Greenland icesheet melting

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by James R, Jun 30, 2011.

  1. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    10,890
    I think you need to address this with Arthur, not me.
     
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  3. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    Plants do metabolize better at heavier atmospheric carbon concentrations, absolutely. This will help...long-term.

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    However, over the short term, the change in rainfall patterns will mean a lot of carbon currently sequestered in what are live trees will be turning into carbon again, as those suckers dry up, die, and burn.

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  5. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Not at all.

    Indeed though, if he had said something even mildly intelligent, like the Earth's climate appeas to have been switching between two stable states for the last several million years I'd have not argued the point.

    But that's NOT what he wrote,

    While browbeating another poster he wrote:

    But the CURRENT climate has not been stable for millions of years.

    Unless your definition of CURRENT is vastly different than that of all the people who have lived on the planet since 10,000 BC.

    Which is why I posted a link to the nice graphic of the climate of the last several million years.

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/All_palaeotemps.png

    Claiming the CURRRENT climate has been stable for the last several million years was a BS claim when he made it and it remains BS now and his obvious attempt to change what the discussion point was about, compared to what he intended to convey to John99 in his original post, is simply being dishonest.

    Arthur
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2011
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  7. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    But Chimpkin, the NASA study I linked to shows just the opposite, that the Net Primary Productivity is going UP, meaning the land sequestered CO2 is increasing.

    (note Pentagram (PgC) of Carbon is the same as a Gigaton of Carbon)

    Now it's true, there is likely to be an upper limit to NPP growth, but the length of time that much if not most of the CO2 will remain sequestered is likely on the order of centuries.

    Arthur
     
  8. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    7,832
    This is just more evidence that you have an extremely basic (moron level) grasp of the science.

    You have no idea what honesty is, so stop accusing me of dishonesty. And please stop embarrassing yourself.
    You said this:
    And I said, that is a stable state for the climate, and I'm right.

    Your subsequent objection is your problem. Your lack of understanding of the science is too. So is your lack of intelligence, which is why you look like an idiot.
     
  9. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    No, Afra, I won't stop accusing you of being dishonest because that's exactly what you are.

    You started out by claiming I implied something I clearly did not and then you browbeat John99 with your assertion that the CURRENT climate (as in the climate we are experiencing today) has been stable for the last several millions of years.

    CURRENT: belonging to the time actually passing: the current month.

    Any other interpretation of the word CURRENT in the context you used it is purely you trying to backpedal as fast as you can from your obvious error.
     
  10. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,832
    The climate has been stable for millions of years, up until now.

    What should we call this climate? I think I'll call it: "the current climate", seeing as how it extends from now back into the last few million years.

    Given the timeframe, the last month doesn't seem all that significant. That's easy to explain though: climate science is NOT about what happened last month, or is happening this month. No, climate is about much longer periods of time, like decades or centuries.

    Any other interpretation of "the current climate" is probably just being dishonest . . .
     
  11. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    I agree, the last month doesn't mean a thing from a climate perspective.

    Climate represents periods of at least decades or centuries.

    And the current climate (Even if "current" goes back about 120 centuries) has NOT been stable for the last several million years.

    But that is NOT what you said.

    So you said you were talking about CURRENT climate and that, in the context of this thread (about Greenland Ice sheets and AGW) is clearly a reference to the CLIMATIC CONDITONS MANKIND HAS BEEN EXPERIENCING FOR A SIGNIFICANT length of time.

    Then you added UP UNTIL NOW.

    So you also said that the ~ half degree of warming from AGW represents a GREATER CLIMATIC INSTABILITY than the globe has experienced in the last several million years, and that is simply not true.

    Arthur
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2011
  12. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,832
    YES, it has been stable.

    You don't really know what climate stability means, do you?
     
  13. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    I do.

    Do you know what CURRENT means?

    LOL
     
  14. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    7,832
    The word "current" in the context of climate is an arbitrary interval of geological time, which has an endpoint "now", and starts wherever you say it does.

    "LOLL... LOLOLOL". (falls over LOLing).
     
  15. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Nope, the word CURRENT actually has a definition and it means "belonging to the time actually passing", so when you use the QUALIFIER Current with Climate, you are specifically limiting the discussion to RECENT Climatic conditions and nobody reading your post would think you meant that Current Climate included all the time back through a dozen ice ages.

    So fine, go one pretending no one notices you trying to squirm out of your error, and LOL all you want, just makes you look like the bigger fool.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2011
  16. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    7,832
    Does that mean the last few million years don't belong to "the time currently passing? In which context? Is it in your narrowly defined anthropocentric context, or is it in a geological context in which a million years is a relatively short interval of time?

    Or does it mean you just don't really know what it means?
    Does it mean you're prepared to act like you know what it means even though that makes you look like a fool, because you obviously don't know what it means?
     
  17. alberteinsteinx9 Registered Member

    Messages:
    5
    global warming is a fact

    I predict the world will start changing over to a tropical rain forest in 2025. That is the pattern I see. All you have to do is look at the glaciers. Count them. They don't lie.
    alberteinsteinx9 dot com /hockeystick
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    If instability, as a concept, includes the rapidity and contrasting directions of changes, it's quite possible that the ongoing CO2 boost does in fact create greater instability in the climate than the planet has seen for quite some time - millions of years? very easily.
     
  19. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Possible but we can't say for sure because our records going back a million years don't have that level of precision for past climatic changes. We do know that peak to trough of previous climate swings however have been much greater than we have seen and with higher peaks.

    Still records do show that the changes can take relatively short periods of time, as they say the boundaries between the warm and cold periods are "rather abrupt". Since they are only talking about relatively short Intrstadials, they say rather abrupt is likely on the order of decades to centuries (see top of page 7)

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/All_palaeotemps.png

    On the other hand, we have had climatic changes caused by large Volcanic eruptions which have caused much faster rates of change.
     
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2011
  20. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Correct and only someone with no grasp of the English language would claim that the use of the qualifier CURRENT with Climate would include the last few million years.

    But since you'll NEVER agree that your statement was wrong, simply explain what you meant for John99 to understand from your claim:

    the current climate has been stable for millions of years, up until now

    In what way are you claiming that the Climate is NOW unstable in comparison to the frequency and rate of change of the last Millions of years?

    You can use this chart to show how the climate NOW is unstable in comparison to the climate over the last several million years.

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/All_palaeotemps.png
     
  21. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    7,832
    Can you post a reference that supports that?

    Otherwise I see little point in debating anything, or "using" the wikipedia chart for anything.
     
  22. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

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    7,832
    A system that exhibits hysteresis is stable.

    A system that switches between two stable states, via hysteresis 'looping', is itself a stable system.

    The climate has been switching between two stable states for millions of years, one of these states is more stable than the other, and persists for longer periods of geological time (hundreds rather than tens of Ky).

    A system that exhibits hysteresis has 'tipping points', at which it can 'flip' suddenly from one to the other state. These are examples of organisational changes in a system.

    What I was pointing at originally was Landau's theory, based on the principle of criticality in systems which are like a network of interacting elements--in the case of climate some of these elements are the composition of the atmosphere, circulation in the oceans and atmosphere, glacier and ice sheet dynamics, ocean and land surface temperatures, etc.

    The theory of criticality and organisational change is quite general, and so is the idea of hysteresis which seems to be closely correlated with Landau's principle that the 'ordering' is independent, generally, of the nature of the elements in the network.
     
  23. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    7,829
    BS,

    You won't use the wikipedia chart, that graphically shows the climate over the period you were discussing, because it doesn't support your statement.
     

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