Damn, I'm going to have to have an "End of the End of the World" sale. Anybody want 100 lbs. of dried beans?
Climate: New study slashes estimate of icecap loss
Estimates of the rate of ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica, one of the most worrying questions in the global warming debate, should be halved, according to Dutch and US scientists.
In the last two years, several teams have estimated Greenland is shedding roughly 230 gigatonnes of ice, or 230 billion tonnes, per year and West Antarctica around 132 gigatonnes annually.
Together, that would account for more than half of the annual three-millimetre (0.2 inch) yearly rise in sea levels, a pace that compares dramatically with 1.8mm (0.07 inches) annually in the early 1960s.
But, according to the new study, published in the September issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, the ice estimates fail to correct for a phenomenon known as glacial isostatic adjustment....
"We have concluded that the Greenland and West Antarctica ice caps are melting at approximately half the speed originally predicted."
If the figures for overall sea level rise are accurate, icesheet loss would be contribute about 30 percent, rather than roughly half, to the total, said Vermeersen. The rest would come mainly from thermal expansion, meaning that as the sea warms it rises.
The debate is important because of fears that Earth's biggest reservoirs of ice, capable of driving up ocean levels by many metres (feet) if lost, are melting much faster than global-warming scenarios had predicted....
Further Reading
Meltdown of the climate 'consensus'
Low temperatures tie records at LAX, Oceanside
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|2010-09-10 04:23:21 Acharya SThis information doesn't come from FOX News or Glenn Beck, and I don't see that a humorous remark on my part bears any resemblance to what you're ranting about.
The article comes from Yahoo News and is simply reporting findings from other scientists. Your remarks are therefore erroneous, and there was no need for your antisocial derogation either.
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|2010-09-10 01:08:47 the Frater - On planning for our illustrious future !
So we have 75 years and not just 50 years left. Hey, that's really reassuring...ha-ha, but it misses the point.
We are headed for another ice age, a pole flip, a thinning
out of the protective shield round the planet (the magnetisphere)... which translates into cosmic ray bombardment, and if the internal dynamo at the core ceases (stops)...a possibility... the planet dies... as well as a potential asteroid hit...the current long shot.
So there's a multiple number of problems which will impact mankind's future.
So guess what, the jerks that rule this planet instead of building underground tech suvivability modules (cities) are shoving their heads up
their arses worrying about one mundane issue after another.
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Jacko, are you capable of posting something without being an ass? Your insults to Acharya are unwarranted. Your post takes on the tone of a religious zealot. It was a simple report of some possible revision of the rate at which warming is occurring and you make it sound like Acharya put on a Rush Limbaugh mask and declared that Jesus is on his way.
I love reasonable discussion on these topics but you are not reasonable. Let's stick to the topic and not assassinate the messenger.
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|2010-09-14 06:06:25 AaronIf something really does happen, whose going to believe it now? I've noticed that older people tend to scoff off "doom and gloom" predictions. Maybe it's because they've heard it all before.
How are we really supposed to be able to tell the difference? We listen to these reports, but we're not doing any first hand study.
You make it seem like the InterAcademy Council somehow disagrees with the conclusions of the IPCC and that there is no global warming after all. You can sell off your emergency supplies...
Thank you, Glenn Beck.
Read the story from a less biased outlet, such as the Associated Press:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100830/ap_on_sc/us_sci_warming_report
You'll see things like this:
"Several outside reports — including those by the British, Dutch and American governments — have upheld the chief scientific finding of the climate panel: that global warming is man-made and incontrovertible. This year, so far, is on target to be the hottest on record worldwide with a number of extreme weather events...
"The 113-page review was requested by the IPCC and the U.N. after the errors were found. It didn't study the quality of the science itself, although Shapiro said the key recommendations in the climate report "are well supported by the scientific evidence.""
Whoops, nothing has changed in the assessment of the science itself on global warming, notwithstanding the corporate right's attempts to paint this otherwise. In fact, major climate change deniers recently publicly agreed with these assessments.
All the Ground Zero bashing and climate change denying...stop watching Fox News and let's the conversation focused more on reality and less on rightwing nonsense...