Global Warming

A few points: These are simply true you may as well move them up with the other uncontentious items.ABE (hit the button too soon)
3.. The Greenland Ice Sheet is not losing any mass, so it is not contributing to rising sea levels, despite all the hype about it. (From the EPA.) This isn't certain because of difficulties of measurement, but every study since 1968 listed on their site says it's the same or increasing.I can't read the data clearly but the second chart give this summary line:

quote:

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1843 76d 2246 86d 540 218 10 10e 2072 304

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First 2 numbers being accumlation (over ground and all accumultion)
Next 3 numbers are melting, runoff and iceberg productionThe last 3 are greater than the second so I don't know what it means. That source says:

quote:

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The thickening of the eastern ice sheet should not be seen as a long-term protection against a rise in sea level, warns Vaughan. Glaciers in West Antarctica are accelerating, releasing more and more icebergs into the sea. And the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches towards South America, now regularly hits temperatures above 0 C in the summer, leading to direct melting of the ice there.

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What's more, snowfall over East Antarctica will not continue to increase indefinitely in a warming world, Vaughan adds. Conversely, every extra degree of temperature rise will continue to accelerate glaciers and cause more melting on the western side of Antarctica, swelling the world's oceans further.

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In addition the measurements are not complete it seems.6The jury is still out is the correct answer to this. Not that we can come down on one side or the other yet.Your point 8 enforces that; we don't know.To go from a small amount of information on complex processes to thinking we have the answer isn't a good idea.I'd agree that current data does NOT support a 15 or 20 foot sea level raise in the next few decades but it is NOT ruled out either. There are positive feedback loops that could cause runaway change.But we know that continued CO2 increases can warm things up even more. It is not impossible to cause a 20 foot sea level raise in decades and much, much more in a century.So what is the best course of action when faced with such uncertainty?What is the cost of even a 5 foot raise happening? How much risk is it prudent to take? What will we pay for "insurance"?Edited by NosyNed, : to finish the reply

Just a moment...Glaciologists nailed down an unsettling observation this year: The world's two great ice sheets--covering Greenland and Antarctica--are indeed losing ice to the oceans, and losing it at an accelerating pace. Researchers don't understand why the massive ice sheets are proving so sensitive to an as-yet-modest warming of air and ocean water. The future of the ice sheets is still rife with uncertainty, but if the unexpectedly rapid shrinkage continues, low-lying coasts around the world--including New Orleans, South Florida, and much of Bangladesh--could face inundation within a couple of centuries rather than millennia.andCurrent ice sheet losses aren't raising sea level faster than 0.1 meter per century, but researchers fear that the rate could rise to a meter per century or more in the near future. As recently as 5 years ago, they assumed that global warming would simply melt more and more ice from the ice sheets, as it is melting mountain glaciers. But it turns out the ice isn't just melting faster, it is moving faster. Radar mapping shows that in recent years, glaciers carrying ice away from the sheets have sped up by as much as 100%. In West Antarctica, warming ocean waters seem to have attacked the floating tongues of ice that hold back the ice sheet's outlet glaciers. Around southern Greenland, something else seems to be quickening the pace of outlet glaciers, perhaps lubrication by increasing amounts of surface meltwater seeping to a glacier's base.Now glaciologists are wondering how the next chapter will play out. Will the relatively strong warming around the ice continue, or will it be weakened by natural variations of climate? Will the ice sheets adjust to the new warmth by eventually slowing their ice loss? And will more glaciers succumb to the spreading warmth? A few more breakthroughs are definitely in order.

Vacate, Charley has been around before under other names (he seems to be willing to be dishonest enough to register under a new name).He will NEVER listen to what you post. He WILL post made-up utter nonsense. You are wasting your time if you expect any rational discussion.You may however enjoy seeing just how amusingly ridiculous you can goad him into being.