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on Sunday April 02 2017, @04:28PM
from the visit-the-scenic-algae-blooms-of-Antartica dept.
from the visit-the-scenic-algae-blooms-of-Antartica dept.
When spring arrives in the Arctic, both snow and sea ice melt, forming melt ponds on the surface of the sea ice. Every year, as global warming increases, there are more and larger melt ponds.
Melt ponds provide more light and heat for the ice and the underlying water, but now it turns out that they may also have a more direct and potentially important influence on life in the Arctic waters.
Mats of algae and bacteria can evolve in the melt ponds, which can provide food for marine creatures. This is the conclusion of researchers in the periodical, Polar Biology.
More information:
Heidi Louise Sørensen et al. Nutrient availability limits biological production in Arctic sea ice melt ponds, Polar Biology (2017). DOI: 10.1007/s00300-017-2082-7
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Melting Sea Ice May Lead to More Life in the Sea
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The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday April 02 2017, @08:04PM (9 children)
It's called equilibrium. Similarly, turning the flame up on a pot of water doesn't instantly raise the temperature of the water appreciably.
In a system the size of Earth, it's going to take centuries before the new equilibrium temperature is reached.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 02 2017, @11:47PM (8 children)
In a system the size of Earth, it's going to take centuries before the new equilibrium temperature is reached.
Even so, we should be seeing more actual sea level change now not some convenient far future. After all, at least half the predicted temperature change has already happened.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @04:01AM (1 child)
I said this point in another comment above but I'm late to this party soooo one more time!
Most likely Jim White was referring to 1 degree change in equilibrium temperature and we are currently in the midst of that equilibrium change. Glaciers have retreated and sea ice isn't as pervasive, but we haven't yet seen their full disappearance. If this heat buildup continues then we will run out of ice to melt, and once it is all melted we will see some appreciable sea level rise. I am very skeptical about a 20m (60+ feet!) rise in sea level, the oceans are incredibly massive and I just can't quite see it, but as I said above I haven't done the math.
On that note, I also wonder how much water makes its way down into all the areas that were once filled with oil.
Long story short: picking away at one person's model to try and bolster a weak viewpoint is lame especially when you don't address the various factors that many others have brought up. It smacks of laziness and insincerity.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 03 2017, @05:41AM
On that note, I also wonder how much water makes its way down into all the areas that were once filled with oil.
None except through human action. Oil wouldn't be there in the first place, if there was a path for surface water to make its way down. Oil is not only less dense than water, it is much less dense than crust materials. It only exists in situations where it has been generated and trapped by an impermeable layer. That prevents ground water from flowing down to it.
But having said that, the most popular way to pump out oil is to pump in water or a water-based mud. I recall calculating the volume of oil ever pumped would fit in a cube 5 km on a side. Even if every drop of oil was replaced underground with water of the same volume, that is an insignificant amount of the Earth's water (even the fresh water on Earth is around 10 million cubic km [usgs.gov] and that is a source which is continually replenished).
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday April 03 2017, @06:22AM (5 children)
> After all, at least half the predicted temperature change has already happened.
Whose prediction are you alluding to? Or are you referring to the goal of the Paris agreement?
The IPCC attempts to predict through the end of this century under various scenarios; the graph of their predictions shows, for some of those scenarios, a trend of continued or even increasing warming up until the end of the century. They predict warming of at most 6.4 degrees Celsius between 1980 and 2099, and sea level rise of at most 59 cm over the same period.
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html#table-spm-3 [www.ipcc.ch]
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-spm-5.html [www.ipcc.ch]
(Score: 3, Informative) by WalksOnDirt on Monday April 03 2017, @06:53AM
AR4 projections of sea level rise were almost certainly too low. They ignored glacial melting since it wasn't really known. The revised figures for AR5 were 26-82 cm. 2100 is not nearly long enough for the sea level to reach equilibrium even if we held greenhouse gasses steady, which we have no hope of doing for decades.
Not that I think even 82 cm would be that bad if it happens over 83 years. The bigger threats are droughts and ocean acidification.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 03 2017, @12:48PM (3 children)
> After all, at least half the predicted temperature change has already happened.
Whose prediction are you alluding to? Or are you referring to the goal of the Paris agreement?
They estimate 3 C of long term warming per doubling of CO2 concentration in atmosphere which I think is too high. Currently, we're experiencing more like 1.5 C. And much of the future warming predicted is for CO2 emissions that have yet to happen.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday April 03 2017, @03:02PM (2 children)
Currently we've seen around a 30% increase in CO2 since the industrial revolution began, with most of that having been added in the last handful of decades. Meanwhile it will take centuries for the planet to reach a new equilibrium state, so most of the warming we're currently seeing is due do the CO2 levels from many decades ago.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:29AM (1 child)
Currently we've seen around a 30% increase in CO2 since the industrial revolution began, with most of that having been added in the last handful of decades. Meanwhile it will take centuries for the planet to reach a new equilibrium state, so most of the warming we're currently seeing is due do the CO2 levels from many decades ago.
So what? The IPCC has already claimed that would about 1.1 C (using the 3 C temperature sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 and your 30% increase in CO2). What makes your opinion better than theirs or mine? Nor is it relevant that "the planet" takes a while to reach equilibrium since most of the change would happen long before we get bored and declare equilibrium (ignoring of course, that the climate changes often enough on that equilibrium never would be achieved).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:34AM