Melting Ice/Rising Sea Levels/Warming Climate

[Baruch Menachem]

Actual observed sea level changes observed are in millimeters. Were the models valid, we would be seeing decimeter sized changes, and the shapes of the coastlines and large areas would be under water.

Bear in mind, the predictions were, that places like Miami and New Orleans would be like Atlantis now.

I do like to see better levels of research involved.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Actual observed sea level changes observed are in millimeters.

Were the models valid, we would be seeing decimeter sized changes, and the shapes of the coastlines and large areas would be under water.

Bear in mind, the predictions were, that places like Miami and New Orleans would be like Atlantis now.

I do like to see better levels of research involved.

I guess it depends on exactly what models and predictions one is arguing about.

I only know that the scientific community as a whole is not in agreement with the conservative commentators and politicians...nor is the data. I'll place my bets with scientists over propaganda.

Now there are a bunch of leftist and progressive nitwits who happen to be scientists, but they are not representative of climate scientists as a whole.

the straw man sometimes wears a professional persona

 

[Midnight Marauder]

How is it that people here and elsewhere get away with saying things like... they do not believe a melting ice cap will raise sea levels, because like melting ice in a glass, melting ice caps will not add volume or raise sea levels?

I've never seen anyone make such a claim. Strawman much?

 

[CMike]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzAP2H3dsXA]YouTube - sky is falling down lyrics[/ame]

 

[Old Rocks]

Much of the ice is on places lie Greenland and in mountains like mt Hood, which most summers nowadays only has very small glaciers.

But you are right, the hysterics haven't read about Archimedes.

But, if the hysterics were right, given the supposed level of melting in Greenland and Antarctica ,most of florida should be underwater now.



However, most of the ice in the Arctic is floating on the ocean. The weight of the ice is the same as the water it displaces, so when the arctic ice melts, it is, as you say, like an ice cube melting in a cup of water. As it melts, the volume of water does not change.

If I fill a tumbler with ice cubes and add enough water to float them and then bring the water level to the very brim, then, as the ice melts, the water doesn't over-flow BECAUSE that ice is floating. In that case, as YOU correctly noted, the ice displaces the same volume of water whether in its solid or in its liquid state. So intuitively, melting water in that case doesn't seem to pose a threat of raising sea levels.

However, if the ice isn't floating, but is "anchored" to the bottom or to dry land, when it melts and the water gets added to the sea-levels, the volume of water in the seas does increase.

I have a related question.

If the polar ice in the Arctic is getting smaller (i.e. global climate change is melting it), but the polar ice in the Antarctic is increasing (i.e., global climate change is adding to it), then isn't it possible that we could eventually see sea levels being REDUCED?

Here is where you can see the sea ice from the southern and nothern hemispheres as one unit. As you get to the last 30 years you note much wider swings, with a general downward trend.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg