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It is not true it must take centuries. We don't know how climate responds to changes but we know the response is highly nonlinear. Just yesterday I read how di
by lmilcin 6y ago
It is not true it must take centuries. We don't know how climate responds to changes but we know the response is highly nonlinear.
Just yesterday I read how diminishing cloud cover can very rapidly tip Earth couple degrees up. Clouds reflect large portion of sunlight back to space. Less clouds equals less reflected energy equals more absorbed energy equals hotter environment equals less clouds.
Ice takes decades to melt but clouds do not require to sink huge amount of energy and can vanish practically overnight as soon as atmosphere warms up enough.
Once atmosphere warms up due to diminishing cloud cover the ice will melt very quickly, accelerated through external stimulus versus current slow feedback loop (less ice cover, etc).
- apsec112 6y agoThe atmosphere can warm much faster than that, but even "very quick" melting would take forever, because it's hard-packed ice that's over a mile thick. At a melting rate of two meters per summer (which is a lot, that's the equivalent of melting ~800 inches of snow), it would take over a thousand years to get to the bottom.