Evidence that humans are contributing to global warming?
i am currently doing a 10 page essay entitled "are humans to blame for global warming" and i have got stuck on finding evidence that humans are causing global warming. so far i have talked about the rising of co2 levels in the atmosphere and briefly mentioned some things that humans do that emmit co2. i have drawn a bar chart showing the increase of co2 over the past 10 years . and i have briefly explained how farming is contributing to global warming. but i am completely stuck now. can anybody give me any ideas ? xx
At what global warming point will Antarctica start to melt?
Now.Parts of it are also growing too.You need to understand that Antartica is huge, and that most of it sits on rock, not water. The further north you travel, the more you see melting along the coast. The peninsula in particular is melting twice as fast as the rest of the ice shelves because it pokes out into warmer latitudes. The parts of Antarctica in contact with the sea, such as the ice shelves, are melting and crumbling at an intense rate because they are in contact with the warmer sea water.However, the warmer the planet gets, the more water vapor evaporates from the oceans. The more water vapor, the more rain and snow that gets produced. This means that inland, the ice in Antarctica is increasing via snowfall. Now this wouldn’t be a problem if other ice masses on Greenland weren’t melting at a terrifying rate. Rising ocean levels would be slightly tempered by the water being redistributed to ice in Antarctica, where the rocky landmass keeps the ice from contact with the warmer waters around it. Unfortunately, the earth is warming far faster than this redistribution would take.In other words, people who say ‘but Antarctica is growing’ are missing the point. The parts of Antarctica that are melting are melting faster than the parts of Antarctica that are growing. There also a limit to how much water Antarctica can sponge up. The more ice you have, the faster and farther glaciers will carry it. Once those Antarctic glaciers meet the sea, the water is returned to the ocean where it rapidly melts.
Is Arctic sea ice recovering or declining?
Good morning Dana, A common and easy mistake to make is to get area, extent, volume and mass mixed up. Area is the area of solid ice - the amount of 'dry land' so to speak Extent is the area enclosed by the limit of the ice (including all the holes, lakes, cracks etc) Volume is the total space occupied by all the ice Mass is the (gravitational) weight of the physical material Were it not for the air trapped in the ice then volume and mass would be pretty much the same - only impurities, temps, densities etc prevent parity. The air trapped in the ice means that the mass is approx 90% of the volume. I explained the above for the benefit of all, I know you're aware what mass, volume etc is. In respect of the extent of the Arctic sea ice. At the moment it's not doing too bad. There was the unusual weather anomaly a few weeks ago that saw cold air parked over the Arctic for several weeks and this help to build the sea ice. These last couple of years have seen a small advance in the general extent of sea ice, it's still way below the norm and the long term averages but not quite so critical as it was back in 07/08. What we have been witnessing is a thinning of the ice. I can't recall the exact figures but ordinarily it would average 5m in thickness but currently sizeable portions of the sea ice are just 3m thick. It's this thinning of the ice which has affected the volume. In short, it's correct to say that sea ice extent (and area) has rebounded slightly and it's also correct to say that volume (and mass) has decreased. The indications are that the ice will start melting at a faster rate than usual and it's quite possible that this year we'll see record low or close to record low ice extent. Partly due to the progression of underlying warming but also because this is currently a strong ENSO period with a very high ONI. For those who may be wondering - El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a pattern of behaviour observed in the movement of ocean currents in the southern Pacific. This oscillation leads to warmer than normal global temperatures. ONI is the Oceanic Nino Index – a scale used to measure the strength of the ENSO. It’s quite likely that 2010 will see temperatures some 0.15°C higher than would otherwise have been expected.
Is this the sign of global warming at it's finest?
Oh didn't you know? It's global warming until proof that global warming isn't real pops up, like this article, then it's changed to "Climate Changes". You gotta keep up on the liberal propoganda or you'll fall behind.
What do you think of this year's Arctic sea ice melt?
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the second-lowest extent recorded since the dawn of the satellite era. While above the record minimum Arctic sea ice extent set on September 16, 2007, this year further reinforces the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent observed over the past thirty years. Even though the sea ice didn’t retreat this year as much as last summer, “there was no real sign of recovery,” said Walt Meier of NSIDC. This year was cooler and other weather conditions weren’t as bad, he said. “We’re kind of in a new state of the Arctic basically, and it’s not a good one,” Meier said. “We’re definitely sliding towards a point where the summer sea ice will be gone.” Scientists have predicted that the Arctic will become ice free in the summer by the year 2013, if not sooner. http://planetsave.com/blog/2008/09/17/ar... So it didn't quite break last year's record, nor did the north pole become ice free as a few scientists predicted it might. However, the melt was the second greatest in recorded history, and the long-term trend continues clearly downward. http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/image... What do you make of this information?
If all the ice in Antarctica melts, which countries in the world will be entirely covered in water?
To determine how much sea level would rise if Antarctica were to melt, we need to determine the volume of land ice. The ice that is in the sea is floating already, and so it will displace the same amount of water when melted.The land ice on the Antarctic ice sheet takes up a volume of ~26.5 million km^3, which will melt into ~24.3 million km^3 of water. The surface area of the oceans is ~360 million km^2. Just dividing the volume of ice by the surface area gives an estimate of ~67.5 m of sea level rise, although the actual prediction is closer to 60 m.This is a massive change in sea level, and several countries will be mostly or completely underwater. As requested, here is a list of the hardest hit:Bangladesh:Qatar and Bahrain:Singapore:Brunei:The Maldives:The Bahamas, Turks, Cayman Islands, and Cuba:Bermuda:Denmark and the Netherlands:Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau:You asked about which countries are safest; pretty much all of the landlocked ones will do. For example, the Mongols are perfectly fine:As to how quickly this will happen, climate processes are generally fairly slow; neither you nor I will see anywhere near this sort of change in sea level over our lifetimes. Also worth noting: global warming is not projected to fully melt the ice caps, unless there is runaway climate change. Models out to the year 2100 only predict a sea level rise of .6–1.8 m:I hope that helps!