Artic Sea Ice

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by mikejet

Shouldn't we be more worried about ice melting in the Antartic continent rather than the North Pole? I mean technically, the ice at the North Pole is all floating therefore if it melts the waters won't rise. If the South Poles Ice were to melt, where all that ice is on land, then we should be worried.

That sounds logical to me, but I am going to venture a guess and say neither you nor I are educated in the proper fields to assess the situation and speak in such simple terms about it. There's probably a ton more to it than that.

I could be wrong, though. It's happened a couple times.

[mikejet]

Originally Posted by brettallica

That sounds logical to me, but I am going to venture a guess and say neither you nor I are educated in the proper fields to assess the situation and speak in such simple terms about it. There's probably a ton more to it than that.

I could be wrong, though. It's happened a couple times.

I know I'm not qualified I was just thinking back to basic chemistry and ice is less dense than water(hence the floating) and displaces more water than there is actually stored in it. Like if you have a cup with ice cubes floating in it after the ice melts the water level goes down.

[xtop]

Originally Posted by mikejet

I know I'm not qualified I was just thinking back to basic chemistry and ice is less dense than water(hence the floating) and displaces more water than there is actually stored in it. Like if you have a cup with ice cubes floating in it after the ice melts the water level goes down.

thats true, but aren't we worried about it melting for other reasons?

[brettallica]

Originally Posted by mikejet

I know I'm not qualified I was just thinking back to basic chemistry and ice is less dense than water(hence the floating) and displaces more water than there is actually stored in it. Like if you have a cup with ice cubes floating in it after the ice melts the water level goes down.

I am totally following the logic, but like xtop said, it's not just about flooding and water levels.

We should ask Al Gore.

[mikejet]

Originally Posted by brettallica

I am totally following the logic, but like xtop said, it's not just about flooding and water levels.

We should ask Al Gore.

I still haven't seen that doc yet. I'm too worried a ManBearPig will attack me if I watch it.

[Anthony P]

Shouldn't we be more worried about ice melting in the Antartic continent rather than the North Pole? I mean technically, the ice at the North Pole is all floating therefore if it melts the waters won't rise. If the South Poles Ice were to melt, where all that ice is on land, then we should be worried

Yes and no, in a simple example, like a glass of water with ice cube, you would be right, when the ice melts the water (from the melted ice) will take the same amount of space as displaced by the ice.

But
1) it is not all on the water Some of it is on land in Russia, Alaska, Canada, Greenland...
2) oceans are salt water while ice is fresh water (and salt water has a higher density)
3) there can be ice caves (i.e. air in the ice)
4) A bigger issue then raising water levels are water currents that play a major role in climate (that will be affected by both the temperature of water and salinity
5) Many animals (like polar bears and seals) depend on this ice.

[Anthony P]

I know I'm not qualified I was just thinking back to basic chemistry and ice is less dense than water(hence the floating) and displaces more water than there is actually stored in it.

no, first it is physics, not chemistry and second it displaces as much water as is stored in the ice. The mass of liquid displaced = the mass of the thing floating in it. Since the ice will turn into water with the same density as the rest of the water it will take up the same space. Now with a glass of ice water on a nice sunny day, some could evaporate, so it could be a bit lower by the time the ice melts but that is due to evaporation and not ice taking less space

[Grumpz]

Originally Posted by Rob71

I see your scientists, and raise you with other scientists.

There is nowhere near a consensus on this subject, in fact more and more scientist are coming out against it every day.

http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/e10...ts_dissent.pdf



So increased solar radiation doesn't have an effect on temperature?



I don't have a problem with reducing pollution, I would just like to see less hypocrisy from it's advocates.



He only "rents" one. Why can't Mr. Environment fly coach, or even 1st class?

I'm all in! I got pockets flu's!

[U4K61]

Originally Posted by mikejet

I know I'm not qualified I was just thinking back to basic chemistry and ice is less dense than water.

Density = Mass/Volume = g/mL
Salt Water: 1027Kg/m³ or a density of 1.025 (temperature and salinity at the surface).
Water: Density = 1.0g/mL or 1000Kg/m³ or a density of 1.0 at 4°C.

ICE: Density = about 0.92g/mL or 0.9167g/cm³.
One liter of water has a mass of about one kilogram when measured at about 4 °C so 1 milliliter of water is about 1 g. When water freezes, the molecules form hexagonal crystals that are 9% less dense as a solid then a liquid. When ice melts, the temperature remains constant at 0 °C as it absorbs as much energy as it would take to heat an equivalent mass of water by 80 °C.
Crystal Structure of Ice

Sink or Swim
Ice, like any solid object floats because the buoyancy force is at least equal to the weight of fluid displaced. If the weight of fluid displaced is less then the weight of the object, it will sink. For objects that sink completely the formula is the density of object/density of fluid = weight/(weight - apparent immersed weight)

At any rate, free-floating north pole ice that melts will not raise sea level just as an ice cube floating in a glass of liquid does not raise its level. However, melting Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets that are supported by a land mass will. So how high is sea level expected to rise this century? Dr. Jeff Masters, comments that according to the IPCC, it will be about 17 to 59cm, which is quite a bit lower then Gore's apocalyptic rise of about 6 meters in the near future. Nevertheless, there is enough ice on both Antarctica and Greenland to raise global sea level by 70m.

Albedo (Whitness)
Melting ice reduces albedo, the fraction of solar energy reflected back into space - 100% for an ideal white body, 0% for an ideal black body. Frozen ice has an albedo of 80%, where open water is 20%. As sea ice retreats, sunshine that would have been reflected back to space by the bright ice is instead absorbed by the ocean.

96.5 % of the earth's water is in the oceans with 1.7 percent as frozen polar ice. 8.0 % comes from lakes, rivers, wetlands, the ground, and the atmosphere. Should all the ice melt, we will be loosing most of our fresh water reserves. Also, rising sea levels along with over pumped aquifers will cause more salt water to mix with ground water, poisoning the well.

Phase Transition or Latent Heat of Fusion of Water
On earth, water exists as solid, liquid or gas; and its phase transition is from one phase or state of matter to another such as from a liquid state to a solid. As long as solid and liquid coexist, the temperature of the system remains constant and equal to the melting point. Think of ice cubes in a glass of water on a sunny day. As long as there is ice, the rest of the water stays cold and warms up only when all the ice has melted.

The phase transition of ice to water occurs at 0°C and requires 80 cal/g. This is 80 times the amount needed to warm the same mass of water one degree Celsius. The specific heat of Fusion is 334 J g-1. To convert 1 g of ice at 0 ºC to 1 g of water at 0 ºC, 334 J of heat must be absorbed by the water. Conversely, when 1 g of water at 0 ºC freezes to give 1 g of ice at 0 ºC, 334 J of heat will be released to the surroundings.


Greenland

Greenland, Kalaallit Nunaat, is the largest island in the world, lying mainly within the Arctic Circle off northeast Canada. Its ice sheet (Kalaallisut) has an area of 1,710,000 km² covering 80% of the island. It has an average thickness of 1,500 m (Britannica) and contains about 2.85 million km³ of ice, which is about 8 - 10% of the world's freshwater reserves.

If the icecap on Greenland were to melt, global sea level would rise 7 meters. Current loss of ice is about 25 miles³ per year. This amounts to 1/4 of 1% of it's ice per century; a 100 year total that would add about 70mm to the sea level by 2100. The 25 mi³ per year is small when compared to the 9,500 miles³ of water that evaporates from the oceans and falls on land each year. The oceans themselves have "an area of about 361 million km², an average depth of about 3,730 m, and a total volume of about 1.347 billion km³" (Columbia Encyclopedia). Currently, ice melt from Greenland causes the global sea level to rise about 0.7 mm, which 23% of the yearly total of about 3mm.

Changes in Total Mass of the Greenlan Ice Sheet

Petermann glacier 2010

• Greenpeace investigates Petermann 2:31
• Huge ice island breaks from Greenland 1:26

Greenland's ice melting faster than expected 2:36
video of Greenland melting 3:01



Sea Ice 101 - NASA 4:29

Arctic Ice Extent

• 4 May 2010. April sea ice extent near average; Arctic temperatures above average - 14.69 million square kilometers (5.67 square miles) - nscidc.org

Hiero II of Syracuse and the Golden Crown
http://www.math.nyu.edu/~crorres/Arc...rownIntro.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiero_II_of_Syracuse

Glossary

Measurements:

• 1 mi² (square mile) = 2.5899 km² (square kilometres)
• 1 mi³ (cubic mile) = 4.16818183 × 10^9 m³ (cubic meter)
• 1 mi³ (cubic mile) = 4.16818183 km³ (cubic kilometer)

Physical Constants for H2O

• Specific heat - 4.18 J/g K
• Molal freezing point depression - 1.86°C/m
• Molal boiling point elevation - 0.52°C/m
• Heat of fusion 79.72 cal/g, 333.6 J/g
• Heat of vaporization - 539.4/g, 2,259 J/g

Albedo - The proportion of light reflected from a surface

The amount of reflection basically depends on the color of the surface, darker surfaces reflect less than lighter colored ones. For some surfaces, like water, the sun angle affects albedo. If you have been out on a lake during the day you might have noticed that the sun reflects off the surface more when the sun is lower in the sky than it does when it is more directly overhead.

Back to Arctic Sea Ice

[My_Two_Cents]

...and none of this means jack-$#!T because now the world is cooling.

http://www.dailytech.com/Solar+Activ...ticle10630.htm

http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature...ticle10866.htm

http://www.businessandmedia.org/prin...114065138.aspx

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,333328,00.html

Warming....cooling....warming.....cooling....All this does is reinforce my beliefs that none of these "experts" know what the hell they are talking about. The earth will exist as it has for the past 4.5 billion years. Only man is arogant enough to think that HE has ANY influence over Mother Nature. Laughable....

[Uniquely]

Originally Posted by xtop

thats true, but aren't we worried about it melting for other reasons?

I'm no expert either..... but from what I understand the concern is that an influx of melted ice would change the salinity of of the ocean which could alter the path gulf stream and other water "conveyor belt" systems that control the climate of the planet as a whole.

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by GaS

Not sure what sources of pollution will make the earth uninhabitable but go talk to Russia or China, they are your main culprits.

Like I said previously, I am all for a clean planet. Just do it for the right reasons and not for junk science.

And the U.S. doesn't pollute at all?

Pull the other one.

Logan

[My_Two_Cents]

Originally Posted by robinandtami

I'm no expert either..... but from what I understand the concern is that an influx of melted ice would change the salinity of of the ocean which could alter the path gulf stream and other water "conveyor belt" systems that control the climate of the planet as a whole.

Sounds like a Roland Emmerich film....

[U4K61]

Originally Posted by robinandtami

an influx of melted ice would change the salinity of of the ocean which could alter the path gulf stream

THE MOC

Changes in the Atlantic Ocean is one of several important Climate Tipping Elements expected to brought about by rising temperatures. The others are: Melting of Greenland/West Antartic ice sheets, a stronger El Nino, dieback of the Boreal and Amazon forest, changes in the India and West African monsoon, and changes in the Sahara/Sahel.

The Thermohaline (temperature-salt) circulation is also called the meridional overturning circulation(MOC). The Atlantic circulation, which is part of the MOC, is the rough equivalent to the flow of 100 Amazon rivers or "27,000 times the energy of all of Britain's power stations put together". If it stopped, places such as Europe would no longer be warmed by this current could see a significant temperature drop, becoming colder within a hotter world. It could cause an abrupt climate change that is measured in a few years as apposed to natural changes that take hundreds or thousands of years.

Following the Density = Mass/Volume formula from the previous post, the deep-water currents are set in motion by the sinking of cold salty water in polar/subpolar regions. Large amounts of fresh water ice melt is said to be 'freshening up' or reducing the salinity of the polar region, cutting back the downwelling of the salty water and weakining the heat carrying ocean current.

Thermohaline Circulation

2010
PASADENA, Calif. – New NASA measurements of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, part of the global ocean conveyor belt that helps regulate climate around the North Atlantic, show no significant slowing over the past 15 years. The data suggest the circulation may have even sped up slightly in the recent past. - NASA, 25 March 2010


Back to Arctic Sea Ice

[U4K61]

Originally Posted by Ricshoe

...and none of this means jack-$#!T because now the world is cooling.

"Take the case of President Obama. He generally signals a serious desire to address climate issues, but, like the leaders of all the developed industrial nations, has been caught in a terrible dilemma. He tries to argue for lower emissions limits, both globally and in the US. But he is simultaneously desperate to revive rapid economic growth and stimulate a sluggish industrial economy hampered by rising costs of energy, rapidly diminishing resources and venal bankers."

The Guardian.co.uk, 15 October 2010

Repeat of a negative Arctic Oscillation leads to warm Arctic, low sea ice extent

Arctic sea ice extent for December 2010 was the lowest in the satellite record for that month. These low ice conditions are linked to a strong negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation, similar to the situation that dominated the winter of 2009-2010...Arctic sea ice extent averaged over December 2010 was 12.00 million square kilometers (4.63 million square miles). This is the lowest December ice extent recorded in satellite observations from 1979 to 2010, 270,000 square kilometers (104,000 square miles) below the previous record low of 12.27 million square kilometers (4.74 million square miles) set in 2006 and 1.35 million square kilometers (521,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000average... The linear rate of decline for the month is –3.5% per decade.

Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis, 5 January 2011

2010 Pakistan Floods

The summer of 2010 produced Pakistan’s worst flooding in 80 years. The number of people affected, who need food, shelter and clothing to face a harsh Pakistani winter, is 20 million.

Flooding began on July 22, 2010, in the province of Baluchistan. The swollen waters then poured across the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province in the northwest before flowing south into Punjab and Sindh. Estimates of the death toll of the floods range from 1,300 to 1,600.

The New York Times, 16 November 2010

Colombia: 2000-2009 ha sido la década más caliente.

La temperatura media de la Tierra se ha incrementado 0,8 grados centígrados desde 1880. Tal incremento responde a las mayores concentraciones de gases de efecto invernadero en la atmósfera, pero también tienen la culpa los aerosoles en el aire, la radiación solar y los cambios en la temperatura superficial del mar en el trópico.

En 2009, pese a que la actividad solar se mantuvo en uno de los ciclos mínimos, el calor hizo de las suyas...En años de El Niño, la temperatura sube, como se vio con el poderoso fenómeno de 1998...
Para el grupo de científicos del centro dirigido por James Hansen, de persistir el actual fenómeno, 2010podría ser el año más caliente de la historia. - 13 de febrero de 2010

La lluvia de las últimas semanas parece un disfraz para una realidad incontrovertible: enero a junio de 2010 ha sido el periodo más caliente del planeta Tierra. - 23 de julio de 2010

El Colombiano.com

2010, The Warmest Year on Record

Highest temperatures ever recorded, 2010

• Chad - 47.6 °C (117.7 °F)
• Niger - 48.2 °C (118.8 °F)
• Sudan - 49.6 °C (121.3 °F)
• Iraq - 52.0 °C (125.6 °F)
• Kuwait - 52.6 °C (126.7 °F)
• Myanmar - 47.0 °C (116.6 °F)
• Pakistan - 53.5 °C (128.3 °F)
• Qatar - 50.4 °C (122.7 °F)
• Saudi Arabia - 52.0 °C (125.6 °F)
• Belarus - 38.9 °C(102 °F
• Cyprus - 46.6 °C (115.9 °F)
• Russia - 44.0 °C (111.2 °F)
• Ukraine - 42.0 °C (107.6 °F)

• The Earth’s temperature was 1.12 °F above the 20th-century average.
• Land surface temps were 2010 were 1.8 F above the average.
• 2010 also had the highest rainfall on record.

2010 on Track to Be Warmest On Record
"The sweltering heat baking the eastern United States is part of a global trend. Last month was the warmest June on record, and so far, 2010 is the warmest year ever recorded, according to data released yesterday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association." Average temperatures for 2010 to date were 1.22 °F warmer than the 20th-century average

The Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010
"one of the most intense, widespread, and long-lasting heat waves in world history. Only the European heat wave of 2003, which killed 35,000 - 50,000 people, and the incredible North American heat wave of July 1936, which set all-time extreme highest temperature records in fifteen U.S. states, can compare." - Dr. Jeff Masters

Lake Superior reaches record temp.
"The lake-wide average surface temperature hit 68.3 °F. The average for Aug. 10 is just 55 °F."


The 6 top snow falls for NYC

1. 12 Feb 2006 - 26'9"
2. 27 Dec 1947 - 26'4"
3. 14 Mar 1888 - 21'0"
4. 26 Feb 2010 - 20'9"
5. 8 Jan 1996 - 20'2"
6. 27 Dec 2010 - 19'8"

Notice that most are in the last 15 years w/two for 2010.
For CT in past two-three weeks, just a few days after Christmas for the month of January 2011, we have had total of 40" in Danbury, a new record.

2011

• January 2011 was the coldest January in the contiguous U.S. since 1994. - Masters, 11 Feb
• The Northeast U.S. has seen three Category 3 or higher snow storms, the winter of 2010 - 2011 is a tie for first place with the winters of 2009 - 2010 and 1960 - 1961 for most major Northeast snowstorms - Master, 11 Feb

The summer Arctic dipole anomaly (DA)
The Arctic Dipole began emerging in the late 1990s, and was unknown before then; thus climate change is suspected as its primary cause(Masters). It creates clockwise wind high pressure on the North American side (the northern Beaufort Sea ) of the Arctic, and counterclockwise low pressure wind on the Eurasian side (the Kara Sea). This causes warm wind to blow in from the south along the Siberian coast to the north bringing heat into the central Arctic Ocean. The DA pattern also promotes northerly winds in the Fram Strait region, helping to flush ice out of the Arctic Ocean into the North Atlantic (Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis, 6 July 2010) The Arctic Dipole pattern occurred in all summer months of 2007 and helped support the record 2007 summer reduction in sea ice extent (Masters and Overland et al., 2008).


Back to Arctic Sea Ice

[tilallr1]

There are 2 major reasons why I have extreme reservations in believing in humans as the cause for global warming:

(1) Lots of money to be made to transition us over to newer technologies/energy sources which create "CLEANER" energy. Especially as our primary one (oil) dwindles. Terribly convenient.

(2) To help people focus on attempted to fix a problem that is unfixable. To give people hope where there is none. We are learning new things everyday about our Sun and Earth, but I fear our knowledge will be useless as it can't help us tackle the real cause ... the Sun people. Resistance is futile. I think we should just come to terms with global warming as being a natural process and stop blaming ourselves.

[U4K61]

The Arctic's Record Breaking Ice Melt - YouTube

2012 minimum arctic sea ice extent


2012, the lowest arctic sea ice extent on record

Arctic sea ice falls below 4 million square kilometers
In the 1970s we had 8m km² of sea ice, now that has been cut to less then half to 3.41 million km² or 24% of the Arctic Ocean. The amount of open water exposed this September compared to September 1980 is about 43% of the size of the contiguous United States (Masters) The Arctic hasn't seen a melt like this for at least 1,450 years (Kinnard et al) "Compared to September conditions in the 1980s and 1990s, this [is] a 45% reduction in the area of the Arctic covered by sea ice... The monthly averaged ice extent for August was 4.72 million km². This is 2.94 million km² below the 1979 to 2000 average extent, and 640,000 km² or 18% below the previous record low of 4.17 km² for August set in 2007. Including 2012, the August trend is -78,100 km² per year, or -10.2 % per decade relative to the 1979 to 2000 average." (nsidc) The record years are now 2012, 2007, 2011 and 2008. If the pace of melt continues, the arctic is expected to be ice free by 2030.


Arctic amplification: extreme winters in the United States and Europe
The arctic has warmed almost twice as much as the recent global average because of the decline in high albedo sea ice. During summer, the atmosphere loses heat to the ocean whereas during winter, it is reversed. Less summer sea ice cover allows for greater warming of the upper ocean because of its low albedo. The excess heat stored in the water is released to the atmosphere during winter, increasing temperatures. Arctic amplification reduces the temperature difference between the cold arctic and warmer south. During 1979 - 2006, years that had unusually low summertime Arctic sea ice had a 10 - 20% reduction in the temperature difference between the Equator and North Pole (Masters)

This weakens the jet stream causing it to meander and become wavy, with steeper troughs and higher ridges (Romm). As a result, weather systems can progress more slowly, causing longer droughts, floods, and heat waves in summer and longer blasts of cold Arctic air during winter. They can drift down into the warmer areas of North America or Europe, leading to frigid temperatures at mid latatudes such as where I live in Connecticut which is between 40°58′ N to 42°03′ N. The record snows we had in 2011 that left accumulations on the ground at least a meter deep could have been a result of this.


Antarctic Sea Ice Sets Record High
The summer minimum of sea ice in the Arctic from 1979 to 1983 averaged out to 2.76 million square miles, or 51.1% of the surface of the Arctic Ocean. In the most recent five years, the summer coverage fell to an average of 31.6% of the ocean surface; this year the coverage was 24%. Meanwhile, the Antartic hit its maximum extent of 7.5 million square mile on Sept. 26, a 33-year high. This is a 0.5% increase over the 2006 record. From 1979 to 1983, the sea ice left at the end of the summer melt season covered about 13.8% of the surface of the Southern Ocean, In the most recent five years, the average rose to 14.6%. So, as a percentage of ocean cover, the decline in the Arctic is almost 25x the increase in the Antarctic. (The New York Times)

Ice Records Fall at Both Poles


2012, the warmest year on record for US
The national average was 13.9° C (57.1° F), about 1° above the 1934 average and 3.3° above the 20th century average.

The Ten Top Weather Events for 2012 (Masters)



Back to Arctic Sea Ice

[P@t_Mtl]

It's like I always say on this subject, some people will keep on saying there is no problem till their dying breath. I frankly feel sorry for our kids and grand kids, wonderful planet we are leaving them! To claim that humans are not responsible for what's happening to the planet is the same type of argument when people claim guns don't kill people

[The Apocalypse]

It's the type of thing people like Sir David Attenborough continually warn us about, and yet we do little about it.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

It's like I always say on this subject, some people will keep on saying there is no problem till their dying breath. I frankly feel sorry for our kids and grand kids, wonderful planet we are leaving them! To claim that humans are not responsible for what's happening to the planet is the same type of argument when people claim guns don't kill people

agree, the worst part is that if we play a large part or a small part, it is immaterial, we need to live with what is happening. I am sure if a giant meteor was on its way ready to cause massive destruction to the world as we know it, everyone would be clamouring "do something and stop it from hitting the Earth" even if did not cause it, but this is much more subtle and so the response is "why should we pay for it, maybe everything will be OK"