Time to invest in manufacturers of air conditioners, I think.
I'm also thinking where I live -- Michigan -- is a good place to be, too. Even with record lows in the Great Lakes, we are still poised to be the Florida of the 21st Century! While Florida is posed to be an unlivable desert. Maybe I'll make my home into condos or a golf course.
Posted by Brian Bell at August 13, 2005 10:51 AMThe news from the Antarctic is not so reassuring because while the snowfall, on the surface is increasing and accumulating some of the excess water being released by global warming, the ice packs on which the snow is falling are experiencing incresased temperatures at their cores. This means that the rate at which they flow downhill, toward the ocean basins is increasing. It's been measured in Greenland, as well. Given half-mile thick ice flows, increased rates of flow is not good news.
As in Siberia, Alaska has experienced significant melting of its permafrost. Huge patterns of sinkholes reflecting melted underground ice structures have resulted in roads and even buildings being split by subsiding soil.
We would seem to be at the beginning stages of massive changes in the global climate. I can only hope that the theory that the Humboldt current, which ferries billions of joules of heat from the equatorial regions to the northern Atlantic will not suddenly shut down due to decreased oceanic salinity, effected by massive ice melts in the Arctic. If that were to happen, peak oil and Iraq will be small problems indeed. Thanks George & DICK.
Posted by DeminNewJ at August 13, 2005 11:04 AMAnd the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
Posted by apocalypse at August 13, 2005 12:01 PMWell, here's the potential start of a solution.
Whether anything really comes of this kind of technological innovation pretty much depends on us.
Posted by Michael Berger at August 13, 2005 01:25 PMI'm a glaciologist whose research area is primarily the Antarctic. Really.
The best place to read about the state of scientific knowledge on global warming and climate change is the IPCC Third Assesment Report. Real Climate is a great resource too.
Having just referenced the IPCC TAR, let me add the caveat that a lot remains unknown about Antarctic glacial variablility, either for what we see happening right now or what might happen in the future. For example, the quoted article noted changes in the thickness of outlet glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula (though it was not explicit about the geography, a point which turns out to be important).
We know that AP ice shelves (floating ice masses that fringe the coastline and are fed by mountian glaciers) are disintegrating and some work has been done to explain why. We also have a few measurements that show that the glaciers which used to feed those now-disintegrated ice shelves are thinning and speeding up. BUT the time series of observations is very short. We don't really know how long this has been going on--only since the ice shelves disintegrated, only the last five years, the last ten? It's important to know things like this because that makes it possible for folks like me to identify the relevant physics governing the change. The disintegration events are linked to regional warming. The AP is the fastest-warming place on the planet, over the last 50 years. The glacier changes probably are as well but we don't yet know how. But in any case, this is a small part of Antarctica and a small volume of ice, all things considered.
Farther south, over the majority of the Antarctic continent, ice is thicker and things change more slowly than on the AP. Or at least that's the conventional wisdom right now. I could write (and have written) volumes on that subject. I'll just say that the picture is not so terribly clear, there is much to learn. The exciting region is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, where fast-flowing rivers of ice embedded in the ice sheet (called Ice streams) appear to be capable of rapid (century time scales) deceleration and acceleration.
One other point I'd make is that sea level rise is not only tied to melting glacier ice but to warming of the ocean water as well. As water warms, its density decreases and its volume increases. Even if the Antarctic is a net withdrawl from global sea level, thermal expansion means bad news for island nations and many coastal regions.
Posted by truffula at August 13, 2005 02:46 PMBrian - "I'm also thinking where I live -- Michigan -- is a good place to be, too. Even with record lows in the Great Lakes, we are still poised to be the Florida of the 21st Century! ..."
Except that if the earth warms up that much, the current that carries warm water into the North Atlantic will probably shut down and then, though it won't happen nearly so fast, North America and Europe will bear a more than passing resemblance to the shot of the globe from space at the end of The Day After Tomorrow.
Posted by natasha at August 14, 2005 12:39 AMDeminNJ, Michael, truffula...thanks for the interesting comments/link.
Truffula...it's good to know we have some global climate change experts reading this blog to set us straight and provide informative commentary!
Posted by eriposte at August 15, 2005 05:43 AM