Your error is that you aren’t allowing for the water filling the space that is currently filled with ice.

It’s probably not a real smart thing to accuse someone of being on valium or make other disparaging remarks.

According to your rough drawing if the ice floats or not it will not affect seas levels. In fact the only way it could would be if it doesn’t float (too much mass for the depth of the sea in that area, but melts for some reason.

(maybe this is part of what is bothering Whistler),

Nothing’s bothering me except the wild claims by flamer.

Actually Carrick, where I live is stil rebounding from the last ice age. Our river (The Red River of the North) is actually getting less elevation to work with as the northern part of it is rebounding.

However, considering the area currently holding the ice. It isn’t going to rebound until the ice melts. Even at that point it will be at the bottom of a sea and won’t rebound as fast as if it were out of the ocean.

Flamer is claiming that if the outer ice shelf broke, not likely, but the water would float up the rest of the ice.

That’s not going to happen unless it gets a lot warmer.

Carrick, so do I. This is why I suggested the chances of any serious destabilisation of the WAIS are slim.

The only reason the liberals are pushing global warming is that its cure is socialism. Look at the laundry list of things they’ve wanted to do over the past forty years, and each one of them would have to happen NOW if there’s any hope of saving us from the global warming boogeyman. Means to an end.

MOFAL, the point of this post wasn’t about your views on it (“truths” as you call them, though I should remind you again you alone don’t have a monopoly on them), but rather the claim of Tu Uyen Tran that if we’re skeptical about certain claims of the alarmists, we, rather than them, are somehow the fearmongers now.

BTW, you are probably aware that the models predict that the EAIS is supposed to increase in thickness as the Earth’s temperature increases. It would take a tremendous amount of warming, way beyond what any realistic model predicts, for human activity to cause the EAIS to melt…

Which is the irony here: Gore and his apostles are claiming that we are endanger within our lifetime from things which are very improbable to ever happen period. If that isn’t fearmongering, what is?

You do not seem to consider that much of the WAIS is above sea level.

In which case the ice block will be heavier than the mass of water and it will continue to push down on the rock underneath since it’s frozen down to the sea bottom.

No change.

In fact the more ice there is above the water the harder the block of ice will push down on the sea.

The equilibrium would be 10% of the mass of the block would be above the sea level. More than that then it rests on the rock. Less it floats. Much less and ocean levels fall as the water pushes the ice block up to 90% in and 10% out. (I don’t see how that could be though).

Flamer’s just going to go back and watch Algore’s movie another time to make sure he’s got his facts straight.

MOFAL, I don’t think a floating ice sheet is in the cards.. As I see it, the main problem is with the front edge of the sheet calving due to contact with warm ocean water. The other processes you describe would tend to thin the ice sheet, making calving and breakup more likely.

Rob:

Carrick apologizes for not being omnipresent in the comments to act as our resident enforcer for the global warming issue.

Ouch! I think that left a mark.

Awesome post, Whistler. You could have gone on a bit, but by then you’d have had a book.

Just a couple of more points:

1) The animations that Al Gore shows of the eastern US seacoast being inundated in roughly 50 years is a pure hoax. The best estimates suggest the loss of the Western Antarctica Ice Sheet to occur in roughly 1000 years. It would probably melt if the Earth stays warm, because it is a submarine ice sheet, with its foundations on the ocean floor. If it were to melt it would add roughly 15-feet of height to the oceans.

2) Although the Earth has been warming since 1850 or so, human generated warming is not considered to have started until circa 1980. When they show you a picture of where a glacier was 100 years ago compared to now, they are essentially lying, because they are showing the result of 70 years of natural warming followed by 30 years where human activity has played some role in the warming trend.

3) Because the period 1400-1850 was a naturally occurring period (Little Ice Age) in which glaciation increased, it is expected that once the Little Ice Age ended that glaciers would be in retreat. How much of that retreat would be there even if we humans were to mass suicide? Hard to say, but it’s a question that is conveniently ignored by the global warming alarmists. The same goes for the ice loss in the Northern Arctic. We know that this isn’t a naturally occurring phenomenon associated with the end of the LIA for what reason again?

4) Anybody notice there’s a food shortage? One of the main reasons for that was the cold winter we had, and the resulting crop failures in China, Australia and Argentina. Cold weather makes plants more vulnerable to disease and pestilence, just like with humans, when the biosystem gets stressed, they get more vulnerable. (The same happens in the summer during drought seasons, but that’s a different topic.)

5) You’re also right about disease and cold weather. Most dread diseases, such as tuberculosis, spread more easily in cold weather, not warm weather. And other “tropical” diseases, like malaria, used to occur as frequently in the Arctic as in the tropical regions (there’s a reason the mosquito is the Alaskan state bird after all), the reason they don’t is that the wealthy nations can spray for mosquitos, whereas the poorer countries (over represented on the equator) cannot afford to do so.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

No, BB. What Toot is trying to point out is that ice will not displace water if it floats.

As I said, there is no point trying to wind me up, but I do appreciate the effort you are going to – to make me those of us who speak truth on this issue, appear to be emotional and irrational.

what is stopping it floating at present? Gravity

Eureka!

Lecture, actually.

Having conducted a little more background reading, I found this:

in this pdf download.

This illustrates my point more clearly. I did on several occasions stress that it was highly unlikely that the entire WA Ice Sheet would float, but that parts of it floating would be more likely. Here we see that the ridge which constrains the flow of ice is underneath the ice shelf and so any calving from this would not affect sea levels. However, if the ice shelf were to retreat far enough (back beyond the ridge), then there would be less of a hamper to glacial movement, more tidal influence on the ice sheet, more potential for water ingress into the glacial till and more susceptibility of the WAIS to calve off sections which currently sit on land, thereby displacing water.

I don’t mean to be rude, but are you on valium or something?

I’m afraid you’re wrong on this.

Let’s try a different analogy. You go to the bar and order a margherita. When your drink comes it is full to the brim and there is a slice of lemon sitting on the rim of the glass.

If you take off the slice of lemon and drop it into your drink, will it have no effect?

The difference is that the ice is already where the water would flow in. In your case the lemon is outside of the glass.

Again use your picture. Pick up the ice in it. The water rushes in dropping sea levels in the area outside of the picture. Drop the ice back in and everything goes back to the same level, whether or not there is enough water depth to float that mass of ice.

But if the water were to flow into the area that is currently covered with ice than sea levels would drop.

Now the water isn’t going to flow to that area, because it is in fact full of ice.

Consider a box 2 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot high. Put a barrier into it turning it into two 1 foot cubes.

In one side of the box pub a 12″ x 12″ x 14″ block of ice.

I think that is a simplified model of what we are talking about. The ice block melted would be a bit more than a cubic foot of water.

Fill the other side with water.

remove the barrier and the water level will not rise. The block will not float. It will in fact be pushing down on the floor of the box.

Now if the block were allowed to melt then the ice levels would rise slightly.

Much more than that is above water on the WAIS.

So the block of ice weighs more than the water it would displace. The block never moves.

Certain people are unable to interpret mathematics

Thanks Chief, I couldn’t have said it better!

For anyone to make the claim, no matter how many cautionary lines are attached to it, that the WAIS is going to break free and melt and raise sea level is alarmist and not helping the scientific work being done.

Indeed, you are correct. As I said earlier in this thread:

What makes you people think that I like Al Gore’s work? I have never said as much, though I do seem to remember being critical of AIT at some point.
I recognise that Gore is first and foremost a politician and likes to use scare tactics to inspire action, but there is a slim basis of fact in his comments.
The West Antarctic ice sheet is currently sitting on land, but submerged by the ocean. If it, or part of it, were to float (and start displacing water) then it could have an impact on global sea levels (up to 14m). The odds of this happening within the next century are slim however. In terms of the entire Antarctic continent’s ice melting, that would most likely not happen for thousands if not millions of years.

and in other threads I have also been critical of Gore’s exaggerations on the GW issue. Hyperbole does not help, but does hinder the case.

My block of ice is 14″ high. Ice is roughly 10% less dense than water. So fourteen inches of ice would be more than 12 inches of water.

Even if the water did find it’s way downhill in your drawing it would lower ocean levels as much as the displaced ice would raise them.

Consider your pictures. Pick up the block of ice. The water runs into the depression left. That lowers the oceans outside of where the ice once was. Now drop the ice back where it was. That will displace as much water as the water rushed in whether it floats or not.

In effect no change in ocean levels.

Oh, almost forgot. Exactly how is manmadeglobalwarming going to vaporize a mass of bedrock the size of Massachusetts, allowing sea water to rush in, float a multi-mega ton mass of ice above sea level, move it into the ocean and melt it in the twinkling of an eye, thus raising sea level worldwide by 15 feet? I’m just dying to hear this line of bullshit!

What Toot is trying to point out is that ice will not displace water if it floats.

How does that account for only about 10 percent of icebergs floating above sea level? The Titanic dead would like to know.

The point I am waiting to have ‘splained is how the promontory ridge fronting this ice sheet is going to be made irrelevant.. The region is like a bay, with a ridge of higher seafloor in front of a sloped depression which is the bay, which rises to become the surrounding shore line of the bay. In order for this ice mass to float out into the ocean proper the intervening “ridge” of stone has to be removed.

And this all begs another question entirely. This ice mass has been in continuous, direct contact with the floor of the “bay” for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years. Without heating it from below, which is not impossible I will grant,I just ain’t buying it.

And manmadeglobalwarming damned well ain’t going to feed the bulldog on this one. No way. No how.

Flamer, that is just too funny! You and your hero Algore are just too comical. Y’all ought to take that act on the road. You could get Randi Rhodes to open for you.

hang on you said fourteen inches. it might be more.

The analogy is wrong though, as there is far more liquid water than frozen. Not the other way around.

You are wrong. Check with someone who knows something.

The lemon is quarter in, three quarters out – as is the ice at present. If the lemon is all in, then it all displaces water, as with the ice. How you have gotten this far in life without actually understanding Archimedes’ Principle? Did you graduate high school?

you are probably aware that the models predict that the EAIS is supposed to increase in thickness as the Earth’s temperature increases.

Indeed, I am. It will however, remain a desert and thickening of the ice sheet will still occur in fractions of an inch.

billions of megatons of ice, that he admits isn’t going to melt, is somehow going to get picked up and dumped in the ocean somehow

Whistler, read: Carrick –

The best estimates suggest the loss of the Western Antarctica Ice Sheet to occur in roughly 1000 years. It would probably melt if the Earth stays warm, because it is a submarine ice sheet, with its foundations on the ocean floor. If it were to melt it would add roughly 15-feet of height to the oceans.

I do dispute some of the science that Carrick claims here, but he has the gist of it right. It does not have to melt, but only float – what is stopping it floating at present? Gravity. I’ll explain when I get home from work. Byee.

Flamer? Do you grasp the meaning of the term sublimate?

The Global Warming scam has created a global food shortage. Now that is something to fear.

Not only that, but also how to depress the “Caps lock” button so you don’t get all caps.

For those of you apparently in Rio Linda Palm Beach County, what Whistler is pointing out is that the melting of floating ice does not raise the overall water level of the oceans any more than the melting of ice in your whisky on the rocks raises the level of your booze. At various junctures, prominent announcements from the global warming crowd have ignored this highly technical principle, though it is doubtful that this is due to them not drinking enough hooch at conferences in Bali.

The odds of this happening within the next century are slim however.

Slim? Don’t you have to have a mechanism for that to happen in order to calculate the odds?

Toot, what I am yearning to hear is how manmadeglobalwarming is going to vaporize a mass of bedrock the size of Massachusetts. The rest will fall into place once that is ‘splained.

You can say that again.

So I can pay more taxes and that takes care of the problem right? Where to I send the check? Do I make it out to Al Gore?

When you do a Google search for “Effects of Global Warming,” one of the top results that always appears is the Wikipedia entry for this subject. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Unfortunately, most of the people that sign up to edit this article are pro-global warming evangelists who exhibit a clear pro-global warming agenda. This means that everyone from school children to the media are getting this highly biased view of climate change, when they research this topic via a Google search. Fortunately, however, ANYONE can sign up on Wikipedia free of charge in less than one minute and edit this article. I would encourage everyone to sign up and contribute to this article, to ensure it presents the correct view of global warming. Simply go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming (or just go to Google and search “effects of global warming” to find the Wikipedia entry right near the top) and start editing! Then you can help to provide the proper balance that is needed in this highly biased article.

-T. Dejmikian

Let’s try this analogy. You half fill a bathtub with water. Then you stand a solid concrete block (9″ x 9″ x 18″) on it’s end in the water (or maybe a log). If you then lay it on it’s side, then it displaces more water and even though there may seem to be a slight momentary dip in water levels, they will ultimately rise to be higher than their original levels.

If a person living in North Dakota still believe in global warming after the last two winters, he is blind to the fact that Al Gore has utterly failed him.

got a little help from rbb. hehe

Wouldn’t telling people that they are going to destroy the earth if they don’t buy your carbon credits real fearmongering? Silly libs

The liberals/econuts don’t have a clue what real fearmongering is. Perhaps if the rational people in this country were better at instilling a little real fear in them we’d not have to put up with their crapola 24/7.

Excellent post. Certain people are unable to interpret mathematics or scientific facts. They are the liberals who accuse others for not looking at scientific information. They just try to monopolize those “scientists” like Hollywood High School dropouts.

The activists ignore the fact that the Goddard Institute for Space Studies has misplaced their ground based thermometers, such as above air conditioning exhausts or black top parking lots in order to distort the picture.

They intentionally ignore the facts that the Goddard Institute has re-positioned ground based thermometers to places that are inherently hotter like air conditioner exhausts. The blogger who exposed this scam deserves an award for advancing The Truth.

The ice block melted would be less.

Global Warming is the epitome of fearmongering.

Oh, and thanks for the PDF!