View Single Post
Old 03-06-2010, 12:18 PM   #28 (permalink)
cementor
Crazy
 
Location: Denver
One year data is insignificant as is 15 year data, as is 50 year data. Most of the prognostication is built around financial agenda. Climate Gate and the subsequent NOAA data scandal has made all this stuff questionable. That means it might be real or it might not, but who knows. The idea that all ice caps would melt completely is scaremongering in itself. It might happen but 10 generations will be gone and the world will no longer look as it does today. The idea that man can materially change the climate to me is arrogant, we can do the right thing and do our part to control the things we put into our ecosystems, and we should, but at the end of the day this world will change. That is the truth you can count on.

One of our local radio folks likes to quote that Baffin Island hasn't been void of ice in 1600 years. But it currently losing it's ice cap. My point is "what caused the ice to reform in the last 1600 years and perhaps more importantly why was it void of ice 1600 years ago"? It most certainly wasn't man doing.....Earths weather cycles and man can effect it, but we don't control it.

Back to the question... if all the ice caps melted instantaneously or nearly so (200 - 500 years????) (in my opinion a ridiculous suposition).... I suspect we would have some tectonic reactions to the weight of the additional water. I also think the bigger ticket items would be the, loss of land mass, swallowing of volcanic systems and the flooding of these systems with water, which would most certainly cause weather pattern changes due to the additions of water vapor to the atmosphere. The loss of land mass is also an incredibly complex batch of problems, due to population redistribution into what is left, food sources, land mass effects on storm systems etc . There are some good things regarding an instantaneous melt. 3% additional fresh water means some of the ocean pollution would be disapated, pH which is dropping slowly (many believe, I am one of those) would stabilize ( perhaps) and we would likely have massive changes in the "human" ability to pollute, due to those that drown and the losses of land mass. It is an interesting exercise and I have only touched on a couple of the ramifications.

As a side light I don't buy into the climate change nearly as much as the idea that our CO2 emmissions are effecting the oceanic systems thru PH reduction and chemistry changes. This will get rigth to the heart of the matter and that is the food chain, if organisms cannot evolve fast enough we will have real issues in this area.

Hope I haven't messed up anyones day.
__________________
Cementor
If I was any better I'd have to be twins!

Last edited by cementor; 03-06-2010 at 12:21 PM..
cementor is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360