![ThwaitesTongue-600x423[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/thwaitestongue-600x4231.png)
Remember the wailing from Suzanne Goldenberg over the “collapse” of the Thwaites glacier blaming man-made CO2 effects and the smackdown given to the claim on WUWT?
Well, never mind. From the University of Texas at Austin and the “you can stop your wailing now” department, comes this really, really, inconvenient truth.
Researchers find major West Antarctic glacier melting from geothermal sources
AUSTIN, Texas — Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean, it’s being melted from below by geothermal heat, researchers at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin (UTIG) report in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The findings significantly change the understanding of conditions beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet where accurate information has previously been unobtainable.
The Thwaites Glacier has been the focus of considerable attention in recent weeks as other groups of researchers found the glacier is on the way to collapse, but more data and computer modeling are needed to determine when the collapse will begin in earnest and at what rate the sea level will increase as it proceeds. The new observations by UTIG will greatly inform these ice sheet modeling efforts.
Using radar techniques to map how water flows under ice sheets, UTIG researchers were able to estimate ice melting rates and thus identify significant sources of geothermal heat under Thwaites Glacier. They found these sources are distributed over a wider area and are much hotter than previously assumed.
The geothermal heat contributed significantly to melting of the underside of the glacier, and it might be a key factor in allowing the ice sheet to slide, affecting the ice sheet’s stability and its contribution to future sea level rise.
The cause of the variable distribution of heat beneath the glacier is thought to be the movement of magma and associated volcanic activity arising from the rifting of the Earth’s crust beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Knowledge of the heat distribution beneath Thwaites Glacier is crucial information that enables ice sheet modelers to more accurately predict the response of the glacier to the presence of a warming ocean.
Until now, scientists had been unable to measure the strength or location of heat flow under the glacier. Current ice sheet models have assumed that heat flow under the glacier is uniform like a pancake griddle with even heat distribution across the bottom of the ice.
The findings of lead author Dusty Schroeder and his colleagues show that the glacier sits on something more like a multi-burner stovetop with burners putting out heat at different levels at different locations.
“It’s the most complex thermal environment you might imagine,” said co-author Don Blankenship, a senior research scientist at UTIG and Schroeder’s Ph.D. adviser. “And then you plop the most critical dynamically unstable ice sheet on planet Earth in the middle of this thing, and then you try to model it. It’s virtually impossible.”
That’s why, he said, getting a handle on the distribution of geothermal heat flow under the ice sheet has been considered essential for understanding it.
Gathering knowledge about Thwaites Glacier is crucial to understanding what might happen to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. An outlet glacier the size of Florida in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, it is up to 4,000 meters thick and is considered a key question mark in making projections of global sea level rise.
The glacier is retreating in the face of the warming ocean and is thought to be unstable because its interior lies more than two kilometers below sea level while, at the coast, the bottom of the glacier is quite shallow.
Because its interior connects to the vast portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that lies deeply below sea level, the glacier is considered a gateway to the majority of West Antarctica’s potential sea level contribution.
The collapse of the Thwaites Glacier would cause an increase of global sea level of between 1 and 2 meters, with the potential for more than twice that from the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
The UTIG researchers had previously used ice-penetrating airborne radar sounding data to image two vast interacting subglacial water systems under Thwaites Glacier. The results from this earlier work on water systems (also published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) formed the foundation for the new work, which used the distribution of water beneath the glacier to determine the levels and locations of heat flow.
In each case, Schroeder, who received his Ph.D. in May, used techniques he had developed to pull information out of data collected by the radar developed at UTIG.
According to his findings, the minimum average geothermal heat flow beneath Thwaites Glacier is about 100 milliwatts per square meter, with hotspots over 200 milliwatts per square meter. For comparison, the average heat flow of the Earth’s continents is less than 65 milliwatts per square meter.
The presence of water and heat present researchers with significant challenges.
“The combination of variable subglacial geothermal heat flow and the interacting subglacial water system could threaten the stability of Thwaites Glacier in ways that we never before imagined,” Schroeder said.
From the department of recycled news …
The article I read about this paper (on Fox News I think) made it sound like things were extra bad because the geothermal heat was combining with the effects of CAGW to make the ice shelves collapse super fast…
No, it’s because the Global Warming is soooo bad that it’s melting the glacier – from underneath! And it’s heating the rocks, too! Aaaaagh!
The more we know, the more we realise the little we really know about our planet
One of my father’s favourite sayings was “a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing”. He used it often to rebut my youthful, bolshie ravings in the late 60’s and early seventies. I now know that, after his time as a field commander in the SW pacific campaigns, he finished WW2 as a brigade/divisional intelligence officer and such an expression must have had particular resonance and “dangerous” was not just that of being wrong in an academic sense.
Doesn’t it speak so eloquently to “Climate Science” and in particular aspects of it such as the West Antarctic Ice sheet behaviour.
Even if Thwaites were the size of Florida (it objectively is not) the entire Amundson Embayment is much larger, and IF all its ice was ever lost (so that part of west Antarctica would be bare naked) it would amount to 1.2 meters SLR. All the evidence (ice flow rates, snow accumulation) say that will never happen. Whether or not subglacial volcanos are contributing. Just another PhD thesis.
More Warmunist alarmism.
That must be the missing heat that went directly into the asthenosphere and finally comes back up.
It’s all the CO2 destabilising the tectonic plates….or something….
The use of the gas top burner together with an average of 0.1 to 0.2 watts/sqm confuses the issue somewhat given the vast area under research. We might have a number of concentrated hot spots that would have a very different effect to an average increase in heat over the entire area.
At last, we have the missing link between man-made CO2 and magma dynamics. The atmosphere is heated by CO2. It heats the glacier. The superheated melt water under intense pressure from the overlying 4km of ice heats the magma to its melting point. One more reason to reduce CO2 output.
Remember the first sentence of the press release being quoted? Maybe the selective highlighting is needed here:
Well never mind. Ignore the undesirable part in bold then.
Leonard Pitts blames the GOP.http://www.dailycamera.com/columnists/ci_25914184/pitts-while-our-planet-melts-gop-pleads-ignorance
We think we know so much about the earth, yet we don’t have the historical data from the last thousand years to compare notes with. Just like every other controversial subject in this country, there is normally corrupt lobbying power behind it for one reason or another. We need more transparency in everything that is digitally printed.
“The glacier is retreating in the face of the warming ocean and is thought to be unstable because its interior lies more than two kilometers below sea level while, at the coast, the bottom of the glacier is quite shallow.”
Now correct me if Im wrong.
This glacier is not floating ice.
This glacier is not land borne ice either because its below sea level.
Now someone correct me here, but -if- this glacial is largely below sea level, and ice having a larger volume compared with water, will the complete melting of this glacier not tend to make the sea level fall?
At least the below sea level part will have an effect on how much contribution it makes to sea level change. That is assuming that it actually melts within a time of a few hundred years, not more than 2,000 years the IPCC gives to the Greenland ice cap.
And of course, if it is melting because of seismic activity, I can see why we simply have to ban all coal fires in the world! Not!
Cheers
Roger
http://thedemiseofchristchurch.com (My blog on Agenda21 and my earthquaked city)
I love this line “Current ice sheet models have assumed that heat flow under the glacier is uniform like a pancake griddle with even heat distribution across the bottom of the ice” My question is who was the idiot, yes I use idiot a lot, but show one place on earth where the geothermal heat is evenly distributed. The answer is no place on earth does that occur. The sad reality is those that can do those who cannot teach. I just did not realize how bad those who cannot are!
Damn that man-made C02 –now it’s causing geothermal heat! Is there no limit to the atrocities man has committed on mother gaia?
Odd.
from http://earth.esa.int/workshops/ers97/papers/lucchitta/
But the area of Florida is only 170,304 square km’s.
Even if you include the entire area that the Twaites drains it is ,er, uhm, considerably smaller than Florida.
“According to his findings, the minimum average geothermal heat flow beneath Thwaites Glacier is about 100 milliwatts per square meter, with hotspots over 200 milliwatts per square meter. For comparison, the average heat flow of the Earth’s continents is less than 65 milliwatts per square meter.”
These figures aren’t huge. 100 isn’t a lot greater than average. 0.1 W/m2 is tiny compared with average sunlight, even in Antarctica. It’s enough to melt about 1 cm thickness of ice per year.
As I read the paper, they aren’t saying that geothermal is melting the main mass of the ice, but that it has “the potential to modulate ice sheet behavior and stability by providing a large, variable supply of meltwater to the subglacial water system, lubricating and accelerating the overlying ice”.
With things like geothermal, the natural question is, if it is having a big effect now, why not before?
Most glaciers are melting from below through geothermal heat, either volcanic or simple bedrock temperatures.
That is why the oldest ice on Greenland is only 128,000 years old yet the island has been glaciated for 2.7 million years to 8.0 million years.
That is why the oldest ice on Antarctica is only 800,000 years old yet the location where this old ice formed has been glaciated for over 42 million years.
The issue is, a headline is needed to promote the warming agenda. Thermodynamics tells a different story. It is a sad story, this global warming science.
Nick,
Perhaps the better question is to ask if the effect that is claimed to be so big is actually so big?
At least we finally know where all that missing heat in the ocean is hiding…
cartoon!
http://182.160.156.173/~itsnotcl/0038.html
Odd. Another “interesting” factoid from this 1992-1994 study of the Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers that don’t make sense when compared to last month’s hysteria about the two melting/toe lines/retreat/grounding lines propaganda (er, publicity) prior to the EPA’s new rules to destroy the US economy.
http://earth.esa.int/workshops/ers97/papers/lucchitta/
So, in 1992-1994, there is NO MENTION AT ALL of any “at sea” grounding line .. only that both glaciers leave land (traveling at a slower rate over that land than they do when floating over sea water) and then extend into the sea past a “grounding line” and are “floating” while at sea. All of which makes sense: A glacier on land is going to be expected to move slower than a glacier floating on sea water, and a glacier on sea water will move away from the land far enough that – eventually – it will start to break off pieces (calve icebergs) and melt away.
But – in May – all we heard from the “experts’ was that the WAIS was “jammed” or stuck against an at-sea grounding line that was backing up the glacier and preventing motion. That, if the glacier tip continued to melt (from below where it had been stopped at the former/present grounding line) then the end of the glacier would move over the water (from the grounding line) and would lead to catastrophic melting of the whole WAIS.
WTF? This 1992-1994 study shows NONE of that could be occurring since the whole glacier is leaving from a well-known continental land mass edge out into open water. Has the Pine Mountain glacier and Thwaites glaciers EXTENDED further from the continental land boundary so far between 1992 and 2014 that the tip is NOW so far out that it NOW hits an underwater shallow spot that it could not have reached in 1992?
This is definitely a useful contribution because it explains why the rate of movement of the Thwaites Glacier is faster than what would be expected if the base of the glacier were locked to the bedrock and the movement is the result only of shear within the glacier.
This study, combined with others, explains [the] rate of movement from purely natural causes and not from accelerated warming caused by man.. .
However, the article contains an unscientific alarmist statement:
“The collapse of the Thwaites Glacier would cause an increase of global sea level of between 1 and 2 meters, with the potential for more than twice that from the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet.”
This statement is obviously calculated to inspire fear. It is unscientific because there is no time period, no indication if the rate of rise of sea level is faster or slower than now or in the past.
This is important, because sea level rises during interglacials and the longer the time between the onset of the interglacial, the more the sea level rises. During the last interglacial (Eemian), maximum sea level was at least 3 meters high than now. In the very long interglacial 400,000 years ago (MIS 11) sea level was about 20 meters higher than now.
If the astronomer André Berger and others are correct, that the present interglacial (Holocene) will last 50,000 years, mankind may witness sea level 20 meters higher than at present. But this would happen with or without the intervention by mankind. It would happen if all humans had continued with Stone Age technology.
Unfortunately, the level of scientific literacy is so low, even in the developed countries of the world, that the public has little defense against this sort of slanted reporting. The journalists are no more literate in science than their readers.
In my opinion, the thing that will eventually damp down climate alarmism is another 10 to 20 years of no warming or the onset of mild cooling.
Some assumptions need to be made to do the math Mark, and in fact simply by choosing how to construct the model you make assumptions. The whole purpose of this fellow’s grant was to improve our poor understanding of glacial dynamics, i.e. collect the data necessary to improve those models and lift the poor assumption of even heat distribution. There is no “sad reality,” just a bad cliche.
To quote Newton, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”
So the sea is melting the ice of the Thwaites glacier but not the ever increasing sea ice.
rogerthesurf says:
June 9, 2014 at 7:22 pm
We are not ignoring you.
We are agreeing with you.
We cannot figure out what the bloody Hades is going on down there.
We also cannot figure out what the actual “geological” shape of the ice is down there: What the elevations (topof ice) are ice, sides, areas, and altitudes of the top-of-rock are from head to tip of the glaciers, and what the seabed underwater depths actually are (edge-of-continent-to-last grounding line).
Somewhere in the middle of all these unknowns and the propaganda is gravity and the weight of ice and water. I just don’t have any confidence in the US “scientists” down there to have those facts available.
“…Schroeder, who received his Ph.D. in May,..” Sigh, another baby scientist
Brings to mind chicken little. Does an increase in CO2 cause volcanic activity. If I can suggest it’s even worse than we could imagine can I get some grant money? ……..100K sounds about right. Does anyone know a good financial expert who can hide the money?
SasjaL says:
June 9, 2014 at 6:46 pm
From the department of recycled news …
Yes, Sasja, recycled news as can be….. not only did you and I discuss this some years ago in my blogg, but I found out only the other week that this so called news was known in early 1960’s…. I have it written down in my notebook from 5th grade….. 😛
So how much is the planet being heated up from geothermal effects that affect climate change?
A better question might be; To what extent is Earth’s liquid molten magma iron core heating the worlds oceans, and what is that contribution to climate change?
“It’s the most complex thermal environment you might imagine,” said co-author Don Blankenship, a senior research scientist at UTIG and Schroeder’s Ph.D. adviser. “And then you plop the most critical dynamically unstable ice sheet on planet Earth in the middle of this thing, and then you try to model it. It’s virtually impossible.”
//////////////////////////////
Yet some would argue that we can model Earth’s climate (a system more complex by many orders of magnitude), and that we should rely upon these model projections for froming policy decisions.
Well it would depend on how deep the water was, I would say. They still haven’t found MH370. There are deep water vents with life living around them and using chemosynthesis instead of photosynthesis to live and grow. It would be the poisonous gases that are released by volcanoes that can kill life on land and in the ocean.
But because of the volume of sea water around the globe they would have minimal effect on temps generally, but might alter the ocean currents for a while. Don’t know, but as far as the Antarctica is concerned there are active volcanoes around and under the sea. They have corals growing in some areas. But also pressures put on some sea ice from other sea ice can make them break away.
Anyway must go, I am receiving a dose of cosmic rays today, and with ET I don’t feel that bright and very tired. Might be the chemotherapy pill of course. Cheers everyone.
Reminds me of the movie “The Adventures of Bakaru Bonsai: Across the 8th Dimension” when Lord John Whorfin (Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems, Red Lectroids) aka Dr. Emilio Lizardo tries to “converge the laser beams with his feet and hands to achieve cross-over with his bummed over-thruster”; what a laugh riot !
Does America get hurricanes in winter too. Just asking.
Nick Stokes;
These figures aren’t huge. 100 isn’t a lot greater than average. 0.1 W/m2 is tiny compared with average sunlight, even in Antarctica.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Neither is the 3.7 w/m2 from CO2 doubling that is supposedly going to cause catastrophe.
Coming from the bottom of the glacier, it isn’t the 1 cm per year that is significant. It is the establishment of a layer of liquid between the ice and the earth surface which in turn acts like a lubricant to facilitate the flow of the glathier.
No that isn’t a misspelling. Anything named The Thwaites just ought to be a Glathier.
Considering nine-tenth of an iceberg lies under water, and a tenth protrudes upwards, then, if the ice extends down 2 km to rock below sea level, 0.X km of the ice extending above sea level is due to expansion, and could melt, along with the ice beneath, without effecting sea level at all.
There. Even a member of the “general public” can understand that.
Of course, it isn’t so simple. Further study, funding, and trips to sunny Antarctica during dark northern winters are needed to determine if the ice flows the same speed at the surface as at the bottom, and at the middle as at the sides. If the top of the ice flows off leaving the bottom in place it might lift sea levels.
The “general public” can also understand that, especially the word “funding,” when it concerns their tax dollars in a time of economic hardship.
The “general public” is not as stupid as some here think. Call them “sheeple” if you will, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Furthermore, once a minority produces definite evidence of dishonesty, awareness of the dishonesty spreads through the “general public,” and sometimes the awareness achieves a sort of critical mass and “goes viral,” (and this happened even before computers were invented.)
Some politicians in Washington hold the “general public” in complete contempt, thinking control of the media allows “sheeple” to be herded. Even in totalitarian dictatorships this has never been the case, and the leadership can never sleep, aware of the constant dissident murmuring they must constantly trod upon, or be burned by, for the human thirst for freedom and Truth is a fire that never goes out.
What the “general public” needs to know about is not so much scientist’s thirst for knowledge they could care less about, (such as the temperature of stone 2 km beneath ice in Antarctica.) Scientists always are studying obscure things, (such as how Luna moths can smell each other miles away.) Such study is par for the course.
Wasting tax dollars, and especially doing so in a manner using dishonesty, will get the “general public’s” attention. It is not studies such as the above study, but rather clearly written and concise examples of falsehood in science, that will bring the pseudoscience of Global Warming to its knees.
Rather than the South Pole, focus on the complete failure of the “death spiral” to manifest at the North Pole. There’s a lot of bang for the buck there, this summer.
Sounds like they found the missing heat in the deeep, deeeep, deeeep ocean!!!
R. Shearer says –
“Leonard Pitts blames the GOP.”
seems the ***Pew-connected Navy Sec is doing the same! LOL.
9 June 2014: Public News Service: Navy Sec’y: Don’t Politicize Military Climate Policy
CHARLESTON, W.Va – Stopping the U.S. Armed Forces from planning for global warming would be a bad mistake, according to an Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives has added an amendment to the defense budget. It aims to stop current plans to deal with the security threats from climate change..
But retired Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn, now Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations & Environment, said the Navy sees serious national security issues in global warming. And he said Congressional politics should not get in the way of them doing their job…
According to McGinn, global warming is increasing the need for humanitarian missions after weather disasters, such as the recent typhoon that hit the Philippines. He also said rising seas threaten bases such as the huge installations in Hampton Roads, Va.
McGinn said disruptions in the climate will be dangerous for countries that already have brewing conflicts and weak governments. Storms or droughts will cause them to fail.
“Into that absence of power,” McGinn said, “will run all manner of bad people, paramilitaries, or terrorists, organized crime.”…
West Virginia Rep. David McKinley sponsored the amendment and did not return calls requesting comment. In a letter to other members of Congress, McKinley called the climate-change planning part of a politically motivated agenda.
http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2014-06-09/climate-change-air-quality/navy-secy-dont-politicize-military-climate-policy/a39826-1
Aug 2013: Pew Environment Initiatives Press Release: Pew Applauds Confirmation of Retired Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations, and the Environment
(The Pew Charitable Trusts issued the following statements by Phyllis Cuttino, director of the Pew project on national security, energy, and climate, and former U.S. Senator John Warner, senior adviser for the project, on the selection of retired Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn as assistant secretary of the Navy for energy, installations, and the environment.)
“The Department of Defense and the Navy have set ambitious energy goals in order to ensure mission effectiveness, improve power reliability, and reduce costs,” said Phyllis Cuttino, director of the Pew project on national security, energy, and climate. “Adm. McGinn’s unique experience and expertise will enhance these efforts to achieve a more diverse and secure energy portfolio by deploying advanced biofuels, electric vehicles, efficiency technologies, renewable power, and traditional fuels.
***We have been honored to have Adm. McGinn travel across the country with Sen. John Warner and the project to visit with thousands of Americans in town halls meetings and highlight the ongoing energy innovations undertaken by the military. We applaud his selection and look forward to working with him in this new role.” …
The Pew project on national security, energy, and climate is dedicated to highlighting the critical linkages among national security, energy independence, the economy, and climate change.
http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/press-releases/pew-applauds-confirmation-of-retired-vice-adm-dennis-mcginn-as-assistant-secretary-of-the-navy-for-energy-installations-and-the-environment-85899494179
Koch Bros = dirty, bad money…Tom Steyer = good, clean money – read it for Toobin’s reasoning?
10 June: New Yorker: Republicans United on Climate Change
Posted by Jeffrey Toobin
Remember when climate change could be a bipartisan issue? Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi did an advertisement together, boasting of their partnership on the challenge it posed. John McCain also believed that man-made climate change was an urgent problem. Now it’s virtually impossible to find any leading Republicans, including potential Presidential candidates, who will agree, without equivocation, on all of these points: that temperatures are rising, that human beings caused it, and that the nation and the world must take action to address it.
Republicans are unified in denial, and one good reason this is so is the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case. That decision revolutionized the law of campaign finance; what is less well recognized is that it transformed the climate-change debate, too…
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/06/republicans-united-on-climate-change.html
China effectively kills the scam:
9 June: Reuters: David Stamway: Chinese official plays down emission cut expectations
Any near-term regulation of China’s greenhouse gas emissions would likely allow for future emissions growth, a senior government official said on Monday, discounting any suggestion of imminent carbon cuts by the biggest-emitting nation.
Sun Cuihua, deputy director of the climate change office at the National Development and Reform Commission, said it would be a simplification to suggest China would impose an absolute cap on greenhouse gas emissions from 2016.
No decision had yet been taken on a cap and the timing of such a measure was under discussion, she said. Several options were being considered and China would choose policies in accordance with its conditions and stage of development.
“Our understanding of the word ‘cap’ is different from developed countries,” Sun told a conference…
Sun’s comments are likely to cool hopes in international climate negotiations that China could significantly change the base lines by announcing sooner-than-anticipated CO2 cuts…
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/09/china-climatechange-idUKL4N0OQ0WB20140609
Alex Webb You said “Some assumptions need to be made to do the math Mark” I say if assumptions are made to do the math Which I full understand why they do it, What I do not understand why they make grand announcements about models that have been simplified they cannot begin to describe the complex processes going on in the real world, to the most part models are good what if games, but to use them to describe what may be happening in the real world is a fool’s errand, Yet by the sound of you and they do not understand this.Oh computer are no stranger to me I only been working on the for over 30 years. I seen enough garbage in garbage out to last a life time, I have seen people interpret what a computer is telling them completely backwards, the data was good the interpretation was a disaster.
Manufacturing a thought experiment introducing an idea like this to produce a self full filling prophesy is intellectually dishonest.
Paul B. Farrell Archives | Email alerts
June 9, 2014, 7:22 a.m. EDT
The 1 big reason GOP will lose the presidency in 2016
Commentary: Climate-science deniers can’t win with majority of Americans
“SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Warning to GOP: A new poll says you can kiss the presidency goodbye for 10 more long years: Why? “Voters have little tolerance for a presidential candidate in 2016 who doesn’t believe that climate change is caused by human activity.” More on that below. But that means the GOP is destined to be on the outside of the White House for 10 more years, playing by the same total-defense playbook that didn’t work the last two presidential elections.”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-1-big-reason-gop-will-lose-the-presidency-in-2016-2014-06-07?link=mw_home_kiosk
Geothermal activity under ice sheets ?
Hardly new news [ or is that just “news” ?]
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=341
And a bit about ice sheets from a few years ago but still relevant…….
http://ff.org/images/stories/sciencecenter/greenland_and_antarctic_in_danger_of_collapse.pdf
rogerthesurf says:
“Now someone correct me here, but -if- this glacial is largely below sea level, and ice having a larger volume compared with water, will the complete melting of this glacier not tend to make the sea level fall?”
No, but it will greatly reduce the effect of the melting on sea-level. Say that the glacier rests on bedrock 1,000 meters below sea-level. Since glacier ice has a density of about 0,91 and (cold) sea-water about 1.03 it will take about 1.03/0.91 x 1,000 = 1,130 meters of ice to “fill up” the space with sea-water, so only the part of the glacier >130 m a s l will contribute to the sea-level.
I think some of you guys may find this interesting.
http://io9.com/our-clearest-view-yet-of-antarctica-stripped-of-all-its-511636795
In Brandon’s list I noticed near the top one for rbutr … which is a website rebuttal tool. It would seem that SkS were going to use this against sites in order to make their’s look more scientific. Time to reverse their plan ?
SkS have a post dated yesterday that claims ‘global warming’ is the cause.
http://rbutr.com/
Sign up then go to the website and rebut away.
This comedic duo are trying to make us laugh. To increase global sea level by one inch, you need to melt 9.6 x 10^15 kg of glaciers. At 150 mW/m^2 geothermal heat flow, it would take 4,000 years to melt that much ice. It’s a very long wait for one inch. To funniest part is it will not even contribute to sea level rise since the glacier in underwater.
tty
That 1130 meters ice vs. 1000 m water means ice occupies more space than water. Hence if you melt it, water will occupy less space. No sea level rise.
RexAlan says:
June 10, 2014 at 12:23 am
I think some of you guys may find this interesting.
http://io9.com/our-clearest-view-yet-of-antarctica-stripped-of-all-its-511636795
—————–
Wouldn’t it all be under water ?
No, they show out to the edge of the continental shelf. Where the color changes from grey to a dirty brown color that is the ice shelf edge. The lightest brown color is above sea level.
There is a video at the bottom of the page that explains things better.
Nick Stokes says:
June 9, 2014 at 7:53 pm
With things like geothermal, the natural question is, if it is having a big effect now, why not before?
Perhaps it’s a precursor to another Eyjafjallajokull ,Mount St Helens or even a Surtsey, Nishinoshima. or El Hierro who knows for sure?
I wouldn’t believe a word from the University of Texas as they get massive funding by the Oil and gas industry.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20131122-texas-oil-boom-means-more-money-for-ut-am.ece
Bu-bu-but!!! Danny Glover says that is just mother earth expressing her anger over Global Warming, so it is STILL due to global warming!
I’ve always wondered how you can record melting and record cold temps at the same time.
Brendan Robinson says:
June 10, 2014 at 2:49 am
I wouldn’t believe a word from the University of Texas as they get massive funding by the Oil and gas industry.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20131122-texas-oil-boom-means-more-money-for-ut-am.ece
________________
Do you want to go through life just operating in a state of belief, or disbelief, or do you want to find out the truth of things, for yourself? Do you “believe” all of the government proclamations? Do you believe all of those studies which were paid for by the government and which support the government’s position?
Do you believe that your opinion matters in the world of science?
oops maybe he should delayed this..Retired UMaine Professor Hughes Makes Early Prediction of West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse
http://climatechange.umaine.edu/
Is It Too Late to Save Our Cities From Sea-Level Rise?
http://climatechange.umaine.edu/news/article/2014/06/09/retired_umaine_professor_hughes_makes_early_prediction_of_west_antarctic_ice_sheet_collapse
its interior lies more than two kilometers below sea level…
Global warming causes glaciers to defy gravity……
This has to do with Antarctica so I will post it here. Man Made Warming of Antarctica???
https://twitter.com/NJSnowFan/status/476344491373527040/photo/1
Brendan Robinson says:
June 10, 2014 at 2:49 am
I wouldn’t believe a word from the University of Texas as they get massive funding by the Oil and gas industry.
__________________
Do you believe the Sierra Club? They received $25,000,000 from Chesapeake Energy to oppose the coal industry.
Well if they plug this extra heat source into their models and rerun them they will probably find that this glacier actually melted 2000 years ago and that the ice we think we see melting now is just a figment of our CO2 poisoned imagination.
Because of course models always trump reality.
Not sure if I need a sarc tag.
Leo Geiger says:
June 9, 2014 at 7:12 pm
Remember the first sentence of the press release being quoted? Maybe the selective highlighting is needed here:
”Thwaites Glacier, the large, rapidly changing outlet of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is not only being eroded by the ocean,..”
Leo, the ocean erodes along a linear strip (around the whole world even) and in this case the geothermal energy is also warming the ocean doing the eroding- did you miss that? What happens below is a three dimensional thing. No we didn’t ignore this factor but the article was about the largest newsworthy effect. Man I do have to congratulate you, though. These are highly honed CAGW guerrilla tactics on display. I’m sure this kind of stuff is now on academia curricula.
Chris Beal (@NJSnowFan) says:
June 10, 2014 at 5:57 am
This has to do with Antarctica so I will post it here. Man Made Warming of Antarctica???
________________________
Chris,
Check out the Sea Ice page on the sidebar: Antarctic temp graphs show decline for decades and Antarctic sea ice is over 1.37 Million Km2 greater than the 30 year average.
rogerthesurf says:
June 9, 2014 at 7:22 pm
”…but -if- this glacial is largely below sea level, and ice having a larger volume compared with water, will the complete melting of this glacier not tend to make the sea level fall?
At least the below sea level part will have an effect on how much contribution it makes to sea level change.”
Not a bad point, although the glacier is grounded. If its 4000m thick and in a 2000m deep basin, then it isn’t near being afloat (if it were afloat, about 10% would be sticking above the water). However, if it is going to take 1000s of years to melt, then glacial rebound will raise the land surface under the glacier gradually while causing the ocean around it to deepen (conservation of mass). Indeed, if the whole Antarctic ice sheet were to melt at rates equal to isostatic rebound, it seems to me there would be no change in sea level at all. If however a big slab should slide off into the sea, or is should otherwise melt quickly, we would have an abrupt rise in sea level.
Another thought. The terrific weight of the ice that presses the land surface down should tend to force the magma seaward. There are volcanoes on the sea floor in this area. Any fracturing of the rocks (fault zone) under the glacier would however result in magma directed into the ice. There are a number of upside down wash basin-shaped volcanoes known as tuyas in Iceland, northern British Columbia and in a few other places that formed as a result of sub ice eruption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuya
See Iceland if there are additional questions.
Brendan Robinson says:
June 10, 2014 at 2:49 am
“I wouldn’t believe a word from the University of Texas as they get massive funding by the Oil and gas industry.”
Don’t worry Brendan, Chevron probably has it wired, since they are the biggest Geothermal energy producer in the world. When we are all forced to flee our continents due to global warming, we can settle in Antarctica and let Chevron supply us with the readily available green energy.
fools – it’s not geothermal heat, it’s the hidden heat in the deep ocean. That’s why no-one can find it – it actually hid in the ice and the ice melted. Mystery solved.
I remember at least a decade ago that there was ice core sampling done in Antarctica and they found a slush at the bottom of the glacier, which was on a slope, and gravity being what it is the glacier tended to slide seaward because ……………………
It was on a slippery slope!
(That was fun)
Oh no, Al Gore’s several million degrees interior of the earth is beginning to break through to the surface.
Gorebull warming strikes again!
Nick Stokes says: June 9, 2014 at 7:53 pm
…With things like geothermal, the natural question is, if it is having a big effect now, why not before?…
I do believe that is exactly what the citizens of Pompeii said!
this layman commented a few years ago that it was most likely undersea volcanic activity causing any melting……..since the air temp rarely goes above freezing there, it had to be something other than air warming.
Nick Stokes says:
June 9, 2014 at 7:53 pm
“…With things like geothermal, the natural question is, if it is having a big effect now, why not before?
///////////////////////////////
Nick
Bill answers your question:-
Bill Illis says:
June 9, 2014 at 7:56 pm
Most glaciers are melting from below through geothermal heat, either volcanic or simple bedrock temperatures….That is why the oldest ice on Antarctica is only 800,000 years old yet the location where this old ice formed has been glaciated for over 42 million years….”
///////
It has happened before, Heck that is the reason why the ice of 42 million years ago is no longer there, Ditto the ice of 41 million years ago, 40 million years ago, 39 million years ago, 38 million years ago etc etc. It has all calved away.
The planet is in constant flux. We are merely witnessing nothing more extraordinary than business as usual.
Gary Pearse says: Leo, the ocean erodes along a linear strip (around the whole world even) and in this case the geothermal energy is also warming the ocean doing the eroding- did you miss that?
Where in the press release or the paper itself does it suggest the geothermal energy is warming the ocean and therefore causing grounding line retreat (“doing the eroding”)? It doesn’t.
That is the issue. There is what the research says, and then there is what you think it says and how it gets portrayed here. Those two things are seldom the same.
Chris Beal (@NJSnowFan) says:
June 10, 2014 at 5:57 am
This has to do with Antarctica so I will post it here. Man Made Warming of Antarctica???
http://www.accuweather.com/en/aq/amundsen-scott-south-pole-station/2258520/june-weather/2258520
For 9June14 the range was -61F to -85F, I wouldn’t worry too much about a 0,67C diversion from average, especially since there are, for the most part, no thermometers or temperature records for the overwhelming majority of a continent that is almost twice the size of the lower 48.
Time and again we see this kind of thing. A claim is made, people scream CAGW, later research finds some other cause. Remember the bees and lizards? Antarctic sea ice is not melting because of hot air, it’s recently been bloody freezing down there in summer and winter.
Oops!
I am not a glacier scientist but this sounds like male bovine excrement.
The profile of the glacier is such that the bottom of the glacier would have to flow upward to get to the ocean. link The thing is that the top of the glacier and the bottom of the glacier don’t have to move at the same speed because of plastic flow. link It is quite possible for the top of the glacier to flow at 2 km/yr without having the bottom move at all. If the bottom isn’t moving, it doesn’t matter if it is lubricated by a little melt water or not.
“In general, the rate of plastic flow is greater than the rate of basal sliding. ” link In this case, I suspect that the rate of basal sliding is zero. I also realize that a lot of papers talk about non-zero basal sliding but that requires the ice to flow uphill.
The WAIS is not far from one of the sites of surrounding Antarctic subsidence (SAS) where cold deep water formation and downweling occur. I understand there is some release of enthalpic heat associated with this. Could this be a factor in the anomalous warming in the vicinity of the WAIS while Antactica as a whole cools? It could be that there is a recent upsurge in downwelling and deep water formation linked to oceanic oscillation.
Don’t forget a few degrees drop in melting point at these pressures.
“Dave Says, For 9June14 the range was -61F to -85F, I wouldn’t worry too much about a 0,67C diversion from average, especially since there are, for the most part, no thermometers or temperature records for the overwhelming majority of a continent that is almost twice the size of the lower 48.”
Dave that was not the issue I had with CR. It is that in one day, overall it got colder( according to their color maps for temps) . They show +.67 today and yesterday it was +.61.
From the colors they show for Antarctic, it looks like it should be at least -5.0 C below avg not +.67 above average.
What is the true overall temp for Antarctic region Now??
I did E-mail CR this morning but got no response yet about their maps and Antarctic temp reading.
Well it has been dark energy heat up to this point. It’s time to throw some light on the subject with real observations on subglacial heat sources, subglacial volcanic activity, and hydrothermal activity. It is a continental-scale question after all.
Now for a reality check..
http://mallemaroking.org/amundsen-sea-embayment/
What if the Arctic has some underwater volcanoes too?
Could man made global warming actually be magma made global warming?
njsnowfan says:
June 10, 2014 at 11:17 am
I did E-mail CR this morning but got no response yet about their maps and Antarctic temp reading.
I’m curious where they get such detailed surface temperature data for both the present and to determine a 1979-2000 baseline. My impression of what is available suggests they are probably making most of it up as they go.
Glaciers – Rivers of Ice –
http://youtu.be/ZYCERy6-mmM
Ok, maybe my math is off but with a surface area of 139 million square miles, it would take 86,000 cubic miles of water to raise the level of the ocean even 1 meter. 172,000 to raise it 2 meters. So I highly doubt the 1 -2 meter rise that they predict.
So in theory an ice cap on Iceland is not possible.
http://youtu.be/sa-DdSPya2E
Leo Geiger says:
June 10, 2014 at 9:12 am
””Gary Pearse says: Leo, the ocean erodes along a linear strip (around the whole world even) and in this case the geothermal energy is also warming the ocean doing the eroding- did you miss that?”
Where in the press release or the paper itself does it suggest the geothermal energy is warming the ocean…”
They say: ”The glacier is retreating in the face of the warming ocean”
As a geologist, I assumed the researchers were aware of the general broader field of volcanic activity in the area, but you may be right, they may not even know. There is a lot of negligent research being done these days. Here’s what NOAA has to say:
”Ant_Proj_SUM_May31-05.doc
ftp://ftp.pmel.noaa.gov/…/Antarctica/Ant_Proj_SUM_May31-05.doc
As earthquakes can be used to track many plate boundary and lithospheric … pattern of earthquake production along the Antarctic Peninsula and western Scotia (Sea) … of submarine volcanic activity along the Antarctic Peninsula and throughout the ..”
Actually the entire western coast of Antarctica, onshore and offshore is a busy volcanic field. At least we can’t cite CO2 in this so I don’t get your interest.
Hmmm……Let me see If I’ve got this straight. We’re supposed to mortgage our futures on Climate Models that didn’t see this coming?
commieBob says:
June 10, 2014 at 10:46 am
The profile of the glacier is such that the bottom of the glacier would have to flow upward to get to the ocean
===
…..correct
Man Bearpig says:
June 10, 2014 at 1:03 am
Oh no. In the snow shadow area (where mountains wring out most of the moisture so very little snow falls), there is exposed land, the McMurdo Dry Valleys.
http://www.mcmurdodryvalleys.aq/
The 15,000km2 Area contains cold desert soils millions of years old, special geological features, and unusual communities of plants and microorganisms. Its landscape includes glaciers, mountain ranges, ice-covered lakes, ephemeral streams, arid patterned soils and permafrost, sand dunes, and watershed systems. It is a region where life exists at the very extreme of environmental limits.
http://discovermagazine.com/galleries/2013/june/dry-valleys-diary
I received this reply about this topic earlier today.
Much like an ice cube in a glass of 35-degree water will melt faster than one sitting in 35-degree air, the melting of glaciers at the edge of a continent is dominated by the surface area touching the ocean. This area isn’t just at the edge of the glacier if you’re looking at an aerial photo, it is mainly the underside of the part of the sheet as it floats over the ocean. As you can learn from reading the studies you’ve linked (not the spin, but the actual scientific papers), the place where the glacier leaves land and begins floating isn’t constant – it depends on how thick the ice sheet is, which in turns depends on how much has melted: the more that melts, the less thick it is, the higher it floats, which moves the interface with land further inland, leading to more surface area interfaced with ocean water, leading to faster melting. It also depends on how fast the glacier flows over land – faster-flowing glaciers are thinner.
The new study from UT shows the distribution of heat coming from the earth underneath the glacier, which has the effect of creating a layer of water underneath the miles of ice. This layer of water acts as a lubricant, much like walking on a frozen pond with heated shoes would be incredibly slippery. Overall the earth’s crust under this glacier has a higher-than-average amount of heat flux, so the layer of water will be thicker and more lubricating – but it doesn’t mean this heat is dominating the melting. It will, however, influence the modeling of the glacial flow, which will change estimates of how fast the glacier will melt from contact with seawater.
So… yes, glaciers are complicated… but using this study to argue that AGW shouldn’t be blamed for accelerating melting of this glacier is silly, willfully ignorant, self-interested, or any combination of the above.
@Scarface
“Could man made global warming actually be magma made global warming?”
The average geothermal heat flow is 0.1 W/m^2. Your warm body is emitting about 30 W/m^2 of heat to the cool air around you. Body heat flow is 300 times greater than geothermal heat flow. That’s why we eat so much. A lot of calories is needed to keep our body warm. Too bad we can’t use body heat to run power plants.
A few years ago, I went over to one of those “science” sites where the debate the issues of the day by deleting comments.
Anyway, I saw a piece by this “scientist” about the melting in the Antarctic with a link to the WaPo to NYT that had a quickie summary of his work.
One of the comments was that the melting was due to a volcano which the “scientist” quickie retorted that the volcano was two miles under the ice.
Oddly enough, right there on the same page was a link to a story about how for the first time on record an Antarctic volcano had broken through the ice.
I quickly pointed that out in a comment … a few minutes later, my comment was removed.
Isn’t “science” wonderful.
CR emailed me back..
Hi Chris,
I found the problem. There was indeed a bug in the script. The Antarctic region definition had a typo, wherein the latitude ranged: -65 to 90 instead of -65 to -90. One character off! FYI here is the complete list of region definitions, obviously not all used. Averages are area-weighted, and therefore account for longitude convergence at the poles:
And here is the new difference map showing -3.57 deg C anomaly for Antarctic. Make sure to clear browser cache if the old image appears when you go to the site.
Cheers,
Sean
—
Sean Birkel
Research Assistant Professor
Climate Change Institute
University of Maine
Climate Reanalyzer
http://cci-reanalyzer.org
Temp data that was attached to the e-mail from CR.
latmin, latmax, lonmin, lonmax
;*** Land + Oceans ***
rlatlon(0,0:3) =(/ -90.0, 90.0, 0.0, 359.5/) ;World
rlatlon(1,0:3) =(/ 0.0, 90.0, 0.0, 359.5/) ;NH
rlatlon(2,0:3) =(/ -90.0, 0.0, 0.0, 359.5/) ;SH
rlatlon(3,0:3) =(/ 65.0, 90.0, 0.0, 359.5/) ;Arctic
rlatlon(4,0:3) =(/ -90.0, -60.0, 0.0, 359.5/) ;Antarctic
rlatlon(5,0:3) =(/ -25.0, 25.0, 0.0, 359.5/) ;Tropics
rlatlon(6,0:3) =(/ 25.0, 65.0, 0.0, 359.5/) ;N mid lats
rlatlon(7,0:3) =(/ -65.0, -25.0, 0.0, 359.5/) ;S mid lats
;*** Oceans ***
rlatlon(8,0:3) =(/ -50.0, 65.0, 290.0, 359.5/) ;Atlantic
rlatlon(9,0:3) =(/ 5.0, 65.0, 280.0, 359.5/) ;N Atlantic
rlatlon(10,0:3) =(/ -50.0, 5.0, 295.0, 359.5/) ;S Atlantic
rlatlon(11,0:3) =(/ 50.0, 65.0, 265.0, 285.0/) ;Hudson Bay
rlatlon(12,0:3) =(/ 17.0, 30.0, 260.0, 279.0/) ;Gulf of Mexico
rlatlon(13,0:3) =(/ -50.0, 60.0, 130.0, 260.0/) ;Pacific
rlatlon(14,0:3) =(/ 0.0, 60.0, 130.0, 260.0/) ;N Pacific
rlatlon(15,0:3) =(/ -50.0, 0.0, 150.0, 290.0/) ;S Pacific
rlatlon(16,0:3) =(/ -15.0, 15.0, 140.0, 290.0/) ;Eq Pacific
rlatlon(17,0:3) =(/ -50.0, 25.0, 30.0, 110.0/) ;Indian Ocean
rlatlon(18,0:3) =(/ 65.0, 90.0, 0.0, 359.5/) ;Arctic Ocean
rlatlon(19,0:3) =(/ -75.0, -50.0, 0.0, 359.5/) ;Southern Ocean
;*** Land ***
rlatlon(20,0:3) =(/ 23.0, 85.0, 190.0, 350.0/) ;North America
rlatlon(21,0:3) =(/ -57.0, 13.0, 278.0, 327.0/) ;South America
rlatlon(22,0:3) =(/ 35.0, 70.0, 0.0, 40.0/) ;Europe
rlatlon(23,0:3) =(/ 23.0, 80.0, 40.0, 190.0/) ;Asia
rlatlon(24,0:3) =(/ -36.0, 38.0, 0.0, 52.0/) ;Africa
rlatlon(25,0:3) =(/ -48.0, -10.0, 110.0, 180.0/) ;Australia + NZ
rlatlon(26,0:3) =(/ 49.0, 75.0, 220.0, 300.0/) ;Canada
rlatlon(27,0:3) =(/ 23.5, 49.0, 230.0, 300.0/) ;U.S.
rlatlon(28,0:3) =(/ 53.0, 72.5, 180.0, 220.0/) ;Alaska
rlatlon(29,0:3) =(/ 50.0, 80.0, 90.0, 180.0/) ;Siberia
rlatlon(30,0:3) =(/ 23.0, 47.0, 80.0, 132.0/) ;China
DavidR says (on the UAH global satellite temperature report for May 2014):
June 10, 2014 at 9:59 pm
So, IF Co2 warms the entire globe catastrophically, AND IF that warming is supposed to cause the Arctic sea ice to melt AND THAT melting is supposed to cause MORE CA global warming to melt more sea ice …
So, how could the Antarctic sea ice extents last October 2013 set an all-time satellite record high sea ice extents AROUND Antarctica if Antarctica was measured that same 2013 year with the earth’s highest regional temperatures?
Oh, and by the way, the Antarctic sea ice anomaly (the “excess” sea ice alone) has been continuously positive since May 2011, and been regularly higher than normal since 2007, and that excess has been as large as 1.6 Mkm^2 several times .. an area 97% the size of Greenland. Now, just what is that funny “Arctic amplification” positive feedback the so-called “scientists” propagandize their politicians about?
“Yet some would argue that we can model Earth’s climate (a system more complex by many orders of magnitude), and that we should rely upon these model projections for froming policy decisions.”
Anyone who takes note of the almost-universal convergence of these policy decisions to the very same end point would conclude that science is a willing tool of socialism or at least statism. The way to figh global Lukewarming is always the same: higher taxes, bigger government, less personal liberty.
“Now someone correct me here, but -if- this glacial is largely below sea level, and ice having a larger volume compared with water, will the complete melting of this glacier not tend to make the sea level fall?”
Yep.
Of course there is another dynamic to consider. Should all this ice melt and somehow flow into the ocean the compressed bedrock below will spring back to sea level or so and perhaps the oceans might rise.
Of course there is another SET of dynamics to consider. ..
iOW we have NO damn idea what will happen.
Oh what a tangled web we weave …
Meanwhile back on earth we have a burgeoning tyranny here in the USA we may want to pay attention to. A massive transfer or power from we the people to the tyranny in the form of muli-titrillion dollar taxes is the LAST thing we need.
My only question to man-made global warming deniers — and I actually, presently, suspend judgement still, on the causes of the indisputable rise in temperatures, be they man made or natural variations — is…If you have ever flown in an airplane at night, and looked down at the splotches of light that represent every urban area; if you have ever had to walk a mile or so in an urban area like Los Angeles on a hot day with traffic passing and belching burned fossil fuel emissions; or if you have ever contemplated the logarithmic increase in population and fossil fuel consumption over the last 100 or so years; How can you not feel, in your gut, with “horse sense” that any sentient human should have…that maybe, just maybe…the off-the-charts experiment that is man’s insatiable, precipitous, and unprecedented sucking, drilling, and consuming of fossil fuels just might — possibly– have an effect on climate. To me, to deny the effect that must occur as a result of this unprecedented dumping in the atmosphere is akin to a two year old denying he pooped in his diaper. I detect in the “no human cause” movement an embrace of the combustion engine, of coal fired power plants, of a libertarian denial of the importance of preserving the ecological commons, and so much more. This view that I have isn’t helped by the fact that most “climate change deniers” are not environmentalists or scientists but rather people infatuated with man’s industrial and technological creativity, and in bed with all of the energy companies’ propaganda about how useful, convenient, and wonderful their endeavors are to the modern, estranged-from-nature, and short-term-profit-seeking human. Feel free to read that clunky sentence one more time.
Man’s activity on earth is unprecedented, obviously warming, and obviously interfering with what would otherwise be a normal variation. In the end, it doesn’t matter much, as the universe is vast, and our little important appearance here shall pass regardless and indifferntly.
Just to clear things up more definitively, give you this article with statements from the lead author.
No, Volcanoes Are Not the Primary Cause For the Melting Ice Caps
Long story short: this study gives us more detailed and realistic information to model the ice sheet behavior. It does not replace any melting from climate change with melting from geothermal heat.
Tommy B ,
If you are advocating world population control/reduction, why dont you come out and say it?
All the Agenda21 and IPCC literature either advocate this directly, ( using appropriate sobriquet of course), or imply population control as the only long term (final?) solution.
Only trouble is that no one is prepared to lead from the front on this issue! (Except China perhaps).
Or how about Prince Phillip? “I just wonder what it would be like to be reincarnated in an animal whose species had been so reduced in numbers than it was in danger of extinction. What would be its feelings toward the human species whose population explosion had denied it somewhere to exist… I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus”
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Prince_Philip,_Duke_of_Edinburgh
I guess its a bit late for him to lead from the front I guess but do you see or hear of him making at least a royal gesture?
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.wordpress.com
Hey Roger
I happen to NOT be in favor of Agenda 21 or population reduction, and I know what all that means, as I read the internet too, all the way down the rabbit hole. For all I know we might even agree on more than you know. I’m a rube and never post on sites…just happened to the other day, sorry for intruding. Thanks for inviting a flame out or whatever they’re called these days, however.
What makes you say I support Agenda 21? Just because I recognize that humans have hit 7 billion population when a hundred years ago there were only 1 billion? Couldn’t I just as well assume you are one of those literal Bible believers who think that “go forth and multiply” is literally “God’s breath” in command (quack quack)? or accuse you of wanting to kill your children and all their descendants because of the logarithmic growth in human population which if continued indefinitely will make life miserable on earth and end up really shitty? Are you in favor of 100 billion people on earth 200 years from now, or whenever…wow. Pretty smart guy. We need more of your kind in politics.
Are you able to comprehend a logarithmic scale? Do you know that the result of all logarithmic scales end in … um, what is the word? Oh please. Can you show me an example, in nature or physics, where a population grows logarithmically in a finite area, and survives? Duh, de dum, de dum de dum…The issue is much more complex than your over-simple knee-jerk binary mind can comprehend. You probably believe that Jesus is a communist because he wants to feed the poor. Or that people who believe in the pill or condoms or just simply replacing ourselves and not having 9 children have some hidden agenda. Or that anyone seeking a common forum for world peace really only wants to create a world government to enslave the populace (sure, it can be taken over or co-opted — which I oppose — but opposing earnest efforts to make the world a better place is just stupid)…or that caring for the environment tramples your right to pollute downstream whenever you feel like it. Couldn’t I just start attaching beliefs about particular issues to you, like this, just the same?
If you’d like to quote what I said, and then state your qualification to that, then fine, argue it. But if you don’t want me to fantasize about your erroneous thinking process, and then attribute it to you, as you have done to me, then lay off that. Stick with quotes and rebuttals, duh. Otherwise you’re just a guy sitting in front of a computer with a belief system of so much sound and fury, signifying…
And if you don’t rebut quotes, I will cease to reply, with relief
Tommy B,
My only issue it that population control is being inflicted on us unwitting ones, by Agenda 21 et al.
I agree something will need to be done at some time in the not too distant future, but it should be discussed and debated up front. However certain influential people appear to be thinking of something somewhat more catastrophic
In the case of Agenda 21 and its supporters, it appears to me and many others that the top dogs, or rather the people that consider themselves the top dogs, want to get rid of the world population to manageable levels, (ranging from 500,000,000 to 1 Billion), for their own purposes rather than with any concern for society. One can only presume that the people left from this purge will be serfs beholden to these “elite”.
Perhaps this article, although one does not need to agree with it in totality, says it all better than I.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/from-7-billion-people-to-500-million-people-the-sick-population-control-agenda-of-the-global-elite
Thanks for your answer, discussion is always healthy.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Roger yes I agree particularly for the third world countries. But how do you stop people having sex? Other than sterilisation! Or just let them starve to death, that is happening in many countries. If we didn’t have the red crescents and cross, they would undergo natures natural culling that happens to other animal species.
Ice below sea level, in contact with the sea, will lower sea level if it melts; the overburden above sea level will increase it. But not much, and the timelines are centuries and millennia.
Friends:
I write to dispose of the fallacy of overpopulation in hope that this thread can return to its subject.
The fallacy of overpopulation derives from the disproved Malthusian idea which wrongly assumes that humans are constrained like bacteria in a Petri dish: i.e. population expands until available resources are consumed when population collapses. The assumption is wrong because humans do not suffer such constraint: humans find and/or create new and alternative resources when existing resources become scarce.
The obvious example is food.
In the 1970s the Club of Rome predicted that human population would have collapsed from starvation by now. But human population has continued to rise and there are fewer starving people now than in the 1970s; n.b. there are less starving people in total and not merely fewer in in percentage.
Now, the most common Malthusian assertion is ‘peak oil’. But humans need energy supply and oil is only one source of energy supply. Adoption of natural gas displaces some requirement for oil, fracking increases available oil supply at acceptable cost; etc..
In the real world, for all practical purposes there are no “physical” limits to natural resources so every natural resource can be considered to be infinite; i.e. the human ‘Petri dish’ can be considered as being unbounded. This a matter of basic economics which I explain as follows. bold
Humans do not run out of anything although they can suffer local and/or temporary shortages of anything. The usage of a resource may “peak” then decline, but the usage does not peak because of exhaustion of the resource (e.g. flint, antler bone and bronze each “peaked” long ago but still exist in large amounts).
A resource is cheap (in time, money and effort) to obtain when it is in abundant supply. But “low-hanging fruit are picked first”, so the cost of obtaining the resource increases with time. Nobody bothers to seek an alternative to a resource when it is cheap.
But the cost of obtaining an adequate supply of a resource increases with time and, eventually, it becomes worthwhile to look for
(a) alternative sources of the resource
and
(b) alternatives to the resource.
And alternatives to the resource often prove to have advantages.
For example, both (a) and (b) apply in the case of crude oil.
Many alternative sources have been found. These include opening of new oil fields by use of new technologies (e.g. to obtain oil from beneath sea bed) and synthesising crude oil from other substances (e.g. tar sands, natural gas and coal). Indeed, since 1994 it has been possible to provide synthetic crude oil from coal at competitive cost with natural crude oil and this constrains the maximum true cost of crude.
Alternatives to oil as a transport fuel are possible. Oil was the transport fuel of military submarines for decades but uranium is now their fuel of choice.
There is sufficient coal to provide synthetic crude oil for at least the next 300 years. Hay to feed horses was the major transport fuel 300 years ago and ‘peak hay’ was feared in the nineteenth century, but availability of hay is not significant a significant consideration for transportation today. Nobody can know what – if any – demand for crude oil will exist 300 years in the future.
Indeed, coal also demonstrates an ‘expanding Petri dish’.
Spoil heaps from old coal mines contain much coal that could not be usefully extracted from the spoil when the mines were operational. Now, modern technology enables the extraction from the spoil at a cost which is economic now and would have been economic if it had been available when the spoil was dumped.
These principles not only enable growing human population: they also increase human well-being.
The ingenuity which increases availability of resources also provides additional usefulness to the resources. For example, abundant energy supply and technologies to use it have freed people from the constraints of ‘renewable’ energy and the need for the power of muscles provided by slaves and animals. Malthusians are blind to the obvious truth that human ingenuity has freed humans from the need for slaves to operate treadmills, the oars of galleys, etc..
And these benefits also act to prevent overpopulation because population growth declines with affluence.
There are several reasons for this. Of most importance is that poor people need large families as ‘insurance’ to care for them at times of illness and old age. Affluent people can pay for that ‘insurance’ so do not need the costs of large families.
The result is that the indigenous populations of rich countries decline. But rich countries need to sustain population growth for economic growth so they need to import – and are importing – people from poor countries. Increased affluence in poor countries can be expected to reduce their population growth with resulting lack of people for import by rich countries.
Hence, the real foreseeable problem is population decrease; n.b. not population increase.
All projections and predictions indicate that human population will peak around the middle of this century and decline after that. So, we are confronted by the probability of ‘peak population’ resulting from growth of affluence around the world.
The Malthusian idea is wrong because it ignores basic economics and applies a wrong model; human population is NOT constrained by resources like the population of bacteria in a Petri dish. There is no existing or probable problem of overpopulation of the world by humans.
So, can we please ignore the non-issue of overpopulation and return the thread to its subject?
Richard
You can do better than this.
The reports authors are very careful NOT to state what you claim that they state. It is ‘reasonably obvious’ from their claims that they may agree with you absolutely-off-the-record after quite a few beers in a friendly closed membership gathering. BUT making the jump in assumptions that they refuse to make and by drawing conclusions which are conjectural. no matter how well they may seem to be founded, and stating them as if they are the conclusions of the report’s writers, allows your opponents to claim that your methods are shoddy and your reportage is lacking.
Better, I suggest, would be a ‘steady as she goes’ addition of the information to known facts and known maybes and looking for other material which is now shown to support your premises in the light of the latest information.
Interestingly – In his brilliant fictional Red – Green – Blue Mars trilogy Kim Stanley Robinson posited a massive sudden global sealevel rise due to the West Antartic iceshelf having been rapidly destabilised by underlying volcanic action. That was published in about 1999 (!). KSR usually bases his “future maybes” on very well established science. There appears to have been minimal if any material on geothermal action as a source for differential antarctic melting in recent peer reviewed literature. If a novelist can “get it right” (perhaps) 15 years ago – what papers are available over that sort of time span that support this thesis?