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Started by Inkidu, August 05, 2008, 07:56:08 PM

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Inkidu

How many of you think if the polar icecaps melted we'd end up like Costner in "Waterworld"?
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Vekseid

There's only enough ice for what, ~70 meters?

My home state is 300 meters up.

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Inkidu

Quote from: Vekseid on August 06, 2008, 04:29:33 PM
There's only enough ice for what, ~70 meters?

My home state is 300 meters up.
Actually it shouldn't raise the water level all that much. I estimate less than ten feet.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Vekseid

Quote from: Inkedu on August 06, 2008, 06:53:46 PM
Actually it shouldn't raise the water level all that much. I estimate less than ten feet.

The arctic cap gives no rise, of course But you said the polar caps, as in both of them..

The Greenland icecap alone has enough ice for 7 meters or ~20 feet. The Western Antarctic cap is of similar size.

Of course, the Eastern Antarctic icecap is not going anywhere anytime soon, but if it melted as well, or just slid into the ocean, that's a lot of water. I've seen estimates in the 70 meter range -just- for the eastern cap, apparently enough to flood a quarter of the Earth's land area.

Kalen

When I read the original post, I started thinking... brooding, annoying, and with gills? 

I highly doubt it.

*ahem*

I don't know how much that would change the sealevel... but I know those of us living on the coasts wouldn't be around to see the changes. 

Inkidu

All water is displaced by the ice. If it all melted everyone would be fine, even on the coast in terms of sea level rising, physics still apply after all. Now as for the weather affects caused by them melting that's another problem. However the continents aren't going under, ever.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

sleepingferret

The displacement of water from the polar ice caps is essentially like an ice cube in a glass of water.  For example, a glass of water...the glass itself made for containing just over 8 oz, holds 8 oz of water and an ice cube.  We'll say the displacement of water by the ice cube to begin with was not enough to cause it to overflow, but the glass was pretty full and would take some skillful balancing to not spill.  So what happens when the ice cube melts?  Should be the same volume correct?

Evidently, it had more to do with water density at certain temperatures...rather than the simple mathematics that state water freezes and melts at certain temperatures. 

Lithos

#8
Quote from: Inkedu on August 07, 2008, 12:05:00 PM
All water is displaced by the ice. If it all melted everyone would be fine, even on the coast in terms of sea level rising, physics still apply after all. Now as for the weather affects caused by them melting that's another problem. However the continents aren't going under, ever.

You should do some research before stating such things as facts. For example, in south pole, the ice amount is not displacing water for some part, it stacks up so much that there is indeed enough extra water to raise the water level for even tens of meters. Of course, still most of it is displacement, but when numbers are big enough, even small fractions mean a lot. In this case:

Thickness of southern polar cap (average): 2,133 meters of ice
Amount by which sea levels would raise globally if melted: 61 meters

Also as previously stated.. water is sort of curious substance... most dense at 4 degrees celsius.. anything colder or hotter than that, and it expands. Thus, warming of earth's water mass will make it less dese and it will take more space. Usually these changes are a lot more subtle though.

So if (a very foreign if, specially about south pole) polar caps would melt, the rise would not be much if you compare to ice thickness... but quite enough for huge amount of current land area at coasts. No waterworld though hopefully... If world has gone to hell and it is crappy day... last thing I would want to see was Kevin Costner x.x

Hopefully this helps to understand how it works.
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Kalen

By drowning in the tub?   :o

ShrowdedPoet

Quote from: Kalen on August 08, 2008, 11:24:04 AM
By drowning in the tub?   :o

*laughs*  Nope. . .very likely something more painful and bloody. . .
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Vekseid

Quote from: Inkedu on August 07, 2008, 12:05:00 PM
All water is displaced by the ice. If it all melted everyone would be fine, even on the coast in terms of sea level rising, physics still apply after all. Now as for the weather affects caused by them melting that's another problem. However the continents aren't going under, ever.

Except, some twenty million cubic kilometers of ice is not floating, it's resting on Antarctica and Greenland. The arctic can melt with very little effect, yes though the ice also keeps the heat in in the winter...

You said icecaps. Antarctic glaciers and such are still a part of Earth's southern icecap, and still represents the majority of the world's freshwater. It's not melting anytime soon, but there are serious concerns about Greenland eventually living up to its name. Greenland is losing over five cubic miles of ice, per month, and at an accelerating rate.

This may get balanced out by increased precipitation over much of the rest of the world (including Antarctica, perhaps counter-intuitively), but I can certainly picture Bangladesh drowning, along with many other poor coastal countries.

Le RandomBloke

If it does come to such a point, Belgium and especially the Netherlands are pretty darn screwed.

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Inkidu

Quote from: Vekseid on August 08, 2008, 11:26:11 AM
Except, some twenty million cubic kilometers of ice is not floating, it's resting on Antarctica and Greenland. The arctic can melt with very little effect, yes though the ice also keeps the heat in in the winter...

You said icecaps. Antarctic glaciers and such are still a part of Earth's southern icecap, and still represents the majority of the world's freshwater. It's not melting anytime soon, but there are serious concerns about Greenland eventually living up to its name. Greenland is losing over five cubic miles of ice, per month, and at an accelerating rate.

This may get balanced out by increased precipitation over much of the rest of the world (including Antarctica, perhaps counter-intuitively), but I can certainly picture Bangladesh drowning, along with many other poor coastal countries.
Good point, still I don't think global warming is that much of a concern. It might be, but I don't think we as humans have been here long enough. For all we know this is just mother earth hitting her period.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Trieste

You know, most people at least couch opinion in facts. Seeing as this is Elliquiy U, you might want to do so. Save opinions for debates in Politics and Religion.

The very fact that there is a significant amount of ice that is shacked up on land and thus not displacing water blows a giant steaming hole in your argument. Returning with "Earth Mother's just on the rag hur hur" is not very worthy of this section.

Not to mention that very few people are going to want to reply to you and get a lecture similar to this post from another thread:
Quote from: Inkedu on August 04, 2008, 06:25:44 PM
Even if the icecaps melted it wouldn't raise the water level to any substantial height.
Sorry no "Waterworld."

You are coming off as arrogant and with no numbers, no facts to back you up, you are coming off as ignorant. Considering the number of people here who enjoy a good debate, and who will gladly engage you in one, a little research might do you very well. I think you think you are better at debate than you actually are demonstrating.

For instance, run an experiment. Check out your numbers. Take a glass of water and a grease pen. Put some ice in it. Mark the water level with the grease pen. Seal the glass with saran wrap and a rubber band to simulate the closed nature of our atmospheric water cycle. Then set it somewhere, wait for the ice to melt, and see if the level rises. For me, I would do four glasses - two of them salt water, and two of them tap water, to see if salinity has anything to do with buoyancy of the ice or density of the water (actually, I know salinity can have an effect on such things, which would be why I'd want those salty glasses). I would put one salt water and one tap water glass in the direct sunlight, and put two of them in the shade, maybe someplace cool. I'd check them and compare them every set amount of minutes... maybe 5, maybe 10. Compare, contrast ... maybe take some pictures.

There's nothing wrong with making an argument, but in a section that is focused on facts and learning, back it up. And be ready to sometimes concede that someone has better research than you ... and move on to the next topic.

Please.

Inkidu

Quote from: Trieste on August 09, 2008, 11:42:31 AM
You know, most people at least couch opinion in facts. Seeing as this is Elliquiy U, you might want to do so. Save opinions for debates in Politics and Religion.

The very fact that there is a significant amount of ice that is shacked up on land and thus not displacing water blows a giant steaming hole in your argument. Returning with "Earth Mother's just on the rag hur hur" is not very worthy of this section.

Not to mention that very few people are going to want to reply to you and get a lecture similar to this post from another thread:
You are coming off as arrogant and with no numbers, no facts to back you up, you are coming off as ignorant. Considering the number of people here who enjoy a good debate, and who will gladly engage you in one, a little research might do you very well. I think you think you are better at debate than you actually are demonstrating.
Why would I do all that when I know the princip
For instance, run an experiment. Check out your numbers. Take a glass of water and a grease pen. Put some ice in it. Mark the water level with the grease pen. Seal the glass with saran wrap and a rubber band to simulate the closed nature of our atmospheric water cycle. Then set it somewhere, wait for the ice to melt, and see if the level rises. For me, I would do four glasses - two of them salt water, and two of them tap water, to see if salinity has anything to do with buoyancy of the ice or density of the water (actually, I know salinity can have an effect on such things, which would be why I'd want those salty glasses). I would put one salt water and one tap water glass in the direct sunlight, and put two of them in the shade, maybe someplace cool. I'd check them and compare them every set amount of minutes... maybe 5, maybe 10. Compare, contrast ... maybe take some pictures.

There's nothing wrong with making an argument, but in a section that is focused on facts and learning, back it up. And be ready to sometimes concede that someone has better research than you ... and move on to the next topic.

Please.
Sorry why would I do all that when I know the principle of buoyancy? If all the icebergs melted it would be the same in a glass with water and ice. you don't add anymore water. You just displace the water that is already there. What your asking me to do is reprove the law of gravity in essence. Why would I need to do an experiment to find out that every body attracts another body proportionate to their masses, and inversely proportionate to the distance between them, when there is a law that states that such a phenomenon exists. I don't.

Now glacial melting might raise the water level but the junk over the Arctic isn't going to raise the water level because the ice is displacing the water. However the premise behind "Waterworld" was polar icecaps melt world flooded. Sorry not going to happen the laws of physics still apply.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Trieste

You just completely missed the point of that. You're right about experimentation, though. I mean, hell.

Why would we experiment when we know the world is flat?

Why would we experiment when we know sickness is caused by ill humours and the evil eye and not by tiny organisms?

Why would we experiment with cloning and heart transplants and stem cells and physical therapy? We all know that you can't cure cancer!

...

You cannot be serious.

RubySlippers

No. If one looks at the great ages of the Earth the last major warm period was far warmer than now with extremely hot temperatures and no Waterworld.

www.scotese.com

Check out the Climate History they have a chart, if one studies the relevant charts and maps one can tell that in warm porlonged ages with little ice the water did not cover all the land masses totally.

Inkidu

#19
I don't need to do an experiment because I learned form what others experimented on. I know a rocket takes off because with ever action there is an opposite, but equal reaction, unless acted upon by an outside force.

That if I throw a ball in the air it is going to eventually come down at a constant rate because of terminal velocity.

I know twenty pounds of lead and feathers weigh the same without actually having to weigh them.

I know that a boat floats because it displaces the water it sails on.

The point is I know how things are going to come out because physics doesn't change.

Oh and, by the way, the earth was found to be round through observation, not experimentation. Germs were found by observation not experimentation.

The point is if all the damn ice in the damn glass melt there will be as much water in that damn glass as was in the ice. I don't have to run an experiment to know that.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Vekseid

Quote from: Inkedu on August 09, 2008, 08:53:20 AM
Good point, still I don't think global warming is that much of a concern. It might be, but I don't think we as humans have been here long enough. For all we know this is just mother earth hitting her period.

That was not your initial argument. Don't move goal posts, please.

We have ice core data, tree ring data, and other records to give us a great deal of environmental information, especially about the last ten thousand years. We can paint a pretty clear picture of what the Earth was like back several hundred thousand years. Not perfectly, but enough to know that the advent of the industrial age is a measurable event, and a pronounced one at that.

Geological samples also provide clues, and as far as I know the closest approximation to the known results of human activity is a major flood basalt event, only human industry is one or two orders of magnitude more rapid.

It's difficult to predict, it may not be that big of a deal. The Earth's biosphere has been constructing various buffers for the past four billion years and some. Not every FBE is associated with a mass extinction, but more than one of them is, and the big ones are especially suspect.

You might not believe 'we can do that much damage'.

There are enough recoverable coal reserves to mimic the CO2 release of a major flood basalt event. Major FBE's typically cover many millenia - this is set to occur over the span of the next seventy years, perhaps less.

I'm not a cynic or a doomsayer, I think Earth will pull through, but not because humans will be so carefree in the 2020's as we are now.




It's important to note that as the Earth cools (the planet, not the atmosphere), sea levels fall. Earth was, at one point, very nearly a 'water world', over a billion years ago. Obviously, not so much now. It will eventually dry out and become a rather unlikable place.

Trieste

*snipped after seeing Vekseid's post*

Never mind.



Quote from: RubySlippers on August 09, 2008, 02:05:52 PM
No. If one looks at the great ages of the Earth the last major warm period was far warmer than now with extremely hot temperatures and no Waterworld.

www.scotese.com

Check out the Climate History they have a chart, if one studies the relevant charts and maps one can tell that in warm porlonged ages with little ice the water did not cover all the land masses totally.

Those are neat animations. I wandered off to the one that showed the breakup of Pangea, too, which was pretty neat, with all the depth indicators and whatnot.

Thanks, Ruby.

RubySlippers

Well I hate people just assuming humans are causing a massive Global Warming event when the record created by solid science pretty much proves the Earth has ages short and long that were in the past both VERY cold and VERY warm. So what if this GW going on is natural and we are maybe adding to it but its going to continue for many centuries.

But its clear from our research among the great scientists that all the ice gone will not create Waterworld. Maybe a Marsh World in many areas and far larger oceans but not that.

Vekseid

I find it interesting that people who argue against doing something about it will often support the idea of deflecting a meteor strike if we knew one was coming.

Yes, the Earth has been a lot warmer. It's also been a lot colder. The term for the Earth's current state is 'ice house' - it is not even typical.

It is the rate of change that matters, and the rate appears to be unprecedented. Rapid climate change is not good, whether the source is natural or man-made. It causes, all at once, deforestation, flooding, desertification... Rapid climate change means extinctions.

Ignore that, though.

Look at where the majority of Earth's population is. If sea levels rise by a few meters (not implausible), cities will drown and people will die. Not a billion, but India is building a wall around Bandladesh for a reason. Two hundred million people trapped between a wall and a rising tide.

It does not matter if it's man-made or natural. It's something that we should seriously consider trying to stop.

RubySlippers

Well I would like to point out one fact calling this a man-made problem could be true that doesn't mean its unnatural, man is part of nature in fact the single most dominant species on the planet that is the one species that shapes the rest of nature. So Global Warming seems to me just a natural event no different than an asteroid hitting the Earth such as the one that destroyed the dinosaurs most likely. Species impact their surrounding we just are the most impacting and in that successful species.

Since this is caused by our energy use its logical when oil and coal run out we will no longer pollute and GW should reduce and end to a natural level, eventually.

My only concern as an American is how this affects our nation and can we adapt? It natural if this gets bad the population will reduce that is natural and to be expected but I'd rather taht be the Third World not the First World. Namely the United States and our allies. Fortunately our technology should compensate for that among the elite nations hydroponic farming, irrigation, desalination, crop engineering and the like.