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#17526 12/29/06 03:35 PM
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While self-serving and confused men argue ... A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic, scientists said. The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada's remote north. "This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead," Vincent said Thursday. For the original article: Click Here Will all of you not concerned about global warming please demonstrate to the rest of us how to put it back? Thanks!


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Sorry, haven't read link (recent tubing injury has me limited!). But I've spent a lot of time watching snow melt (my other thread) And I notice the focus of many of the climate threads (especially the recent ones), and much of Al's film, is on ice.

So all this makes me think it's too bad the catch phrase had to be "Global...." instead of Polar warming or Polar change. The change is so much more dramatic up there than here in the mid lats. I guess back in the 70's we didn't know enough about the poles in terms of detecting change or in terms of how important they (and glaciers in general) are to the world climate. Plus, nobody would have cared if it was "just the poles." It's hard enough to get people fired up over global climate.

At this point I think it's too late to reverse what has been done, but possibly some crazy scheme like "shading" the poles might reverse trends before things fall apart completely.

~


Pyrolysis creates reduced carbon! ...Time for the next step in our evolutionary symbiosis with fire.
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One of the biggest issues, brought up by Al Gore and in climatology research papers, is the issue of reflectivity.

Take a good look at a picture such as this:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Earth?im...img=learth.evif

If when you see if you don't see the Antarctic click the photo a few times until you do.

What stands out most, to me, is the difference in reflectivity between ocean and ice. More ocean means more heat absorbed. Which, in turn, means more ice melting, etc.

Political spin will never reverse the laws of physics. I'm not crazy about covering the arctic with mylar. But then I'm not crazy about the mess we've gotten ourselves into either.


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Yes, it's dramatic. I recall Al quoting 90% reflectivity for ice (snow) & 90% absorbance for water. I suppose this was IR.

It amazes me how "tolerant" snow is to direct sunlight. I go out and stand in the sun for 10 miutes and I'm heated up (on a 40 F. degree day w/ no wind), but the snow lasts for days (losing about an inch/day).

In measuring snow we use a 4" diameter tube. A 14" column placed in a pan (at room temp.) will reduce to a 4" column, before it releases any water from the base into the pan.

I think my point here is that snow remains very reflective and insulating until it almost completely disappears. I suppose this does not bode well for our prognosis, because once it starts disappearing, it goes pretty quickly on its own (and even quicker if surrounded by warming water -as you point out).

Had a chemistry teacher, from Vermont, who said the coldest day in the valley was the day the lake melted (endothermic) in the Spring (and warmest day was when the lake froze in Fall).
Maybe the ice has absorbed about as much heat as it can and that's why the planet's warming so dramatically over the past few years.

Hmmmmm....aren't pain pills wonderful (to qualify the above conjecture).

~~


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Dan. Your original link just sends me round and round. Don't know if it's your link or my computer. Anyway your other link (Antarctica) provides a beautiful pic of NZ complete with continental shelf (if it justifies that term).

Samwik. Hope your health is holding up and you're out and about again shortly.

Last edited by terrytnewzealand; 12/30/06 10:07 PM.

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