5 ms·

But smaller than Texas right? So we're good.

by esaym 9y ago

jsjohnst 9y ago
If a chunk of ice the size of Texas broke off, much of the coastal states of the US would be under water.
- throwaway5752 9y ago
  Texas is 0.2% the area of the oceans. Large icebergs are about 500' thick. 3' is not trivial, but no, coastal states would not be underwater.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    West Antarctic Ice Sheet (which is massively destabilizing and what I was thinking about when I made my original reply) averages something like an order of magnitude thicker than your 500’ thick. So 30’ rise assuming your math is right would make a significant amount of coastal area flooded.
    - throwaway5752 9y ago
      I've read that it is a predicted 10' sea level rise if that collapses (probably because it already displaces a lot of water)... but honestly, my hearts not in arguing the point. AGW is the most critical threat facing humanity either way.
      - jsjohnst 9y ago
        > my hearts not in arguing the point. Mine neither. I wasn’t basing the 30’ on sources I’d read, just what you said combined with what I knew the thickness to be. 10’ is pretty serious (big chunk of Manhattan / South Florida would be underwater), do you happen to have a link for that handy? If not, I’ll try to find in Google.
        throwaway5752 9y ago
        It was wikipedia, but I chased the references down to the source material in Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/just-nudge-could-collapse-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-raise-sea-levels-3-meters http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/just-nudge-could-coll...
- oldandtired 9y ago
  If it is not land based, it would make no difference to the ocean level. Ice is less dense than water and as it melts there is a volume decrease, so one would expect a decrease in the ocean level. So no, it would not do anything to the coastal states of the US.
  - IanCal 9y ago
    > Ice is less dense than water and as it melts there is a volume decrease, so one would expect a decrease in the ocean level. Ignoring thermal issues and salt/freshwater, floating ice melting won't do anything to the sea level. It's lower density, but it's floating in such a way that it's only displacing a volume of water which weighs as much as it does.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    I could be wrong, but I don’t believe there is any floating ice that’s 300k mi², hence why I said what I said.
    - oldandtired 9y ago
      Since I have stopped travelling for the moment, I'll now respond. IS this a type 300,000 square miles? If you really want to put a 1 metre ocean level rise, you need 30% of the ice coverage of Iceland to melt and flow into the oceans. Do the calculations and you see that the amount of ice required is beyond enormous. A uniform 45 metre thick layer across the entire Australian mainland is required to raise worldwide ocean level 1 metre. That is about the same uniform thickness across the USA mainland (exclude Alaska). 45 metres would be equivalent to a 14 or 15 storey building. The energy requirements for the conversion from solid to liquid is approximately equivalent to the total daily solar flowthrough for our planet. Considering that a study looked at a 50 to 70 period and the energy absorbed by the oceans. A couple of fun ideas out of it, were that only a small percentage of the absorbed radiation entered the ice caps (some where between 2% and 5% - at most). How much actual ice melt was unknown. But let's give them the benefit and say all of the absorbed energy managed to cause ice melt, at 5%, we are looking at we are looking at 1000 years before a 1 metre rise could even be possible, If we take the lower figure, we are looking at 2500 years. This is a major discrepancy with the models that are giving predictions of 1 metre rise in 100 years, up to 10 or more metres in 100 years. There is a problem with the models. Mind you there is always problems with the models. If the gets more active, we could see a magnifying effect, if the sun gets less active, we see a diminishing effect. As long as climate scientists and those that they convince of their "dogma" keep claiming that they "know the truth" and keep making this political, we miss the opportunity to do real and accurate highly mapped profiles of the energy distribution and movement across the globe. There are many assumptions being made in these models that are not being vetted.

But smaller than Texas right? So we're good.

by esaym 9y ago

But smaller than Texas right? So we're good.

jsjohnst 9y ago

If a chunk of ice the size of Texas broke off, much of the coastal states of the US would be under water.

throwaway5752 9y ago
Texas is 0.2% the area of the oceans. Large icebergs are about 500' thick. 3' is not trivial, but no, coastal states would not be underwater.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  West Antarctic Ice Sheet (which is massively destabilizing and what I was thinking about when I made my original reply) averages something like an order of magnitude thicker than your 500’ thick. So 30’ rise assuming your math is right would make a significant amount of coastal area flooded.
  - throwaway5752 9y ago
    I've read that it is a predicted 10' sea level rise if that collapses (probably because it already displaces a lot of water)... but honestly, my hearts not in arguing the point. AGW is the most critical threat facing humanity either way.
    - jsjohnst 9y ago
      > my hearts not in arguing the point. Mine neither. I wasn’t basing the 30’ on sources I’d read, just what you said combined with what I knew the thickness to be. 10’ is pretty serious (big chunk of Manhattan / South Florida would be underwater), do you happen to have a link for that handy? If not, I’ll try to find in Google.
      - throwaway5752 9y ago
        It was wikipedia, but I chased the references down to the source material in Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/just-nudge-could-collapse-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-raise-sea-levels-3-meters http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/just-nudge-could-coll...
oldandtired 9y ago
If it is not land based, it would make no difference to the ocean level. Ice is less dense than water and as it melts there is a volume decrease, so one would expect a decrease in the ocean level. So no, it would not do anything to the coastal states of the US.
- IanCal 9y ago
  > Ice is less dense than water and as it melts there is a volume decrease, so one would expect a decrease in the ocean level. Ignoring thermal issues and salt/freshwater, floating ice melting won't do anything to the sea level. It's lower density, but it's floating in such a way that it's only displacing a volume of water which weighs as much as it does.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  I could be wrong, but I don’t believe there is any floating ice that’s 300k mi², hence why I said what I said.
  - oldandtired 9y ago
    Since I have stopped travelling for the moment, I'll now respond. IS this a type 300,000 square miles? If you really want to put a 1 metre ocean level rise, you need 30% of the ice coverage of Iceland to melt and flow into the oceans. Do the calculations and you see that the amount of ice required is beyond enormous. A uniform 45 metre thick layer across the entire Australian mainland is required to raise worldwide ocean level 1 metre. That is about the same uniform thickness across the USA mainland (exclude Alaska). 45 metres would be equivalent to a 14 or 15 storey building. The energy requirements for the conversion from solid to liquid is approximately equivalent to the total daily solar flowthrough for our planet. Considering that a study looked at a 50 to 70 period and the energy absorbed by the oceans. A couple of fun ideas out of it, were that only a small percentage of the absorbed radiation entered the ice caps (some where between 2% and 5% - at most). How much actual ice melt was unknown. But let's give them the benefit and say all of the absorbed energy managed to cause ice melt, at 5%, we are looking at we are looking at 1000 years before a 1 metre rise could even be possible, If we take the lower figure, we are looking at 2500 years. This is a major discrepancy with the models that are giving predictions of 1 metre rise in 100 years, up to 10 or more metres in 100 years. There is a problem with the models. Mind you there is always problems with the models. If the gets more active, we could see a magnifying effect, if the sun gets less active, we see a diminishing effect. As long as climate scientists and those that they convince of their "dogma" keep claiming that they "know the truth" and keep making this political, we miss the opportunity to do real and accurate highly mapped profiles of the energy distribution and movement across the globe. There are many assumptions being made in these models that are not being vetted.