4 ms·

Miles of Ice Collapsing Into the Sea

39 points by hrshtr 9y ago

binarycrusader 9y ago
Mods, can you decapitalize the title please? The original article doesn't capitalize it (although see below for details).
- grzm 9y ago
  Quickest and most reliable way to contact the mods is via the contact link in the footer. While they do see a lot, they don't see everything. They're very responsive in my experience. They fixed a title for me just today.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- misnome 9y ago
  Although it probably shouldn't be capitalized here, the article title definitely appears in an all-caps style on my browser (the html <title> doesn't, which is possibly what you mean, but I'd probably argue that in any normal conflict the actual content-title would win)
  - binarycrusader 9y ago
    Ah, the title shown in the browser header is not all caps, but the font shown in the article is "all caps". However, if you copy/paste the text somewhere else, you'll see it's just a font face rather than actual capital letters. Regardless, it's poor taste.
  - grzm 9y ago
    I dug into this a bit as my curiosity was piqued. The actual HTML h1 element is title case, and styled via a CSS text-transform to uppercase. That said, regardless of how it was applied, the all-caps is for style, not the proper title of the article.
- retrogradeorbit 9y ago
  The capitalization helps with the alarmism.
- dang 9y ago
  at your service
monk_e_boy 9y ago
Doing something about global warming (a-hem climate change) always boils down to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, people at the bottom who are struggling for housing, food, safety, etc are not concerned with coal power station emissions (as an example.) So we get short term goals from politicians that are just scary in how short sighted they are. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
propman 9y ago
Serious question, if sea level increases are so damaging and feared is it possible to build a water pipeline (like an oil pipeline) from higher coastland to a lower area and then create an artificial river to use in an artificial dam. I think estimates put sea levels rising at around 3 mm a year. I did the rough math and 3mm cubed is a lot but I think it can be doable for $15B and the potential artificial dam might be useful too. I have absolutely no knowledge of any of this though and apologize if the idea seems stupid
- ItsDeathball 9y ago
  It has been proposed before, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression_Project, but would have a minuscule effect on sea level rise. Might be worth a look as a local climate engineering method, though, should sea level rise push populations inland to less-than-ideal areas.
  - gameshot911 9y ago
    Semi-related, one of my favorite topics ever is Atlantropa, a plan to put a dam across the Strait of Gibraltar and drain the Mediterranean Sea. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Atlantropa https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Atlantropa
- therealdrag0 9y ago
  If I understand you correctly you're suggesting treating the ocean like an elevated lake, and putting a pipe to a lower place so the water pressure could generate electricity. The two things that come to mind for me are: 1. It's hard to find land lower than the ocean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_on_land_with_elevations_below_sea_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_on_land_with_el...) 2. Piping salty ocean water inland will make a lot of people unhappy. It would totally change the environment that was already there. But interesting idea. Death Valley might be a valid place for it, since it's already a salty waste land.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
oldandtired 9y ago
The article was interesting in that it use the word "could". In context, the only ice that will contribute to sea level rises is land based. We could lose all the sea based ice and the overall effect most likely will be a drop in sea level. To get a 1 metre sea level rise, requires the melting of land based ice of a volume equivalent to the entire surface area of Australia covered to a depth of 45 metres or so. The energy requirements for phase conversion is at least 1 million 25 MegaTonne nuclear bombs going off, Based on every relevant paper on the subject that I have been able to find, and it appears that it would take anywhere between 1000 and 3500 years before we would get this 1 metre rise. The last set of figures that I saw from the IPCC is that it would be about 1000 years to see this kind of rise, if their measurements were correct. The thing I find interesting is that we (as humans) have a very short term memory of what has happened in the past. Especially, when things are driven by authoritative groups such as governments (and attendant bureaucracies) and science committees and panels.
- flukus 9y ago
  > The article was interesting in that it use the word "could". In context, the only ice that will contribute to sea level rises is land based. We could lose all the sea based ice and the overall effect most likely will be a drop in sea level. These shelves are built from ice that has flowed from land to out over the ocean, the more it melts the more that flow increases and the more ice goes from being on land to being in the ocean. > To get a 1 metre sea level rise, requires the melting of land based ice of a volume equivalent to the entire surface area of Australia covered to a depth of 45 metres or so. The energy requirements for phase conversion is at least 1 million 25 MegaTonne nuclear bombs going off, There was a thunderf00t video very recently on this topic (sorry I can't link to it from work), I forget the exact figures that he came too but the energy effect of global warming was on the order of thousands of megatonne bombs a second.
  - oldandtired 9y ago
    My comment about the 1 million bombs is related to just the amount of energy required to convert solid water to liquid water at 0 degrees Celsius. The figures that I have seen from various studies indicate that only a very small amount of the energy stored in water ever gets to actually meting ice. In regards to the ice flows, the flow is caused by evaporated water from the oceans being deposited on the land at the glacier. Without that depositing of water vapour, there is no flow. Hence, until a determined study is made on the full dynamics of this cycle, mayhaps one should not be using this as the driving example or even as an example.

39 points by hrshtr 9y ago

Mods, can you decapitalize the title please? The original article doesn't capitalize it (although see below for details).

grzm 9y ago
Quickest and most reliable way to contact the mods is via the contact link in the footer. While they do see a lot, they don't see everything. They're very responsive in my experience. They fixed a title for me just today.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
misnome 9y ago
Although it probably shouldn't be capitalized here, the article title definitely appears in an all-caps style on my browser (the html <title> doesn't, which is possibly what you mean, but I'd probably argue that in any normal conflict the actual content-title would win)
- binarycrusader 9y ago
  Ah, the title shown in the browser header is not all caps, but the font shown in the article is "all caps". However, if you copy/paste the text somewhere else, you'll see it's just a font face rather than actual capital letters. Regardless, it's poor taste.
- grzm 9y ago
  I dug into this a bit as my curiosity was piqued. The actual HTML h1 element is title case, and styled via a CSS text-transform to uppercase. That said, regardless of how it was applied, the all-caps is for style, not the proper title of the article.
retrogradeorbit 9y ago
The capitalization helps with the alarmism.
dang 9y ago
at your service

monk_e_boy 9y ago

Doing something about global warming (a-hem climate change) always boils down to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, people at the bottom who are struggling for housing, food, safety, etc are not concerned with coal power station emissions (as an example.) So we get short term goals from politicians that are just scary in how short sighted they are. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

propman 9y ago

Serious question, if sea level increases are so damaging and feared is it possible to build a water pipeline (like an oil pipeline) from higher coastland to a lower area and then create an artificial river to use in an artificial dam. I think estimates put sea levels rising at around 3 mm a year. I did the rough math and 3mm cubed is a lot but I think it can be doable for $15B and the potential artificial dam might be useful too. I have absolutely no knowledge of any of this though and apologize if the idea seems stupid

ItsDeathball 9y ago
It has been proposed before, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression_Project, but would have a minuscule effect on sea level rise. Might be worth a look as a local climate engineering method, though, should sea level rise push populations inland to less-than-ideal areas.
- gameshot911 9y ago
  Semi-related, one of my favorite topics ever is Atlantropa, a plan to put a dam across the Strait of Gibraltar and drain the Mediterranean Sea. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Atlantropa https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Atlantropa
therealdrag0 9y ago
If I understand you correctly you're suggesting treating the ocean like an elevated lake, and putting a pipe to a lower place so the water pressure could generate electricity. The two things that come to mind for me are: 1. It's hard to find land lower than the ocean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_on_land_with_elevations_below_sea_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_on_land_with_el...) 2. Piping salty ocean water inland will make a lot of people unhappy. It would totally change the environment that was already there. But interesting idea. Death Valley might be a valid place for it, since it's already a salty waste land.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

oldandtired 9y ago

The article was interesting in that it use the word "could". In context, the only ice that will contribute to sea level rises is land based. We could lose all the sea based ice and the overall effect most likely will be a drop in sea level. To get a 1 metre sea level rise, requires the melting of land based ice of a volume equivalent to the entire surface area of Australia covered to a depth of 45 metres or so. The energy requirements for phase conversion is at least 1 million 25 MegaTonne nuclear bombs going off, Based on every relevant paper on the subject that I have been able to find, and it appears that it would take anywhere between 1000 and 3500 years before we would get this 1 metre rise. The last set of figures that I saw from the IPCC is that it would be about 1000 years to see this kind of rise, if their measurements were correct. The thing I find interesting is that we (as humans) have a very short term memory of what has happened in the past. Especially, when things are driven by authoritative groups such as governments (and attendant bureaucracies) and science committees and panels.

flukus 9y ago
> The article was interesting in that it use the word "could". In context, the only ice that will contribute to sea level rises is land based. We could lose all the sea based ice and the overall effect most likely will be a drop in sea level. These shelves are built from ice that has flowed from land to out over the ocean, the more it melts the more that flow increases and the more ice goes from being on land to being in the ocean. > To get a 1 metre sea level rise, requires the melting of land based ice of a volume equivalent to the entire surface area of Australia covered to a depth of 45 metres or so. The energy requirements for phase conversion is at least 1 million 25 MegaTonne nuclear bombs going off, There was a thunderf00t video very recently on this topic (sorry I can't link to it from work), I forget the exact figures that he came too but the energy effect of global warming was on the order of thousands of megatonne bombs a second.
- oldandtired 9y ago
  My comment about the 1 million bombs is related to just the amount of energy required to convert solid water to liquid water at 0 degrees Celsius. The figures that I have seen from various studies indicate that only a very small amount of the energy stored in water ever gets to actually meting ice. In regards to the ice flows, the flow is caused by evaporated water from the oceans being deposited on the land at the glacier. Without that depositing of water vapour, there is no flow. Hence, until a determined study is made on the full dynamics of this cycle, mayhaps one should not be using this as the driving example or even as an example.