quote:

ORIGINAL: Sinergy

quote:

ORIGINAL: BrutalDemon
The bottle will break, which is why it's in a bag, so you're not picking bits of broken bottle out the bottom of your freezer... because ice is less dense than water is, it's volume will increase. As it freezes it expands, as it melts, it shrinks... that 10% above the surface is the stuff that has been displaced because the water froze... if it melts, there's plenty of volume for it to melt into.

Weird.

I thought it was out of water because the ice caps on Antarctica and Greenland sit on land masses.

Wait.  The ice caps on Antarctica and Greenland DO sit on land masses.  So the 90% you are suggesting is underwater is not underwater. 

...

Now if you were talking about the Arctic, I would agree with you about the water density and 90% of the ice cube is submerged.

Recent Ice-Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland

A continuous data set of Greenland Ice Sheet altimeter height from European Remote Sensing satellites (ERS-1 and ERS-2), 1992 to 2003, has been analyzed. An increase of 6.4 ± 0.2 centimeters per year (cm/year) is found in the vast interior areas above 1500 meters, in contrast to previous reports of high-elevation balance.

How Does the Antarctic Ice Sheet Affect Sea Level Rise?

Science 24 June 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5730, pp. 1877 - 1878

Global sea levels are predicted to rise as a result of global warming, but many contributions to this sea level rise are poorly understood. The contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet is particularly uncertain. In his Perspective, Vaughan highlights the report by Davis et al., who have used satellite data to compile an 11-year record of surface elevation change in Antarctica. The resulting maps show that the ice sheet is thickening in some areas and thinning in others.

Antarctic Ice Sheet (and the Plot) Thickens:

However, Monaghan et al. note that there is evidence of conflicting trends in ice sheet thickness across Antarctica: the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been thinning over the past decade, while the East Antarctic Ice Sheet became thicker over the period 1992 through 2003 (Davis et al. 2005). Previous work attributed the thickening of the East Ice Sheet to an increase in snowfall accumulation across that portion of the continent, following the logic of a warmer atmosphere and therefore greater moisture capacity. The thinning of the West Ice Sheet, however, is not well explained. As it turns out, Monaghan and his colleagues do not think that the thickening of the East Ice Sheet is well explained either!

...

The group of researchers reports that across both the East and West Ice Sheets “there are no statistically significant trends in snowfall accumulation over the past 5 decades, including recent years for which global mean temperatures have been warmest.” Clearly stated by Monaghan et al. in the article is that they do not dispute a clear thickening signal in the East Ice Sheet.

...

Until then, there is little evidence to disprove their conclusion that the mass of Antarctica’s grounded ice sheet steadily grew from 1980 to 2004.

East Antarctic Ice Sheet Gains Mass and Slows Sea Level Rise, Study Finds

From 1992 to 2003, Curt Davis, MU professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his team of researchers observed 7.1 million kilometers of the ice sheet, using satellites to measure changes in elevation. They discovered that the ice sheet's interior was gaining mass by about 45 billion tons per year, which was enough to slow sea level rise by .12 millimeters per year.

Surprisingly rapid changes are occurring in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, a Texas-size region of the Antarctic Ice Sheet facing the southern Pacific Ocean. Experts across a wide range of scientific disciplines from the United States and United Kingdom met in Austin, Texas, to identify barriers to improved predictions of future sea-level rise resulting from these changes.

The Amundsen Sea is an arm of the Southern Ocean off Marie Byrd Land in western Antarctica. It is bounded by Thurston Island to the east and Cape Dart to the west.
...

The sea is mostly ice-covered, and the Thwaites Ice Tongue protrudes into it. The ice-covered area of the sea, averaging about 3 km (2 miles) in thickness and roughly the size of the state of Texas, is called the Amundsen Sea Embayment; it forms one of the three major ice drainage basins of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet ...

quote:

ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

How Does the Antarctic Ice Sheet Affect Sea Level Rise?

Science 24 June 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5730, pp. 1877 - 1878

Global sea levels are predicted to rise as a result of global warming, but many contributions to this sea level rise are poorly understood.

So, it appears as far as this discussion goes, you yourself have eliminated the Arctic ice melting as a problem. 

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ORIGINAL: Sinergy
I did not eliminate it.  I am not generally one to make such definitive statements and split infinitives. 

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ORIGINAL: ExSteelAgain

Well, dang, screwed the quote up somehow...soooowwwwwwyyyyy.

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I always wondered why they named it Greenland to begin with?

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ORIGINAL: GoddessDustyGold

<fast reply>  I really think y'all should read "State of Fear" by Michael Crighton.  A really good read and based in science, or should I say the the lack of science.  As Michael Crighton has said in the past (paraphrased):  This is a work of fiction, except for the parts that are true. 
Go ahead...I dare ya!  *Smile*

And there's a 15 page bibliography  as well as footnotes, for those who insist on cites! 

Open your minds!  Muwahhhaaahahha!
 
Edited to add:  The above post is to no one in particular, and everyone who is open to more points of view.   

A lecture by Michael Crichton
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA
January 17, 2003

lede:

My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sinergy

quote:

ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

How Does the Antarctic Ice Sheet Affect Sea Level Rise?

Science 24 June 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5730, pp. 1877 - 1878

Global sea levels are predicted to rise as a result of global warming, but many contributions to this sea level rise are poorly understood.

So, it appears as far as this discussion goes, you yourself have eliminated the Arctic ice melting as a problem. 

I did not eliminate it.  I am not generally one to make such definitive statements and split infinitives.  I also tend to be a systems approach kind of person; people who think everything boils down to a single causative factor seem obtuse to me.  I simply stated that 90% of the ice mass in the Arctic is underwater already and will not contribute much to the volume.  The other 10% will.

...

Basically, in case you are interested, I need to get the ice masses for the former ice glaciers in Patagonia, Alaska, Washington, Mont Blanc, etc.  When all of these melted, the total amount of water flowed downhill into the ocean.  As they continue to recede, more water flows downhill into the ocean.

When you look at the size of the ice fields in Greenland and Antarctica, taken from space in the 1960s, and the size of the ice fields today, there is a significant shrinkage.  It is easy to say that in some places they are thickening and others are growing thinner, but I am curious if

I think the most pertinent part of one of the links that you use to disprove global warming, was the comment about it being poorly understood.  If scientists dont really understand it, I find it odd that anybody else can speak of it either for or against with such certainty.

I include myself in the list of people.  I dont actually consider myself an expert on global warming.  What I do know from what I have read is the CO2 increase in the atmosphere has been specifically determined to be caused by the burning of fossil fuels.  I do know that as the earth heats up and the ice fields in northern Russia and Canada start melting, the trapped rotting plant life frozen for eons will continue rotting, contributing methane.

Your cited studies only covered 11 years.  Got any information going back further?

I think the most pertinent part of one of the links that you use to disprove global warming, was the comment about it being poorly understood.  If scientists dont really understand it, I find it odd that anybody else can speak of it either for or against with such certainty.

I include myself in the list of people.  I dont actually consider myself an expert on global warming.

The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooling occurring after a warmer era known as the Medieval climate optimum. Climatologists and historians find it difficult to agree on either the start or end dates of this period. Some confine the Little Ice Age to approximately the 16th to the mid-19th centuries while others suggest a span from the 13th to 17th centuries. It is generally agreed that there were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals

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The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or Medieval Climate Optimum was a time of unusually warm climate in the North Atlantic region, lasting from about the tenth century to about the fourteenth century.

...

The Vikings took advantage of ice-free seas to colonize Greenland and other outlying lands of the far north. The MWP was followed by the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling that lasted until the 19th century.

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The Holocene Climate Optimum was a warm period during roughly the interval 9,000 to 5,000 years B.P.. This event has also been known by many other names, including: Hypsithermal, Altithermal, Climatic Optimum, Holocene Optimum, Holocene Thermal Maximum, and Holocene Megathermal.

This warm period was followed by a gradual decline until about 2,000 years ago.

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The Huelmo/Mascardi Cold Reversal (HMCR) is the name given to a cooling event in South America between 11,400 and 10,200 14C years BP

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The Younger Dryas stadial, named after the alpine / tundra wildflower Dryas octopetala, and also referred to as the Big Freeze [1], was a brief (approximately 1300 ± 70 years [1]) cold climate period following the Bölling/Allerød interstadial at the end of the Pleistocene between approximately 12,700 to 11,500 years Before Present [2], and preceding the Preboreal of the early Holocene.

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The Older Dryas was a somewhat variable cold, dry Blytt-Sernander period of North Europe, roughly equivalent to Pollen zone 1c. 

...

You might read that the Older Dryas is "centered" near 14,100 BP or is 100 to 150 years in duration "at"14,250 BP.

A second approach finds C-14 or other dates as close to the end of the Bølling and the beginning of the Allerød as possible and selects end points based on them. This type of date is of the form, for example, 12,000-11,800 C-14 BP uncalibrated, 14,000-13,700 BP cal.

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The Allerød period is a part of a temperature oscillation toward the end of the last glaciation, during which temperatures in the northern Atlantic region rose from glacial to almost present day level. The Allerød is a warm, moist Blytt-Sernander period named after a type site in Allerød municipality in Sjælland, Denmark (near Copenhagen), where deposits created during the period were first identified and published in 1901 by Hartz and Milthers.

...

A conventional date of 14,000 BP is typical. Roberts (1998) uses 13,000 BP for the end of the period.

The Greenland Oxygen isotope record shows the warming identified with the Allerød to be after about 14,100 BP and before about 12,900 BP.

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The Bølling Oscillation was a warm period that occurred during the final stages of the last glaciation of Europe.

The beginning of the Bølling is also the high-resolution date for the sharp temperature rise marking the end of the Oldest Dryas at 14,670 BP. Roberts (1998) uses 15,000. A range of 14,650-14,000 BP calibrated has been assigned to the Bølling layer of the excavation at Lake Neuchatel, Switzerland, 1992-1993. The Oxygen isotope record from Greenland ice includes the Bølling warm peak between 14,600 and 14,100 BP. Most of the recent dates available fall within a few hundred years of these.

Of the two periods, Bølling and Allerød, Bølling is the warmer and came on more suddenly. During it sea level rose more than 100 m due to glacial melt.

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Your cited studies only covered 11 years.  Got any information going back further?

Until then, there is little evidence to disprove their conclusion that the mass of Antarctica’s grounded ice sheet steadily grew from 1980 to 2004.

Sea level rise

The Puzzle of Global Sea-Level Rise

Sea-level change and the archaeology of early Venice.

Venice Sea Level Rising At Accelerated Rate

What I do know from what I have read is the CO2 increase in the atmosphere has been specifically determined to be caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY


Another good Michael Crichton read is free and on his official site:

"Aliens Cause Global Warming"

A lecture by Michael Crichton
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA
January 17, 2003

lede:

My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming.

Read the whole thing.  [:D]

FirmKY

quote:

ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

Until then, there is little evidence to disprove their conclusion that the mass of Antarctica’s grounded ice sheet steadily grew from 1980 to 2004.

Last March, geophysicists Isabella Velicogna and John Wahr at the University of Colorado at Boulder published a paper in Science Express that used GRACE data to show that the ice sheet covering Antarctica has shrunk by an average of 36 cubic miles of ice per year—surprising, given that many climate models predict a thickening of the ice as higher global temperatures lead to more evaporation and precipitation, "It's very difficult for models to reproduce the physics of glaciers, and this shows that the models aren't as good as we'd like them to be," Velicogna says.

Velicogna and her colleagues also measured a dramatic toss of  Greenland ice, as much as 38 cubic miles per year between 2002 and 2005—even more troubling, given that an influx of fresh meltwater into the salty North Atlantic couid in theory shut off the system of ocean currents that keep Europe relatively warm. (A separate group at the University of Texas published figures extrapolated from GRACE data showing that Greenland lost as much as 57 cubic miles of ice each year between 2002 and 2005; NASA shortly plans to publish data reconciling the two studies.) '"it's a wake-up call," says Velicogna, "because there is a lot of water that can go from ths ice sheets into the ocean. Both ice sheets are significantly losing mass, and that affects sea level. If sea level is going to rise, that will affect a lot of coastal areas."

 Isabella Velicogna and John Wahr, both from the University of Colorado, Boulder, conducted the study. They demonstrated for the first time that Antarctica's ice sheet lost a significant amount of mass since 2002. The estimated mass loss was enough to raise global sea level about 1.2 millimeters (0.05 inches) during the survey period, or about 13 percent of the overall observed sea level rise for the same period. The researchers found Antarctica's ice sheet decreased by 152 (plus or minus 80) cubic kilometers of ice annually between April 2002 and August 2005.

Isabella Velicogna and John Wahr
Science 24 March 2006 311: 1754-1756; published online 1 March 2006

Using measurements of time-variable gravity from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites, we determined mass variations of the Antarctic ice sheet during 2002–2005. We found that the mass of the ice sheet decreased significantly, at a rate of 152 ± 80 cubic kilometers of ice per year, which is equivalent to 0.4 ± 0.2 millimeters of global sea-level rise per year. Most of this mass loss came from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Antarctic mass variability is difficult to measure because of the ice sheet's size and complexity.
...

We used GRACE gravity-field solutions for 34 months between April 2002 and August 2005 to estimate the mass change of the Antarctic ice sheet.  ... The GRACE C20 coefficients show anomalously large variability, so we replace them with values derived from satellite laser ranging. Each solution consists of spherical harmonic (Stokes) coefficients ... The Stokes coefficients can be used to solve for monthly variations in Earth's surface mass distribution.

...

We used the Stokes coefficients to estimate monthly mass changes of the entire Antarctic ice sheet and of EAIS and WAIS separately. We defined an averaging function for each region that minimizes the combined measurement error and signal leakage (11). GRACE does not recover l = 1 coefficients, so we removed l = 1 terms from the averaging function.

... there is decreased sensitivity to the far end of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Before interpreting the scaled results as ice sheet change, we had to address the issues of errors in the GRACE gravity fields and the contamination from other geophysical sources of gravity-field variability. To estimate the effects of errors, we convolved our averaging functions with uncertainty estimates for the GRACE Stokes coefficients (13). We obtained 1{sigma} error estimates that can be interpreted as 68.3% confidence intervals.

There are two types of geophysical contamination: one caused by signals outside Antarctica and the other from Antarctic signals unrelated to snow and ice. Leakage from outside Antarctica occurs because the averaging function extends beyond the boundaries of Antarctica. The leakage is increased because our omission of l = 1 terms causes the averaging function to have a small-amplitude tail that extends around the globe.

We considered two sources of external leakage: continental hydrology outside Antarctica and ocean mass variability. The hydrological contamination was estimated using monthly global water storage fields from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (14). The ocean contamination was estimated using a Jet Propulsion Laboratory version of the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean general circulation model (15). In both cases, we added a uniform layer to the global ocean so that the total land plus ocean mass was conserved at every time step. We removed the predicted hydrology leakage from the GRACE monthly mass estimates to obtain the monthly Antarctic mass estimates shown in Fig. 2. The predicted oceanic leakage was negligible and so was not removed.

The Antarctic mass change from GRACE shows a trend superimposed on shorter period variability (Fig. 2). We simultaneously fit a trend and annually and semiannually varying terms to the GRACE-minus-leakage results. Interpreting the trend as being due entirely to a change in ice, we inferred an ice volume increase of 39 ± 14 km3/year (the trend obtained without removing the hydrology leakage is 51 ± 14 km3/year). The uncertainty reflects the errors in the GRACE gravity-field solutions and was computed using the GRACE monthly error bars (Fig. 2).

This ice mass estimate is contaminated by variations in atmospheric mass and from PGR. European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) meteorological fields were used to remove atmospheric effects from the raw data before constructing gravity fields. But there are errors in those fields. We estimated the secular component of those errors by finding monthly differences between meteorological fields from ECMWF and from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, applying the Antarctic averaging function to those differences and fitting a trend, and annually and semiannually varying terms to the results.

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A PGR signal is indistinguishable from a linear trend in ice mass. PGR effects are large and must be independently modeled and removed. There are two important sources of error in PGR estimates: the ice history and Earth's viscosity profile. We estimated the PGR contribution and its uncertainties using two ice history models: ICE-5G (16) and IJ05 (17). IJ05 is available only for Antarctica, so we combined it with ICE-5G outside Antarctica.

...

Our best estimate of PGR trend is the midpoint of this range. This estimate translates to an apparent ice increase of 192 ± 79 km3/year, where the uncertainty corresponds to the bounds of our PGR range.

We subtracted this PGR contribution from the GRACE-minus-leakage ice mass estimates (Fig. 2). The best-fitting linear trend, and our final estimate of the decrease in total Antarctic mass between the summers of 2002 and 2005, is 152 ± 80 km3/year. The uncertainty is the RSS of the errors in the GRACE fit and in the PGR contribution. This rate of ice loss corresponds to 0.4 ± 0.2 mm/year of global sea-level rise.

The PGR contribution (192 ± 79 km3/year) is much larger than the uncorrected GRACE trend (39 ± 14 km3/year). A significant ice mass trend does not appear until the PGR contribution is removed. The implication is that when averaged over all Antarctica, the gravity signals from PGR and from ice variability are closely coincident (with opposing signs)

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Both these ice sheets appear to have lost mass at higher rates during 2002–2004 than during 2004–2005

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we find that most of the Antarctic mass loss comes from WAIS. After correcting for the hydrology leakage and the PGR signal, we obtain a WAIS mass loss of 148 ± 21 km3/year. The EAIS mass loss is 0 ± 56 km3/year. Because of its relatively large uncertainty, we are not able to determine whether EAIS is in balance or not. The final error bars for WAIS and EAIS, like those for all Antarctica, are dominated by the PGR uncertainty. The predicted PGR gravity signals at individual points in WAIS are actually somewhat larger than the PGR signals at EAIS points.

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The main disadvantage of GRACE is that it is more sensitive than other techniques to PGR; in fact, our error estimates are dominated by PGR uncertainties. As more GRACE data become available, it will become feasible to search for long-term changes in the rate of mass loss.

quote:

ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY


For now, I'll just leave an analysis for some of the smart people here, but I will say that for someone to make "the world is ending" claims from the data and methodology presented probably isn't a real good idea.

FirmKY