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Scientists receiving new information about “squishy ice” in Antarctica:
Knowing how the massive ice sheets atop Antarctica and Greenland work is key to predicting how global warming could raise sea levels and flood coastal cities. But a new study upends what scientists thought they knew. It turns out it’s not just ancient snow that makes up the ice sheets, but water deep under the sheets also thaws and refreezes over time.
To put it in non-scientific terms, lead scientist Robin Bell told msnbc.com, the study redefines “how squishy” the base of ice sheets can be. “This matters to how fast ice will flow and how fast ice sheets will change.”
“It also means that ice sheet models are not correct,” she said, comparing it to “trying to figure out how a car will drive but forgetting to add the tires. The performance will be very different if you are driving on the rims.”
For the science-based community, this means that climate change models will have to be adjusted in light of this new information. In the conservative-based community this means that Al Gore is fat.
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Not only is Al Gore fat, but wait till Glenn Beck gets wind of this:
After he does, I’ll bet two gold bars that his next show will be a fundraiser for “Project 2012 part II: The Ark”.
The occupants of that boat will make the NRO cruise look like the physics departments of MIT and Cal-Tech combined.
You ain’t gonna fool me with all your “facts” and “science.” My Model T gets 12 rods to the hogshead, and that’s the way I likes it! The worst risk of being a “denier” is, what if you’re wrong?? Will your grandkids have to “grow gills”??? Please…this is far to dangerous a game to be playing, but then, denial is NOT just a river in Egypt. Enjoy swimming off the beach in Kansas City, assholes….
I’d help Beck build it, with a couple of my own titanic “features”, of course. Heh, heh.
Yeah I don’t know that article just makes things scarier from my reading, including this:
It really doesn’t matter where the added water came from, trapped liquid or melted solid.
I know one of the IPCC authors and believe me, you do not want to have dinner with one of them unless you order anti-panic medication as the last course. It’s way scarier than even the non-deluded among us realize.
The IPCC report was written by some four thousand of the top climate scientists from universities in each country, which makes the occasional trotting out of maybe one hundred “experts” to counter it even more laughable, especially since they turn out to be statisticians, physicists, and “meteorologists”, and generally not even one person who actually studies climate. You can always find a few dozen Wingnuts from various disciplines to do your bidding.
But as you say, when you’re a lunkhead, everything looks like a lunk. Er, or something.
(Actual delusionist’s response to previous information from new climate research. )
New information? How can there be “new” information?
If they’ve found new information then that means they didn’t have all the information when they made their earlier predictions. Predictions that must be completely wrong since not ALL the information was included when they were made and therefore NONE of it is true blah, blah, blah.
…and besides GOD wouldn’t let it happen anyway.
if you believe this i got a swamp in antartica to sell you. get your lemon lime squishy syrup and your piri reis maps and jam them in your covered wagons peeps. i smell a land rush! land ho! well everything 200 feet above sea level.
So true, UVP. I run in similar circles, more on the policy side, but when I speak to the scientists (especially off the record), the look of alarm in their eyes is chilling.
Oh well. The earth had a good 6,000 year run.
Me, I’m sticking with the anti-cerebration pro-ignorance crowd. Makes life so much simpler.
I have been saying for some years now that I honestly, truly believe that the odds of human beings living on this planet in the year 2100 are somewhat less than 50-50. There are so many things that can go wrong: in addition to climate change, there’s pandemic (H1N1 was relatively benign, the next new virus may not be), nuclear holocaust (how many missing nukes are there from the old Soviet Union), etc., etc.
The ability of humanity to “progress” by sowing the seeds of its own destruction is apparently unlimited. The ability and willingness to listen to people who might have solutions is apparently very limited. This news just reinforces my feelings about the imminent demise of humanity.
Hatmandu’s observation gave me a chuckle, but the earth will be just fine (in fact, probably better). Its humanity’s run that is about over — and all because those who had the most control over its resources had the least concern about its future.
Water freezes, ice melts. Never a miscommunication.
I just watched the first ep of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” on the Roku setup that my sis and I are using now instead of regular cable Teevee service (not a bad use of one’s pre-Deluge dollar btw). When was Cosmos made — early 80s was it? Oh, lordy, how times have changed, and not for the better. By today’s standards tbe whole tone of the production and the philosophy behind it about the wonder of scientific exploration and rational discovery is eager, contemplative, optimistic, almost childlike.
At one point Sagan says (and note that he was one of the activist science experts who testified in DC about the effects of nuclear warfare while Reagan was eagerly pushing Starwars), that although humanity has been dangerously reckless at times in its use of power and technology, “we are a young species — intelligent, curious and brave. We show great promise.” I wonder what he’d be saying now?
Betting on the Triumph of Stupid Expediency and Greed is the only way not to be disappointed living in America today. Or virtually anywhere in the world, really.
Yep, I’d bet the house that the 1st one to break the ranks on global climate change will be Beck. And it won’t be the pangs of a guilty conscience nor the result of new evidence and careful analysis of the facts. He’ll spot a financial opportunity, maybe finding a sponsor of igloo mobile homes or snowmobiles…and suddenly he’ll become an evangelical convert on the subject.
I like to consider the downside risks of the argument from both sides-
What if we are wrong about the causes and effects of global climate change? A new energy economy and jobs building it? An energy policy that reduces our strategic international dependence on oil and a defense budget to enforce it? Cleaner air and water?
Now what if the other side is wrong about their assumptions? Spending every last dollar we have dealing with it or most likely, an unrecoverable tailspin.
I have been saying for some years now that I honestly, truly believe that the odds of human beings living on this planet in the year 2100 are somewhat less than 50-50.
I thought I was a pessimist (or optimist. POV, etc.). Cockroaches, rats and us, mate. The only way this planet gets rid of us is if it convinces us to stop fucking.
According to the Fourth IPCC Report, we need 445-495 ppm CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere for stabilization under that 2º C temperature rise all the diplomats talk about at Copenhagen and Cancun. We are around 440 CO2 equivalent now and if I wave my magic wand and declare zero emissions from this moment onward, at least another half to three-quarters of a degree Centigrade is already baked into the atmosphere. Ladies and gentlemen, we are well and truly screwed. When the feces hit the ventilation unit, the yahoo deniers will blame Al Gore, the scientists, and the DFH treehuggers.
“I wonder what he’d (Carl Sagan) be saying now?”
“Medical marijuana? Cosmic.”
If ice melts to make water, then why is there still ice? Stupid scientists!