NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=0004F545-037C-13F5-837C83414B7F0000

"It takes a long time to build and melt an ice sheet, but glaciers can react quickly to temperature changes," notes Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Greenland is probably going to contribute more and faster to sea level rise than predicted by current models."

New satellites and new techniques allowed the two to figure out how fast the glaciers were moving, thinning and even what the bedrock beneath them looked like. Based on this data, the researchers found that the glaciers were traveling faster than anyone had predicted.

I was reading the same thing, but I'm would like to see his data. I read his assertion.

Gymoor, I'm still reading up on global warming, and I wonder if you could explain the urban heat island effect.

I'm looking at some data now, and locations that have cities have all gotten warmer, while rural locations have remained fairly steady.

Is it the CO2 or the cities that are warming things up?

Sort of like heating rocks in a fire, and using them to boil water by placing them in the pot?

Is it the CO2 or the cities that are warming things up?

Well, the greenhouse gases account for the higher overall temperatures, in cities and elsewhere. However, cities have higher temperatures than their surroundings for a couple of reasons:


There are fewer trees, shrubs, and other plants to shade buildings, intercept solar radiation, and cool the air by evapotranspiration.
Buildings and pavement made of dark materials absorb the sun's rays instead of reflecting them away, causing the temperature of the surfaces and the air around them to rise.
Waste heat from vehicles, factories, and air conditioners may add warmth to their surroundings
Tall buildings and narrow streets can h.eat air trapped between them and reduce air flow.

Well, the greenhouse gases account for the higher overall temperatures, in cities and elsewhere. However, cities have higher temperatures than their surroundings for a couple of reasons:


There are fewer trees, shrubs, and other plants to shade buildings, intercept solar radiation, and cool the air by evapotranspiration.
Buildings and pavement made of dark materials absorb the sun's rays instead of reflecting them away, causing the temperature of the surfaces and the air around them to rise.
Waste heat from vehicles, factories, and air conditioners may add warmth to their surroundings
Tall buildings and narrow streets can h.eat air trapped between them and reduce air flow.


Right now I'm looking at some data that shows no increase in temperature for Albany, New York, a relatively small city compared to New York City - it's not that far from NYC.

But the change in temp for NYC is substantial.

Albany is not heating up.

I see similar patterns elsewhere.

I'm thinking that the materials of a modern city trap and hold heat far more efficiently than the CO2 in the air.

A far greater heat capacity, that's for sure. Think of cities as giant heat sinks, that then slowly release that heat and turn the sun's visible light into infrared energy.

Could global warming be caused by our development of massive cities?

Could global warming be caused by our development of massive cities?

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=43

I was reading the same thing, but I'm would like to see his data. I read his assertion.

Gymoor, I'm still reading up on global warming, and I wonder if you could explain the urban heat island effect.

I'm looking at some data now, and locations that have cities have all gotten warmer, while rural locations have remained fairly steady.

Is it the CO2 or the cities that are warming things up?

Sort of like heating rocks in a fire, and using them to boil water by placing them in the pot?

It's no one thing. I like your analogy about heating rocks, but I have to disagree with your assessment that rural locations have remained fairly steady. After all, Greenland is pretty rural, dontcha think?

Anyway, the urban heat island effect has many causes. Cars and air conditioning producing heat all day (whether you're heating or cooling your house, it provided a net heat source.) Higher CO2 concentrations in cities. Buildings and pavement absorbing and holding heat energy (see: Albedo.) Less photosynthesis, which means less sunlight energy being converted into biological energy. Differing water vapor concentrations. And on and on and on.

Really, most people on both sides of the Global Warming/Climate change debate tend to horribly horribly oversimplify.

That's intresting, because I was just reading some research, commissioned by the car association, that this is all natural and that car emissions actually help REDUCE the effects of global warming and indeed may be our only hope.

If you'll excuse me I'm off to leave my engine running and I encourage you all to do the same

Is it the CO2 or the cities that are warming things up?

Simply put. Both.

That's intresting, because I was just reading some research, commissioned by the car association, that this is all natural and that car emissions actually help REDUCE the effects of global warming and indeed may be our only hope.

If you'll excuse me I'm off to leave my engine running and I encourage you all to do the same

Yeah. That article was in the same magazine where the Mafia funded a research project that proved that hitmen improved the economy.

That's intresting, because I was just reading some research, commissioned by the car association, that this is all natural and that car emissions actually help REDUCE the effects of global warming and indeed may be our only hope.

If you'll excuse me I'm off to leave my engine running and I encourage you all to do the same
Would this person be construed as an "activist" (as in Bush's judges) or a "reactivist" as in the rest of Bush's cabinet (barring of course the ones that don't do anything useful either way)?

Also, if Gymoor II:The Return doesn't mind, i'll add these to the debate ...

VERY CURRENT:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-sci-glacier17feb17,0,7466790.story?coll=la-headlines-world
Ice Dumped by Greenland's Glaciers Triples in 10 Years
Scientists say 'wake-up call' study indicates that sea level could climb even more quickly than current projections.

By Alan Zarembo, Times Staff Writer


Greenland's vast glaciers are dumping ice into the ocean three times faster than they did 10 years ago because of increasing temperatures, suggesting that sea level could rise even more quickly than current projections.

The study, published today in the journal Science, found that the glaciers contributed 53 cubic miles of water to the Atlantic Ocean in 2005, resulting in about a 0.02-inch rise in sea level.
"The models we had were not terribly alarming about Greenland," said Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Penn State University who was not involved in the research. "This paper is a real wake-up call."

Previous estimates of Greenland's contribution to sea level rise were based on tracking the thickness of the glaciers to calculate the amount of ice that had melted and flowed into the ocean.

Researchers estimated that in 1996 total ice lost through melting was about 8.3 cubic miles. Just one-quarter cubic mile of ice would supply the water Los Angeles consumes in a year.

Researchers led by Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, used satellite imagery to measure another source of water: ice cracking off the ends of glaciers to form icebergs.

The imagery showed that Greenland's southern glaciers are rapidly accelerating their downhill, seaward creep.

Take the Kangerdlugssuaq glacier in the southeast. After creeping along at just more than 3 miles per year, it now moves about 8.7 miles per year.

The increased speed of glacier flow meant that far more water was reaching the ocean.

Greenland's ice cap is larger than Texas and nearly 2 miles thick in places. The researchers calculated that its glaciers deposited 40 cubic miles of ice into the Atlantic Ocean in 2005, about triple the 13 cubic miles dumped in 1996.

More than 13 cubic miles of ice were shed through melting in 2005, they estimated.

Both forms of ice loss are related to rising temperatures, which in southeast Greenland have climbed 5.4 degrees over the last two decades.

As surface ice melts, the water seeps to the underside of the glacier, where it lubricates the ground and exerts an upward force on the ice, accelerating movement of the ice toward the ocean, Rignot said.

Sea level is rising at 0.12 of an inch a year. That would raise the oceans about a foot by the end of the century.

The Greenland ice cap is the third-leading contributor to the rise. It ranks behind the melting of mountain glaciers and the expansion of ocean water because of higher temperatures.

That 100-year estimate may have to be revised upward to reflect a greater increase from Greenland's glaciers.

"We don't know how much more," said Jason Box, a climatologist at Ohio State University who has modeled melting of Greenland's ice cap.
---------------
Also see:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/flooding-fears-as-glaciers-melt-faster/2006/02/17/1140151818900.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18184286%255E30417,00.html

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1140130214172&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1593327

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/4680680.stm
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The last two aren't as current, but are this month.
N'joy.

The rich people get to live comfortably in the pressurized dome cities.

Everyone else had better learn to swim or watch Kevin Costner films.

:D

About time somehting interesting happened in this world. We missed the dinosaurs, we missed the ice age, we missed that big comet. I jst hope I don't miss this too! :D

About time somehting interesting happened in this world. We missed the dinosaurs, we missed the ice age, we missed that big comet. I jst hope I don't miss this too! :D
Are you also shooting for gills behind the ears, and fluent understanding/speaking of Portu-Greek?

Is there really a global warming debate? It seems, at least academically (if not politically), that there is a consesus -- global warming is real. I'd wager there are hundreds, if not thousands, of global warming scholarly sources.

Is there really a global warming debate? It seems, at least academically (if not politically), that there is a consesus -- global warming is real. I'd wager there are hundreds, if not thousands, of global warming scholarly sources.
See, the trick is to give credit to people who have NO ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE IN THE MATTER as being the MAIN SOURCES for derision and doubt, and voila', you have mouthpieces that reflect the interests of the corporations who have no intention of altering their income whatsoever NOR regulating themselves, especially given the nature of the current U.S. Administration, who, in being in the pocket of said corps, make sure that panels to discuss issues are seeded with what i mentioned in the first line.
The rest is largely a debate of people who hear the bullsh*t from other bullsh*tters-for-$.

I figured a light summation of other global warming-related consequences from JUST THIS PAST WEEK might be in order, so i'll post a few things ...
These kinds of things are updated weekly on Earthweek: A Diary of Our Planet:

Vietnam Drought

A severe drought affecting northern Vietnam has brought the stretch of the Red River that passes Hanoi to its lowest level in more than 100 years. It also threatens to wipe out more than 740,000 acres of rice this season. The country's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development advised rice growers in areas affected by water scarcity to turn to other crops. Over 45 percent of rice paddies in Vietnam's northern region are encountering water shortage, according to the ministry.
-
Canadian Seal Tragedy

Hundreds of baby seals were washed out to sea and drowned as a howling winter storm lashed a small island between Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Canadian fisheries officials believe that 75 percent of the estimated 3,000 grey seal pups born on the shores of Pictou Island perished during the tempest. Seals normally give birth on icebergs in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But unusually warm weather this winter kept the ice from forming and forced the pregnant seal mothers to come to the island. Eyewitnesses say the seal pups were too young to be able to swim, and their mothers attempted to keep them afloat after being washed offshore. "But after the sixth or seventh wave, the pups didn't come up," said Jane MacDonald. Dozens of white-coated carcasses littered the shoreline following the storm.

Also, this is probably of note as well ...

La Nina Returns

Researchers from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Prediction Center announced that the ocean-cooling phenomenon known as La Nina developed across the tropical Pacific during the past two months. The reverse phase of the better-known El Nino ocean warming spread to cover a wide area between Indonesia and the coast of South America during the period. The researchers told a meteorological gathering in Atlanta that it's too early to tell how the cooler Pacific surface waters will affect spring and summer weather in the Northern Hemisphere. But they said La Nina often coincides with stronger and more numerous hurricanes, wet weather in the Pacific Northwest and dry conditions in the southern United States.

My question for gymoor is this. If the dire predictions are true, how exactly does he propose to stop it? Short of slaughtering the vast majority of humanity I fail to see how to fix the problem, if it is a problem.

Short of slaughtering the vast majority of humanity I fail to see how to fix the problem

You can always cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, for one.