Second Little Ice Age

In the meantime, the entire tidal islands of the Chesapeake Bay will probably disappear in less than 2 decades and all the places we love to frequent will be memories under a few feet of water.

We have entire nations of the Pacific that will become Post Office Boxes in less than a century at the present rate of water level rise.

The good news is probably, as a consequence of warming, the mid ocean streams will lose their "missions" and a real Ice Age will come along in a 1000 years or so and this will result in the rise of places like "Doggerland" and the Chesapeake Islands again (assuming that erosion didn't tear the mud flats apart.

Bangladesh and Florida won't fare too well, either. Most of Miami is about six feet above sea level. If the West Antarctic ice sheet goes, and many observers say 50 to 150 years, depending on interim conditions--that will be about a three meter rise in sea level--just over 9 feet. Bye bye Miami (which will be no big loss, but regrettable pollution of the Atlantic).

But we will get a lot more English wines than today!

I await that development with breath abated . . .

All the fossils of the early settlers and the megafauna are probably imbedded in the sediments that are now under the continental slope. When the next Ice Age does show up, that will be desired rel estte especially southward .

Lake Travis in Austin, Texas is seriously low, about 50' down. Kind of scary ad wondering about our water supply. There are towns nearby that truck water in now.

And your proof for that is?

If so (and I dont hold to that paranoia) then so too anything coming from Al Gore and Jim Hansen...so I guess it's a push.

SETANTA:

FARMERMAN:


Someone who is familiar with geometry and arithmetic decided to test the hysterical claim. I will reproduce it here:

The most recent climate alarmism is the report claiming increased ice melt in the West Antarctic glaciers, supposedly a leading indicator of a catastrophic, exponential, unstoppable rise in sea levels with devastating consequences for low lying areas and coastal cities. Irrespective of the validity and accuracy of the reported measurements of ice melt, the projection of future catastrophe is laughably implausible — and a simple analysis of the spherical geometry of the planet shows why the alarmism is entirely unwarranted.

Let’s start with the often repeated claim that we can project a sea level rise of at least 3 feet by the end of the century — 86 years from now. It is easy to calculate the volume of ice that would have to melt to produce that increased level and then compare it to the allegedly observed melt to determine how plausible the alarmism is.

To say that sea level will rise by 3 feet is to say that the nominal radius of the Earth would increase. But because of the “piling up” of water against the 30% of the Earth’s surface that is land, the average increase in radius (if there were no land against which the sea water would “pile up”) would be less than 3 feet, to a first approximation 3 * .7 = 2.1 feet. How much volume would the sphere of the Earth increase if its radius increased by 2.1 feet from ice melt? The volume of a sphere is 4/3*pi*radius(3). If we take the pre-melt radius as 4000 miles and the post melt radius as 4000 miles plus 2.1 feet, the volume increase is approximately 80,000 cubic miles. All of this, by assumption, is in the 70% of the Earth’s surface which is water to effect a three foot rise in the sea level.

So over a period of 86 years remaining until the end of the century, 80,000 cubic miles of water from ice melt would be required for a three foot rise in sea level, or about 930 cubic miles per year. Is this a lot? Or a little? Well, compared to the amounts of ice melt actually being observed from Antarctica and Greenland — and now being hyped by alarmists — it is huge.

The claims that 310 billion tons of water melted into the oceans from Antarctic and Greenland glaciers and another 260 billion tons, amazingly, from the 1% of the Earth’s land-based ice that is in mountain glaciers. Is the total of 570 billion tons of water from ice melt a little or a lot?

Since they are measuring metric tons, that amounts to 1.25 x 10(15) pounds of water, which at 8.35 pounds per gallon is 1.5 x 10(14) gallons which, in turn, at 7.5 gallons per cubic foot is 2 x 10(13) cubic feet. At 5,280(3) cubic feet to a cubic mile we have 136 cubic miles of water or about 148 cubic miles of ice when adjusted for the expansion of water as it freezes. That’s about 12 miles square of glacier assuming on average the glaciation is 1 mile thick.

This compares to the required 930 cubic miles of water per year for 86 years to get to a sea level rise of 3 feet at the end of the century — a factor of almost 7 times what is said to be observed. Stated differently, at the new alarmingly increased level of ice melt it would take about 600 years for the purported 3 foot rise in sea level to obtain; the implied rise is 6 one-hundreds of an inch per year, or about 5.25 inches by the year 2100.

There is nothing complicated in this analysis — it’s just simple geometry and arithmetic. And it takes as given the reported observations of allegedly increased ice melt. It is patently obvious that for the catastrophic flooding massively hyped by the Main Stream Media (MSM) and climate change alarmists to happen there must be a HUGE increase in glacier melt in West Antarctica and Greenland starting now and continuing. Every year that the observed ice melt does NOT increase by a factor of 7 from today’s rate of melt just requires an even greater increase in subsequent years for the alarmists’ predictions to happen. Exponential, indeed.

It seems exceedingly implausible that the rate of ice melt can accelerate over the next 86 years to produce a 3 foot rise in ocean surface levels and consequent land inundation. It would require an enormous and sustained discontinuity in the observed rate of ice melt starting immediately for this result to obtain — or else a huge future explosive and exponential rate of ice melt. If the IPCC is in fact predicting such a pattern it is extremely convenient since no dramatic presently observed ice melt is required for this prediction to be treated as “true!”


SETANTA:


Heres your evidence dumb ass.

Once again, you saying something doesn't make it so, and it certainly doesn't make it evidence.



That's completely meaningless--you don't name your "someone," nor cite a source. There's absolutely no reason to beleive you.

This article from The Guardian newspaper (UK) cites their expert sources, not just "someone who knows."

This report from the Chicago Tribune cites and quotes a Harvard researcher and a member of the British Antarctic Survey--not just "someone who knows."

This clown G. I. John is making his **** up as he goes along, and then sneers at others demanding "facts." He wouldn't know a fact if it bit his reactionary, right-wing ass.

I wonder, if those who studied

General meteorology, traffic meteorology and lightning research
General meteorology, traffic meteorology and lightning research
Macro-structure simulation of boundary layer flows
Radiation and remote sensing
Theoretical meteorology
Environmental meteorology
can do such without being "familiar with geometry and arithmetic". (At least here in Germany, you must have got highest scores in your Abitur mathematics to get a MA in meteorology ... which here is the basis for studying climatology.)

If G. I. John don't know 'em, they don't count.

But since they are hundreds of "someone" ...?

So basic geometry and arithmetic is not evidence? Well if you cant do the math just say so dumb ass.

So I dont see anyone disproving the math...

You can be familar with it and still ignore it when it comes to furthering your political aganda.

Whats funny about this is the fact that a worldwide stratigraphic record clearly shows that such sea level rise (and decline )HAS OCCURED with cyclic frequency), and this frequency is clearly related to glacial ice maxima and minima.
QUESTIO: Why do we see seafloor and coastal deposits as high coastal cliffs in New England, mid Atlantic, California Coast (and many many other spots).

Get a map of "Doggerland" (Its basically an entire nation on the seabottom today.

Your "math" is like every other modeling exercise, its either outcome driven or an incomplete attempt a characterization.

We use "models" in geophysics and ground water and, many times I have to take them apart in court to show that outcome driven math models are not forensics by any means.

Yes you may be right but the point here is the crapola that we are fed that the sea will rise 3 feet by the end of this century...the salient point here is:

Stated differently, at the new alarmingly increased level of ice melt it would take about 600 years for the purported 3 foot rise in sea level to obtain; the implied rise is 6 one-hundreds of an inch per year, or about 5.25 inches by the year 2100.

And these cyclic rises and falls, were they from ice melt or sea floor spread? How much? Over what period? Did it happen with in the span of human history? How were the sea levels measured before satellite info?

BTW, what must the temperature rise to in order to cause all this ice to melt in 85 years?

According to a study based on semi-empirical relationships between changes in sea level and global temperatures, we should experience on the order of 10 to 30 cm of sea level rise per °C increase in temperature.

3 feet = 91.4 cm, thats a 5-16 degree increase
(fahrenheit) that must happen in 85 years starting NOW...not likely

Might be so. We don't know the "political agenda" of most people here besides, if they are connected to a party. I don't know of any of those are - but I can't get what it has to do with "political agenda" as well, since regarding climate change, there's no difference of view from right to extreme left.