Some glaciers are growing

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by river, Dec 27, 2012.

  1. river

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  3. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Why would that make you go "hmm"? You realize that glaciers need only one thing to form and grow right? That is that the snow fall is greater than the snow melt. The alps has galciers and the rockies at the same latitude do not, the reason is that there is more prescipitation in the alps.

    If climate change increases the amount of precipitation in a particular area then the glaciers will grow. In my mind it is not out of the question that an increase in the global temperatures could increase the precipitation in the artic (which is essentially a desert) triggering continental glaciation.
     
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  5. Walter L. Wagner Cosmic Truth Seeker Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting website. Perhaps global warming is triggering another ice-age? We really don't know enough about it, but time will tell.
     
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  7. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    I did not look at the website I was justsd answering the question. The web site is pretty useless - clearly just a global warming denier site.
     
  8. Walter L. Wagner Cosmic Truth Seeker Valued Senior Member

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    Did you go back and look at the site to reach that conclusion, or is that your conclusion without having looked at the site?

    It details scores of glaciers that are advancing around the globe (north and south). It does not pertain to global warming so much as perhaps suggesting that 'warming' might be triggering another ice-age, which has been suggested in many quarters. Time will tell.
     
  9. river

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  10. billvon Valued Senior Member

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  11. river

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  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    I know. Imagine, someone taking a few examples that go counter to a prevailing trend and thinking that they are representative . . . .
     
  13. river

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  14. river

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  15. river

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    Now what I would have liked to have found was a up to date superimposition of both ocean and air currents

    But as of yet not successful

    It would be interesting
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It doesn't confuse me in the least. Perhaps you could clarify your assertions - what exactly is confusing you here?
     
  17. river

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    So what is keeping warm , the gulf stream ocean currents or air currents ?

    I find it hard to imagine though that its the air currents from the rockies which go south then north towards the arctic

    How do you see it ?
     
  18. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, when you cherry pick a few months or year and/or a few glaciers, then some glaciers are growing in the short term.

    But, when you survey glaciers and use a long time frame, then the vast majority of glaciers are shrinking and the total amount of ice stored in all glaciers is shrinking. So due to cherry-picking, not only does that list have nothing to contribute to the overall global warming trend, it doesn't even correctly describe overall glacier trends.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=71
     
  19. river

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    I have seen this site before and I get their position , I have no problem with this

    But the thing is , is that , the climate change is a more complicated dynamic then we initially thought

    For instance

    While the majority of glaciers are melting , it seems , fresh water dilutes the salinity of the north Atlantic , which leads to the slowing down of the gulf stream current , which leads to lower temps. In Britain etc
     
  20. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, Climate change is complicated to understand, but global warming is very easy to understand.
    Because the Earth, for decades, has been taking in about 0.2 petawatts of sunlight than it has been emitting to space then by the conservation of energy, the Earth's heat energy content has been going up. Most of this increase in heat content shows up in the oceans, but it also shows up in air temperature records of the lower atmosphere. If you don't know what a petawatt is, 0.2 petawatts is the heat of about one Tsar Bomba every 35 minutes (or about 2 Fat Man demolitions per second) -- over a time frame of decades.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-intermediate.htm

    And what is the main culprit? Man's activities which directly increase methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and which secondarily increase water vapor.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect-advanced.htm
     
  21. river

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    Mans activities don't help

    But how much CO2 do we take out of the air though

    Since plants need CO2 to survive ?
     
  22. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

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    Plants need far less CO[sub]2[/sub] than we currently have to "survive." No one is proposing reducing the CO[sub]2[/sub] of the atmosphere to zero, so thank you again for failing to understand the topic. The topic is: The Earth is warming because we add too much CO[sub]2[/sub] per year and so the Earth gains too much heat per second, so we need to immediately start work on stopping making the problem worse.

    Even if CO[sub]2[/sub] is a limiting factor of plant growth in ideal conditions, climate change does not produce the ideal conditions required for plants to flourish. Or
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food-advanced.htm
     
  23. river

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    Conclusion
    A specific plant’s response to excess CO2 is sensitive to a variety of factors, including but not limited to: age, genetic variations, functional types, time of year, atmospheric composition, competing plants, disease and pest opportunities, moisture content, nutrient availability, temperature, and sunlight availability. The continued increase of CO2 will represent a powerful forcing agent for a wide variety of changes critical to the success of many plants, affecting natural ecosystems and with large implications for global food production. The global increase of CO2 is thus a grand biological experiment, with countless complications that make the net effect of this increase very difficult to predict with any appreciable level of detail.

    That said what is your overall point of post #19
     

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