Antarctic ice


miletich2's avatar
I can't believe I've been fooled by rumors that the Antarctic ice is growing when it's actually melting as well as Greenland's ice.

Nobody say Antarctica is growing! It's MELTING! And here's proof! [link]

On second thought, go ahead and say otherwise. If you can prove Antarctica is "growing", post here.
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maddmatt's avatar
[link]

I have no idea why there would be confusion. Science is in complete agreement on these things.
Dorsaispirit's avatar
As I have pointed out to other people in other threads about global warming, the ice sheets and glaciers have been shrinking/retreating since the end of the last ice age. The ice age that nearly wiped mankind out. So that indicates that it is a natural occurrence.

The question that many are asking is how much we can influence this warming. Obviously we do have an impact on the climate, but nobody has every really settled if we ca affect it on a global scale. I agree that we can, but can we affect it to the extent that many alarmists, such as yourself, seem to claim. Probably, but you aren't really doing your cause by running around like chicken little. So instead of simply screaming and yelling at people, proposed solutions.

Any solutions that are proposed need to take into account the impact on peoples quality of life. For instance, if we shut down all fossil fuel power plants in the U.S., we would lose the ability to communicate as freely and openly as we do now. Given that those types of power plants account for at least 70% of current power, and that all the green and renewable sources aren't capable of taking up that demand, what do you think would happen to our country? Or more personally, do you think you could live without your computer, cell phone, or the internet? I doubt it. I can as I grew up before these things were as mainstream as they are now.

So yes, we should be concerned about the way we are impacting the climate, but how much of an impact will we be able to make if the Earth is on a natural warming cycle? We can probably accelerate it, but I really doubt we can stop, prevent, or reverse said cycle.
TheSpiderFromMars's avatar
So, you claim this global warming is "natural". Well, tell you what, it's not. If we continue destroying (yes, because that's what we're doing: destroying) our climate like this, the average temperature on Earth will rise with 4 degrees celcius in just a few decades time. Doesn't sound much, but it is. WAY to much. If this were to happen under "natural" circumstances, it would take thousands of years. So there you go, it IS our fault that we're heading in this direction. This is an extremely serious matter, and I'm getting pretty anxious about it. When I get kids, I don't want them to grow up in a screwed up, overheated world. No thank you. And I'm willing to take some "sacrifices" if it benefits our future. Actually, the worst cause of global warming is the meat transports and meat industry, so if we all ate less meat, and less groceries that's been transported half across the globe, it would make quite a difference. And it's not too hard to do, right? I mean, if you long for burgers och mince, you can always buy quorn or soy alternatives (I know soy isn't the best option, but it's BETTER for sure). It's really tasty, trust me.
Dorsaispirit's avatar
When I say the earth is naturally warming, I am speaking honestly. That is what it took to actually end the ice age. And remember, we number much less than one million in then entire planet. We were burning wood and dung for our fires. I really doubt that us burning that much warmed the Earth enough to melt the glaciers that covered the North American continent down to Panama.

Look here: <[link]> and notice that this happened from 110,000 to 10,000 years ago. So yes, it did, is and will take thousands of years during the natural cycles of the planet. Climatologists will agree that this occurs.

As I have said in response to others, we probably are helping to accelerate this warming cycle. The thing is, this warming trend would have happened regardless of if we were here or not. It happened before, during, and after the dinosaurs. The Carboniferous period was actually much warmer than it is right now. There was very little carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but there were no ice caps. Insects were the highest form of life on the planet. Think spiders with bodies, not including legs, feet in diameter. Millipedes four to six feet long. So right there in the fossil record, we have evidence that the Earth does go through warming and cooling cycles.

I do not want any children I have to grow up in a very bad and toxic world either. I am all for being responsible with how in affect our environment. However, I accept that there are somethings that we will more than likely never be able to control. The natural cycles of a planet being one of them. Give us a couple of thousand years more, and we might have the technology to control the climate the way you think we can right now. But until then, you are talking in terms of science fiction. I am talking reality, and asking how much we can influence, not control.
TheSpiderFromMars's avatar
I don't think we have a couple of years time to come up with a solution. This fast increase of the temperature is NOT good. Sure, I know that the world is going in and out of warmer and cooler cycles, but what I stated above is that this time it goes too fast. And that is not natural. And the rapid speed is caused by us humans, nothing else. Usually, this takes time. Lots of time. The dinosaurs didn't come to exist over a night. I can't understand why people don't see how such a grave and alarming issue this really is. That some just ignore it and pretend it's not there.
Dorsaispirit's avatar
Yes, as I greed with you, we are accelerating the warming this cycle. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that we can do to stop the warming. We can reduce or eliminate our contribution to it, but we lack the technology to actually reverse it. We can either be responsible beings and not soil our nest, but to act like we can take the temperature down to what it was a century ago. No. That is out of both our understanding and capabilities.

So instead of being full of hatred towards those that are either in denial, have not heard of the gravity of the problem, or even heard of the problem, why not help find a way to move us to be sustainable? That is the thing that has annoyed me the most in these threads.

The call to be sustainable, but without understanding what it may take. Much less how much time it may take. I've been advocating replacing coal and gas power plants with nuclear until we have the green energy replacements. With the new designs we will have almost zero radioactive waste to worry about. Just lumps of heavy dense metals that can be used for balance weights on aircraft or munitions. Unfortunately, very few environmentalists will agree that this is a viable option.

I even had one person telling me we should start building more homes out of steel so we can stop logging. They didn't understand that mining, refining, shaping, and constructing the steel home will cause far more CO2 release than the act of logging the same about of timber ever will. Much less that a properly managed forest in healthier and a renewable resource.

I am trying to find solutions that can allow to continue to enjoy our lives the we are today. I want to find a way that will allow us to keep our games, computers, televisions, phones, and the internet. But until you are willing to speak in those terms, and have it be affordable by the general masses, green and renewable energy sources have no chance of wide adoption.

So, do not get after me for pointing out the the Earth is in a natural warming cycle. I am well aware that it is warming faster than it ever has, and that this accelerated rate can be traced back to the industrial revolution. I do think we should be doing all we can to minimize our impact on the global climate. But please, talk to me in what we are actually able to do.

And remember, even if Europe and the U.S. really clean it up, there are still all those other countries that just do not care. How much can we really force them to clean up without taking them over?
Mercury-Crowe's avatar
Uh, what rumors? What are you talking about? Nobody says they are getting larger. I want proof that these RUMORS exist.

And chill out. It hasn't always been ice up there. The earth goes through natural warming and cooling cycles whether we are interfering or not. Earth gets warm, arctic ice melts, water level rises, inland seas form, earth starts to cool down, inland seas recede, ice caps freeze, earth freezes, earth starts to warm up, ice starts to melt....

It's OK.
Trorbes's avatar
By that reasoning, we shouldn't care about hurricanes, droughts, or wildfires; they are, after all, natural phenomena.
Mercury-Crowe's avatar
'Care' in what way?

Do I want to STOP storms and natural disasters? NO, because they are a natural part of the planet. If you have an active climate, you're going to have storms, fires, earthquakes, etc- it's part of a living planet. If you DON'T have all of that, your environment is stagnant.

Stop up a stream running into a pool and the water gets all still and peaceful- then all the fish die from lack of oxygen, the pool fills up with rotted plant matter with nothing to eat it, pretty soon it's just a nasty puddle of muck.

That doesn't mean we can't try to predict them and minimize damage to people, make sure our buildings and etc are prepared to withstand them, or avoid areas that are storm prone.

Is the planet getting warmer? Sure. What does that mean? We need to stop sitting around crying about it and figure out the best way to ADAPT to the changing climate.

Like we ALWAYS do. It's what we DO. It's the ONLY thing we do. We adapt.

Humans like to pick out the WORST place we can find and set up camp there. Frozen tundra? NO problem! Vast desert? Yay, lets build a sand castle.

Will SOME people die when the sea level rises again? Sure. Will some places that are 'good' to live not be good any more? Sure.

Is that the end of all life, or even just HUMAN life?

NO. At the worst it drops the population way down. Which makes the gene pool narrower, which encourages mutation, which results in survival of the fittest and the next branch in human evolution.
Princess-Amy's avatar
Current survery indicate that the main antarctic ice sheet is actually gaining mass, but the smallwe west antarctic ice sheet is beginning to melt just lke the greenland sheet.
AbCat's avatar
I'm not particularly worried about sea level rise. Chances are they won't rise by more than a metre in the next century, which is nothing we can't cope with without a few sea walls. Fish deserve to inherit the earth anyway - they are much prettier than humans.

Desertification is my big environmental worry. If we could somehow reverse that and turn the Sahara into grasslands again that would be very very awesome.
CouchyCreature's avatar
It is estimated that around 100 million people will be directly affected by sea-level rises, mostly in Asia, and the predicted range is .8m to 2m. This is an interesting article (written in late 2008) with links to a paper published in Science Vol 321
Article: [link]
Scientific Paper: [link] You need to register (free) to read the full paper, but here is the abstract -
On the basis of climate modeling and analogies with past conditions, the potential for multimeter increases in sea level by the end of the 21st century has been proposed. We consider glaciological conditions required for large sea-level rise to occur by 2100 and conclude that increases in excess of 2 meters are physically untenable. We find that a total sea-level rise of about 2 meters by 2100 could occur under physically possible glaciological conditions but only if all variables are quickly accelerated to extremely high limits. More plausible but still accelerated conditions lead to total sea-level rise by 2100 of about 0.8 meter. These roughly constrained scenarios provide a “most likely” starting point for refinements in sea-level forecasts that include ice flow dynamics.
In some countries, sea walls may help, but many countries do not have the luxury of being able to build sea walls, nor is the increasing radicalisation of ocean-related weather events (hurricanes) taken into account.
AbCat's avatar
I agree that if we are unable to temper our long-term damage to the environment we fail as a society. However, if we cannot adapt to environmental changes, then we fail as a species.
WhiskyOmega's avatar
At one time or another both poles had tropical climates and either little to no snow/ice at all; fossil records show this.
[link]
line-melte's avatar
Correction: the landmasses that are currently in the polar regions had tropical climates due to them not being in the polar regions at the time. Continental drift, yo.
Lytrigian's avatar
Well. Antarctica is a continent. A landmass. It's neither growing nor shrinking.

Its ice though -- that's another story.

The ice coverage might be growing or shrinking, but so what? If it's growing, it's because its receiving more precipitation than it used to, so the ice mass is being added to faster. (Antarctica is one of the driest continents on earth.) If it's shrinking, it's because the portions of the icecap that are over water -- the ice shelves -- are melting and collapsing faster than they can be replenished from the continental ice. Neither state of affairs is good news. At best, the "growing" scenario is neutral. What's a bit more snowfall? Unless, of course, it's a consequence of climate change just like the more severe hurricane seasons in the tropics, in which case it's as negative as the "shrinking" scenario -- which can ONLY be happening because the seawater is warmer than it used to be.
GhostInThePines's avatar
Do you even realize how many times Antarctica has shrunk and grown over just the last 600,000 years? And let's not get started on how warm the planet was during the Mesezoic Period or the Carboniferous!
Princess-Amy's avatar
I wouldnt mind the warmth of the carboniferous again
GhostInThePines's avatar
I would... the wildlife included with those temperatures was scary.
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GhostInThePines's avatar
True, or the early warming/drying period of 7,000-4,000 years ago... it killed off forests here in the US and caused the decline of Akkadian/Sumerian cultures in the Middle East. Egyptian culture took a pretty hard hit during that time as well.
CouchyCreature's avatar
and how long has mankind had any type of civilisation as we know it? Who gives a rats arse if it is part of a cycle or not.

Bottom line is that if the ice melts sea levels will rise more and most civilisations we know now will end. There will be massive food shortcomings, increased extreme weather incidents, mass population moves and the wars and famine that will come with it. I love the folk who blythly think that it is ok that this is happening because it happened in the past.

How many people lived during the Mesezoic or carboniferous? See it didn't affect humans becuase there were none. Our window of life possibility had not opened, and now it is slowly closing.
GhostInThePines's avatar
Humans are much more adaptable than you give them credit for. We are the only species on earth that ranges all the way from the arctic circle to the equator and we live in every environment found in between.

The first homo sapiens appeared in the fossil records around 200,000 years ago. They adapted to the massive swings in climate during the last third of the "ice age"... I don't think our species is going anywhere anytime soon.

So we might have to change our agricultural system and our diets. Big deal! If you don't want to do that, then go ahead and starve! So we might not be able to live in all the communities foolishly built in flood zones or on top of former swamps (cough*New York City*cough*New Orleans*cough). Well, if you want to drowned, be my guest! It's not like the ocean levels are rising at flash flood speeds! Get over it already!

"If it's that stupid, take it out of the gene pool!"