Is global warming even real?

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Ilikeponies579, Dec 16, 2014.

  1. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,634
    Yep - the permafrost is melting. This is going to hit more and more places in Alaska as the permafrost gives way to higher temperatures.

    Meanwhile, Barrow is under attack from three directions - permafrost is melting and undermining houses, the ocean is rising, and the pack ice which once covered the shore for much of the year is no longer present during the stormy season, allowing rapid erosion. That may be the next city they have to move.
     
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  3. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    Archaeological sites in the area indicate the Iñupiat lived around Barrow as far back as AD 500. Remains of 16 sod dwelling mounds from the Birnirk culture of about AD 800 still exist today on the shore of the Arctic Ocean.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrow,_Alaska

    You think they dug sod out of the permafrost?

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  5. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    ?? No, they probably dug it off the surface during summer. ("Permafrost" does not mean "everything from the surface down is frozen.") Did you think that those grasses in the picture were growing in ice?
     
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  7. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    OK good start.
    So why do you think building homes (a city) on the permafrost now wouldnt have issues with summer melting?
     
  8. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    The Venice of the north?
     
  9. milkweed Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,654
    More like the swamp castle from Monte Python Holy Grail

    King of Swamp Castle: When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England.
     
  10. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,634
    Buildings built on permafrost have pilings that go down into the permafrost. When the permafrost remains year-round (which is the definition of permafrost) no problem. When the climate starts changing and all that permafrost turns into mud, they sink.
     
  11. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    1,654
    Yep. Now show me pictures of these sinking stilt buildings in Barrow. I could not find any.

    Quote: Meanwhile, Barrow is under attack from three directions - permafrost is melting and undermining houses,

    BTW more on Newtok (from part 2 of link below):

    As part of the erosion assessment, historical bank erosion rates were evaluated from aerial photographs dated 1957, 1974 and 1977 and from a site visit prior to ice breakup in May 1983. This evaluation determined that between June 1957 and May 1983, the north bank of the Ninglick River had eroded at an average annual rate of 19 to 88 feet and that if this process could not be slowed, community structures would be endangered within 25 to 30 years (2008-2013).

    http://commerce.state.ak.us/dnn/dcr...ningGroup/NewtokVillageRelocationHistory.aspx

    Now I dont blame people for trying to get a hand-out when they make bad choices. My cousin in Louisiana learned and moved inland after Katrina. Speaking of trying to live below sea level...
     
  12. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,634
    Here are some firsthand reports:

    ==============================
    THE EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING
    ON PERMAFROST IN OUR LIVES

    Jerica Aamodt, Joe Okakok, and Doria Lambrecht

    . . . .

    Growing up in Barrow, ice cellars, also known as sigluaq, keep our traditional foods frozen throughout winter and summer. Traditional foods include whale, walrus, seal, caribou, and fish. The sigluaq prevents the food from getting bad. Throughout the years, the elders of the North Slope noticed that the ice cellars started collecting water and collapsing, causing the people to relocate their ice cellars. The melting permafrost results in gases such as methane being released into the sigluaq making it unusable.

    During the summer months, the most damage occurs. Houses in the North Slope are situated on wood pilings so when permafrost thaws, the pilings often shift resulting in lop sided houses. When the shifting occurs, sometimes the doors on houses are hard to open or shut. It also results in cracks on the walls in houses. This is hard or impossible to maintain. It happens every year and if one's house is not affected they are very lucky!
    ============================
     
  13. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    10,890
    It's not 'just Anchorage' that's anomalously warm - it's the same on the other side of the state at Quinhagak (the same meaning here anomalously warm) - there's a youtube video of the Fourth Graders complaining about the lack of snow at christmas time.

    My assumption more than anything else.

    On the one hand I'm not deflecting anything - the point that I was making was actually about the folly of making assessments of global climate based on the behaviour of regional weather. Whether it was Anchorage, the entire southern alaskan coast, or all of alaska is completely and utterly irrelevant to that point. In some senses, it only being anchorage only serves to illustrate my point better.

    On the other hand - I'm deflecting nothing by pointing out that the whole of alaska is unusually warm, it's entirely relevant and it leaves you in the position of only being able to quibble about the magnitude.

    Finally, so what if I was deflecting? It's a tactic commonly employed by those convinced that global warming is some kind of liberal-green propoganda excercise. As the say, the sauce that's good for the goose is good for the gander.

    By the way - you understand that I wasn't actually presenting the argument 'Alaska is warm QED global warming is happening', right? I have always, and will always (for the most part) maintain that such arguments are, at best, facile. The closest you will ever see me present, in this regard, is where changes have been predicted by models.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2015
  14. milkweed Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,654
    So you havent any pictures? Only anecdotal quotes from a blog that is very vague on location.

    http://aglaun.org/main.html

    The only picture they show are from a different city, Shishmaref which shows coastal erosion.

    But this caught my eye:

    "Throughout the years, the elders of the North Slope noticed that the ice cellars started collecting water and collapsing, causing the people to relocate their ice cellars."

    The North Slope borough... ah, so we have no idea where these ice cellars are collecting water or why. People passing along stories within an oral tradition scope leave something to be desired. Are there some ice cellars melting during some summers? Sure. Is it in Barrow Alaska? That is unknown.
     
  15. milkweed Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,654
    Are you claiming Quinhagak also for the first time experienced No below zero (f) temps or are you just tossing that name out there as an alaskan coastal city?

    Now to end this exchange with you, I was pointing out to

    Amar Nath Reu said:
    Alaska will be nice without all that snow.

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    And I am surprised. Delhi touched 2.6 (C) a few days ago and that is sure to come back. Indian desert regularly touches zero.

    Trippy is mistaken. It is one city in alaska (anchorage) they are talking about, a coastal city that is quite a bit warmer on average than inland alaska.

    Amar understood your post as Alaska proper experiencing no zero temps. But you couldnt wait to jump on him, snipping the
    Alaska will be nice without all that snow.

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    before your snide response 2 mins later.

    Trippy edited Amar quote-->
    <--- end quote

    And you Left it Hanging out there. 10 Hours later I responded to Amar. Maybe I was wrong and you werent Mistaken. Maybe you were deliberately misleading...
     
  16. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    10,890
    I'm pointing out that the weather in Quinhagak appears to be anomalously warm, so the anomalous warmth clearly isn't confined to Anchorage.

    Sadly, this doesn't end the exhange.

    The exchange started with this post↑:
    To which I replied with this
    One of the points I have been trying to make to you, milkweed, is that it doesn't matter if it was just Anchorage or the whole of Alaska, the bolded portion remains true.
    If Delhi being cold disproves global warming, then Alaska being warm proves it.
    If Delhi being cold disproves global warming, then Anchorage being warm proves it.

    The point being that if an area experiencing anomalously cold weather is sufficient to disprove global warming, then by that some logic an area experienceing anomalously warm weather is sufficient to prove it.

    This illustrates the problem with cherry-picking. You've cherry picked where the conversation started and consequently lost context. The whole point I was raising with Amar was that trying to judge global climate trends from local weather patterns is, at best, facile. That is the point of the conversation I was having. The specific bit of information that you're obsessing over is pretty much irrelevant.

    I'll thankyou to publicly retract the implied accusation of dishonesty. I was making the same point as Origin, I simply went about it slightly differently. As I've said several times now, the point I was making was that, to quote Origin: "the real theory is GLOBAL warming, so regional variations don't really matter." If regional variations don't matter, why would it matter if the region was a city or a state?
     
  17. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    10,890
    And it turns out I misled myself anyway, as apparently, did Amar.

    Turns out they meant zero degrees Farenheit, not Celsisus, which is what both Amar and myself presumed. LOL.
     
  18. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,634
    Yes. Just reports from someone who lives there, who states you are incorrect in your assertion that Barrow is not experiencing any structural problems from melting permafrost. (In general I will take firsthand accounts over someone's unsupported Internet opinion.)
     
  19. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    6,152
    Here is the only really important thing about what Amar said: Svante Arrhenius, one of the people who discovered anthropogenic global warming, said the same thing around 1900. He thought it would be a great thing, to thaw out his native Sweden and give it balmy winters. As you see, AGW is very old news.
     
  20. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    11,888
    This is an article about global warming and Barrow from the Smithsonian website. Probably, just a liberal plot to destroy america.

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  21. Amar Nath Reu Be your own guru Registered Senior Member

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    No need to discuss. It is the El-Nino at work.

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    (Of course, I do not deny global warming')
     
  22. milkweed Valued Senior Member

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    1,654
    Thats fine to choose to do but the article itself does not claim Barrow is experiencing structural problems from melting permafrost. The article clearly states Elders from the North Slope tell stories....

    ...Growing up in Barrow, ice cellars, also known as sigluaq, keep our traditional foods frozen throughout winter and summer. Traditional foods include whale, walrus, seal, caribou, and fish. The sigluaq prevents the food from getting bad.

    Throughout the years, the elders of the North Slope noticed that the ice cellars started collecting water and collapsing, causing the people to relocate their ice cellars. The melting permafrost results in gases such as methane being released into the sigluaq making it unusable.

    During the summer months, the most damage occurs. Houses in the North Slope are situated on wood pilings so when permafrost thaws, the pilings often shift resulting in lop sided houses. When the shifting occurs, sometimes the doors on houses are hard to open or shut. It also results in cracks on the walls in houses. This is hard or impossible to maintain. It happens every year and if one's house is not affected they are very lucky!....

    The North Slope Borough is the largest county-level political subdivision in the United States by area, with a larger land area than that of the state of Utah (itself the 13th largest state in the nation).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Slope_Borough,_Alaska

    The article does not state ice cellars in Barrow are filling with water, rather the article describes this occurring somewhere in the North Slope. And with the various pictures of Barrow Alaska available on the web I guarantee you if they were sinking into the permafrost, there would be pictures.

    So someplace in the North Slope Borough of Alaska has experienced melting ice cellars. Without further information we cannot determine if this is a climate change issue or bad planning on the part of the architect.

    ABSTRACT:
    ...As part of the Barrow Urban Heat-Island Study (BUHIS), hourly air and near-surface soil temperatures (5 cm depth) were collected at 66 sites in and near Barrow, Alaska. Comparison of near-surface soil temperatures, categorized by land-cover type, revealed that urban temperatures in each category were higher than those in corresponding units of the surrounding undeveloped area. Mean summer soil-surface temperatures within comparable land-cover units were 0.3–2.3°C higher in the urban area. Active-layer thickness was greater by 15–40 cm at the urban sites than at locations with similar vegetation in the rural portions of the study area. Engineering criteria established from measurements made at ‘rural’ meteorological sites or from general maps of a large region may assume colder soils than are actually present, raising the possibility that inappropriate design criteria could be implemented.

    http://www.researchgate.net/publica..._and_active-layer_thickness_Barrow_Alaska_USA

    The Birnirk culture is a prehistoric Inuit culture of the north coast of Alaska, dating from 500 AD to 900 AD and disappearing around 1000 AD. It succeeded the Punuk and Old Bering Sea/Okvik cultures and is distinguished from those cultures due to different art and harpoon styles. It preceded the Thule culture.

    Ponder as to why those sod houses were abandoned years and years ago. Ya think that just maybe the climate changed? A thousand years ago.

    http://www.livescience.com/39819-ancient-forest-thaws.html

    And what happened to the earlier cultures Punuk/Okvik? And then something changed and the Thule culture arose...

    And so it goes.
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2015
  23. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    8,466
    It seems that erica Aamodt, Joe Okakok, and Doria Lambrecht are highschool students.
    Anyone know different?


    When it comes to discussions concerning "global warming", quite often, decency, sanity, rationality, reason-ability, objectivity and empathy are all discarded as unnecessary baggage.
    It seems that when people get emotionally invested, they are less prone to inculcating new knowledge if that new knowledge flies in the face of their assumed positions. And, consequently more defensive about those positions.
    Maybe things are improving?
    I seem to see extremely loaded words like"catastrophe" less often.
     

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