Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Tibetan Glaciers Pull Disappearing Act

The Chinese Academy of Sciences - the country's top scientific body - has announced that the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau are vanishing so fast that they will be reduced by 50 per cent every decade. Each year enough water permanently melts from them to fill the entire Yellow River...

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article362549.ece

And that water is the very same water that people drink and that is used by agriculture and industry.

By the time people wake up ... they'll need tranquillizers to get to sleep at night.

The Tibetan Plateau has risen 0.2 to 0.4 degrees Celsius since the early 1970s, this is not even close to enough to cause this.. these numbers are from NASA in case morgan wants to dispute them with his usual commentary lacking any scientific fact or proof.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences, is less than a stellar institution, a place where a great many TEACHERS have nothing more than a 2 year degree, not my idea of higher learning, nor quality.

If there is in fact melting happening, the differental in the ambient air temperature of Tibet Plateau is not even close to being warm enough to cause this as per NASA.

China is without a doubt the largest enviromental nightmare on the planet for the following, Dust and Ash, Toxic and Greenhouse Emissions, Industrial Emissions, Lack of Visibility due to airborne pollutants..

Here is a quote from a NASA report on China..
China is the last one who should be saying anything about Global Warming based on their practices, China has record crop losses due to air and water pollution, The China sea is almost as dead as the Great Salt Lake.. and on and on.. China makes the former Soviet Union look like a clean room.

Archer wrote:
"these numbers are from NASA in case morgan wants to dispute them with his usual commentary lacking any scientific fact or proof."

I'm not interested in disputing the numbers though I notice you didn't post the source ... why? Afraid someone might check up on you?

What I am interested in disputing is your statement: "this is not even close to enough to cause this.."

Say who? You? I can melt an infinite amount of ice with a temperature rise of 0.01 degrees. So can any school child.

the problem is the amount of time required for the melt.

tempature is the average molecular motion or energy of a group of atoms. the larger the difference in the air and the ice, the faster it disappears. if the air tempature is not very high, it will not give my energy to the ice, therefore not melting off a large amount. on the other hand there are other ways to melt ice. salt does a good job, as does many pollutants. these things lower the tempature that ice requires to melt. If the glacers are being covered by the pollution that china pumps into their atmosphere, who are they to complain about other ppl raising the global tempature.

oh, just so you know, this fact about the lower tempature needed to melt ice was proven in an elementary science project. so this is also known by school children.

dehammer;
the word is "temperature", not "tempature". I hope you are more careful with your writing when you write fiction to sell. Otherwise you'll never get past the first reader.

Cheers,

Amaranth

dehammer wrote:
"the larger the difference in the air and the ice, the faster it disappears. if the air tempature is not very high, it will not give my energy to the ice, therefore not melting off a large amount. on the other hand there are other ways to melt ice."

Wrong again! Well maybe not wrong ... just so incomplete as to be wrong. The amount of energy required to melt ice depends on the temperature of the ice. If the ice is close to its melting temperature very little energy is required. And as it melts, and exposes ground below it which is darker and more absorbant, more energy is absorbed leading to additional warming.

Are you incapable of getting anything right?

lets see how many mistakes your making in this.

1)assuming the entire ice pack is just below the melt point.

yes, in a laboratory you can create a situation where you can melt a large amount of ice by bringing temperature of the entire ice pack up to a certain lvl then exposing it to a tiny amount of difference in air temperature. but that requires a control situation, which in a glacier does not exist

2)exposed ground melts ice above it. if ice is above it how is it exposed.

if the ground is exposed, its not giving up heat to the ice above it. how can it be absorbing heat from the sun if there is no sun to reach it, due to the amount of ice above it. ground exposed in a ice cavern is not going to melt the ice inside the cavern any different that otherwise.

3) china cant be responsible for the melt as it does not have as many cars as USA does.

on the other hand, if a chemical is mixed with the ice which lowers the temperature required to melt it. it will cause the ice to disappear a lot faster.

a large ice pack will not be right below the melting point all the sudden without something changing it. either it was ready to melt for decades or the slight change in temperature would not melt a huge amount of it. one of the worse pollutants that china is producing is ash. its dark which means that when it lands on ice it will absorb the suns heat a lot better than the ice, which will mean it will be hotter, and will give off the heat to the ice. the result is the glacier will disappear a lot faster.

this glacier is not that far from an industrial area which is producing tons of pollutants. claiming that the lose of the glacier is due to global warming when its got a much more likely cause, really is nothing but politics. this is not a politic forum.

are you capable of getting anything right or without a political created answer. just because its from your political leaders, does not make it correct.

thanks. I'm smart enough to know that spelling is not my forte. when i right i use something that has a spell checker. otherwise it would be a total waste of time. unfortunately, most place i cant use that. fortunately i have found something recently that will help.

As Charlie Brown would say: good grief.

DH: "1)assuming the entire ice pack is just below the melt point."

Wrong! Not the entire ice pack ... some of it. More than in the past.

DH: "2)exposed ground melts ice above it. if ice is above it how is it exposed."

Apparently the concept of heat-islands, written about for many decades, has eluded you. Go to Wikipedia and look up:

1. Convection
2. Conduction
3. Radiation

Dark surfaces absorb heat more readily and reradiate it in the infrared heating the surrounding air. This creates a self-reinforcing affect.

i did as you suggested and this is the only thing they say

you will notice that the only thing they discuss is cities and urban environments. in other words your saying that cities that create their own heat is the cause of glacial melting.

for a large amount of ice to melt that fast due to a small difference in air temperature, the ice would have to be very close to melting. other wise, the melt would be exactly as its been for century. if the ice was that close to melting, then global warming would not have affected it much.

you cant have it both ways. either the ice pack is all just below the melt point or its not.

you really should learn to read your own post and figure out where you are standing before you claim that others are saying it.

in order for the ground below the ice to radiate the heat, it has to get the heat first. if the increase in loss of the glacier is due to the ground being exposed, its not global warming that is causing it, its natural processes. what you described is the natural process of the end of the glaciers, not global warming.

in other words, its either a natural process, or its the pollution that china is pumping into the atmosphere down wind of that glacier.

you really should stick to politics. your not that good at science.

dehammer wrote:
"you will notice that the only thing they discuss is cities and urban environments. in other words your saying that cities that create their own heat is the cause of glacial melting."

Are you incapable of independent research? If your fingers are not broken and your mind not incapable of absorbing additional material extend what is in Wikipedia by finding appropriate (not shills) resources. I will not spoon feed you. That was your mother's job.

translation: "i made a mistake in calling it something it is obviously not. so i will insult ppl so that they will not see how dumb my remark actually was. if i make it seem like they are too dumb to find the right answer, maybe they will not realise how little i know." very political. are you sure your not in office? you sound like a congressman.