather patterns? On this the jury is still out. Whilst some believe we may helped to kick-start a natural warming process others believe our contribution is minimal and that we are simply along for the ride - good or bad. The down side of any warming is that Mother Nature tends to self regulate with a bout of cooling. Global warming may be a pain but it is an ice-age that would actually cause us real problems, even if it was only a mini one as in the 17th century. So if we are contributing to a mechanism that could result in a premature ice-age then perhaps we might be wise to consider stopping and taking stock.

Regardless of the actual causes, climate change does occur on a regular basis and it would be prudent to plan accordingly rather than pretend it will all go away if we ridicule the tree huggers. Whilst, the various mechanisms may not yet be correctly identified by the redoubtable eco-warriors it would be something of a hollow victory to point this out as we chisel through a 100 feet of ice to get to our front doors.

[Ron]

I think he&#39;ll let it slide this once though.

What&#39;s that?


Why?



http://users.skynet.be/Ron/r19.gif

:D :D :D

[L0rD_S0tH]

my feelings are this:

Humans have been studying weather patterns with slight accuracy for what, 100 yrs tops? Even then half the shit predicted is wrong. In most cases we can&#39;t even predict what will happen tomorrow. How in the hell do we honestly think we can predict what will happen in thousands and millions of years from now? The earth has been around for billions of years, and we think since we began studying its weather patterns for the last few 100 years that we actually have the slightest clue as to what is going on? I agree it&#39;s all bullshit.

[lynx]

I tend to think it is all bullshit, but I must correct a technical error by BB.

When you melt an ice cube in a glass, there is no increase in volume because the water displaced by the ice must be the same weight as the ice, so when it melts back to water it occupies the same volume. At the arctic however, the &#39;ice cube&#39; is almost all pure water but the sea contains salt and is therefore denser. So if the arctic cap were to melt it would produce a greater volume than the salt water it had displaced.

The question is of course how much difference that would make to sea level. It certainly is not the volume of the arctic ice cap however. For example, if the specific density of sea water is 1.025 (an approximation) then only 2.5 percent of the volume would be spread throughout the oceans.

What is not widely known is that the ocean floor is actually held down by the weight of water above it, so more water would actually push down on the ocean floor, which in turn would cause a relative rise in the adjacent land masses (continental bulge), so it is actually possible that melting of the polar ice caps could cause a drop in sea levels, or at least leave them virtually unchanged.

[thewizeard]

I wonder what the effect would be if all the bolognese sause would be dumped in the sea?

[titey]

Originally posted by lynx@14 August 2003 - 17:01
What is not widely known is that the ocean floor is actually held down by the weight of water above it
What??? :blink:

[Proper Bo]

Global what-now? :huh:

[lynx]

Originally posted by nigel123@14 August 2003 - 23:08
I wonder what the effect would be if all the bolognese sause would be dumped in the sea?
Well it would certainly taste a lot better.

@titey - told you it was not widely known (strictly speaking I should have said depressed rather than held down, but what the heck).

[bigboab]

Sorry but I tend to disagree. This after all started of as frozen sea and has become larger and larger by the edges freezing(again sea). The amount on the
top is negligible compared to the frozen salt water underneath. But that is my opinion. :(

[L0rD_S0tH]

Originally posted by lynx@14 August 2003 - 22:01
What is not widely known is that the ocean floor is actually held down by the weight of water above it, so more water would actually push down on the ocean floor, which in turn would cause a relative rise in the adjacent land masses (continental bulge), so it is actually possible that melting of the polar ice caps could cause a drop in sea levels, or at least leave them virtually unchanged.
interesting. it makes sense to me. where did you learn of this?

[titey]

Originally posted by lynx@14 August 2003 - 17:15
@titey - told you it was not widely known (strictly speaking I should have said depressed rather than held down, but what the heck).
If they&#39;re depressed, can&#39;t they just get a prescription for an MAOI inhibitor? :huh:

[lynx]

Originally posted by bigboab+14 August 2003 - 23:26--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (bigboab @ 14 August 2003 - 23:26)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Sorry but I tend to disagree. This after all started of as frozen sea and has become larger and larger by the edges freezing(again sea). The amount on the
top is negligible compared to the frozen salt water underneath. But that is my opinion. :( [/b]
The original &#39;frozen sea&#39; is long since gone and has been replaced by compacted ice from snowfall (as proof, they take core samples to compare atmospheric conditions over millions of years). The salt laden frozen sea underneath would have a lower melting point compared to the freshwater ice above so it melts at temperatures where the freshwater ice does not.

<!--QuoteBegin-L0rD_S0tH
interesting. it makes sense to me. where did you learn of this?[/quote]It was on a scientific program on UK tv, though I can&#39;t remember what it was, probably one of the Horizon or Equinox series.

Continental land mass is made up of relatively thick crust; same principle as an iceberg, the more there is up top, the more there has to be down below, but floating on magma not water. Ocean floor in contrast is relatively thin, but is consequently easily distorted by the weight of water above it.

[Ron]

Hang on,....
Doesn&#39;t water expand when it freezes?
So an icecube melting in a glass of water should make the level drop, not stay the same, right?
Or wrong....? :unsure:

[thewizeard]

Originally posted by Ron@15 August 2003 - 02:59
Hang on,....
Doesn&#39;t water expand when it freezes?
So an icecube melting in a glass of water should make the level drop, not stay the same, right?
Or wrong....? :unsure:
I think you are wrong,..... not that it surprises me....

[thewizeard]

On the other hand due to evaporation the level could be less

[Ron]

Just because I don&#39;t know much about frozen products, doesn&#39;t mean I&#39;m a complete idiot, my dear.
Ask me a cucumber question, I dare you&#33;&#33;&#33; :angry:

[Ron]

Seriously though, we had a swimming pool at home when I was young, and in winter it froze up sometimes. The water level would be higher then.......

On the other hand, we might be talking about two different things here.
I was talking about an icecubes in a glass. They don&#39;t or barely surface. Therefore, the level has to drop,....I think.

[thewizeard]

Originally posted by Ron@15 August 2003 - 03:12
Just because I don&#39;t know much about frozen products, doesn&#39;t mean I&#39;m a complete idiot, my dear.
Ask me a cucumber question, I dare you&#33;&#33;&#33; :angry:
Ok a cucumber question,

If you put a frozen cucumber in a glass of water, what would happen to the level of the water when the cucumber was back at room temperature? :rolleyes:

[thewizeard]

Originally posted by Ron@15 August 2003 - 03:16
Seriously though, we had a swimming pool at home when I was young, and in winter it froze up sometimes. The water level would be higher then.......

On the other hand, we might be talking about two different things here.
I was talking about an icecubes in a glass. They don&#39;t or barely surface. Therefore, the level has to drop,....I think.
The level of the water would remain the same. Archimedes principle. You know Archimedes, he sat in a tub of water witha frozen cucumber in it. He screamed Ureka and ran down the street naked with a frozen cucumber hanging out of his......

[lynx]

Originally posted by Ron@15 August 2003 - 01:59
Hang on,....
Doesn&#39;t water expand when it freezes?
So an icecube melting in a glass of water should make the level drop, not stay the same, right?
Or wrong....? :unsure:
Fill a glass which can hold exactly 200 cl of water. The water weighs 200g.
Remove 10g (volume 10cl) and freeze into an ice cube. The water will expand as it freezes and will occupy approximately 10.5 cl, but it will still weigh 10g.
Now put this ice cube back into the glass. The ice cube will displace 10g of water (archimedes principle) which is 10cl, the amount you took out in the first place, so the water level will come back to the top of the glass, but there will be approximately 0.5cl of ice above the top of the glass.
Obviously, when the ice melts it returns to the original state, 200cl of water in total.

Now do the same with salt water. But when you remove 10g, the volume will only be about 9.75cl. Now instead of freezing this salt water, freeze 10g of fresh water. The unfrozen volume is 10cl. Put the fresh water ice cube into the salt water and it will again displace 10g, so the water level will again come back to the top. But this time, when the ice melts you end up with 190.25cl of salt water plus 10cl of fresh water = 200.25cl, so the glass overflows.

[Ron]

@ lynx: DUH&#33;&#33;&#33; :D
Crystal clear explanation&#33; Why didn&#39;t you become a teacher? You&#39;d be good at it.

@ Neil: DUH&#33; too. The level would stay the same of course. :rolleyes:
But what do you think would happen to the waterlevel if I put you and the cucumber in a bathtub, and stuck the vegetable where the sun doesn&#39;t shine?

[lynx]

Originally posted by Ron@15 August 2003 - 02:41
@ Neil: DUH&#33; too. The level would stay the same of course. :rolleyes:
But what do you think would happen to the waterlevel if I put you and the cucumber in a bathtub, and stuck the vegetable where the sun doesn&#39;t shine?
I think you mean Nigel.

And don&#39;t encourage him, he&#39;d only want ketchup on that cucumber. :wacko:

[thewizeard]

Well it&#39;s to late to ask Archimedes that. Maybe lynx knows the answer. :D

[Ron]

Oops.
Sorry Nigel.
The thought of vegetainment got me all excited. :D

[lynx]

Originally posted by nigel123@15 August 2003 - 02:49
Well it&#39;s to late to ask Archimedes that. Maybe linx knows the answer. :D
Simple, you would drown.

Because I would have my foot on your head.
Scratch 1 ketchup lover. :P

[thewizeard]

Global warming does have far-reaching effects. :P

Actually global warming would increase the production of tomatoes and we would be able to make more ketchup

[Powdered Water]

This was such a fulfilling thread&#33; I mean WOW&#33; I think I&#39;ll go have A glass of ice water. :blink:

[3rd gen noob]

i enjoyed reading this thread too

it&#39;s great to see some people with some sense when it comes to global warming

:D

p.s. i really like your name, Powdered Water

[3rd gen noob]

edit: my first double post in a while

i hang my head in shame

re-edit: in case anyone is bothered, approx 89% of the average iceberg is submerged:

working (http://mysite.freeserve.com/MSchumiFTP/ice.JPG)
(not my handwriting, don&#39;t complain, please :P)

[Biggles]

During the last ice-age the sea levels dropped and there was a land bridge between the UK and Europe. As the ice melted the sea levels rose considerably. This was despite all sorts of things happening, like the increased amount of sea water pushing the sea bed down and the removal of billions of tons of ice allowing land masses to rise.

I am not sure, but working on the basis of this is just more of the same, I would guess that ice melt will result in yet higher sea levels. Or am I just being overly logical? :blink:

[lynx]

You need to remember that during the last ice-age, vast areas of LAND (perhaps 50%) were covered in ice, thereby removing that water from the oceans. At the current time, with the exception of antarctica, there are no great tracts of land permanently buried under several metres of ice, so that ice simply isn&#39;t there to melt and raise the sea level.

[downloader2008]

Actually, I read an article that the hole in the Ozone Layer above Antarctica is actually getting better [recovering] because of banning a while ago that banned a chemical that was used in old refridgerators and air conditioners.

[Biggles]

I believe that the dire predictions of rising sea levels is based on varying degrees of melt from Antartica, which after all is said and done, is a big place with a lot of ice.

I also understand that warm water is less dense than cold water and that sea levels can rise by simple warming rather than any increase in the wet stuff.

At the end of the day, we can scare ourselves silly over this far better than we can with Friday the 13th (part 52 - the return of the synchronised swimmers) and with that added twist of total uncertainty. :o

As I said above, the world is warmer and there will be implications at some point in the future (perhaps small perhaps big) we simply have to be prepared to adapt and survive.

[lynx]

Originally posted by downloader2008@15 August 2003 - 21:05
Actually, I read an article that the hole in the Ozone Layer above Antarctica is actually getting better [recovering] because of banning a while ago that banned a chemical that was used in old refridgerators and air conditioners.
Wasn&#39;t a new satellite launched in the last couple of days to examine the ozone layer and see how it is doing?
I saw something on the news about a small rocket being launched from under a plane, but I wasn&#39;t really paying too much attention.

[lynx]

Originally posted by Biggles@15 August 2003 - 21:23
I also understand that warm water is less dense than cold water and that sea levels can rise by simple warming rather than any increase in the wet stuff.
Agreed, but surface temperature changes only have an effect for a few metres, there is no recorded change in deep water temperature as far as I know, so expansion of surface layers would have a minimal effect.

I found something out yesterday while researching this topic: apparently water density at great depths is actually affected by the pressure caused by those depths. I was not aware that liquids could be compressed in this way. I suppose more water on the surface would contribute to this compression, though I would expect the difference to be negligible.

[bigboab]

Talking about synchronised swimmers? If all of the team bar one became too ill to compete would the remaining member win the competition? :rolleyes: