Melting Threat from West Antarctic Ice Sheet Less Than Expected but Could Hit U.S. Hardest, Study …

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.colorado.edu/news/r/26980d40c45ef510563bfe2b6fc04b38.html

Melting Threat from West Antarctic Ice Sheet Less Than Expected but Could Hit U.S. Hardest, Study Says

May 14, 2009

While a total or partial collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet as a result of warming would not raise global sea levels as high as some predict, levels on the U.S. seaboards would rise 25 percent more than the global average and threaten cities like New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, according to a new study.

Long thought of as the sleeping giant with respect to sea level rise, Antarctica holds about nine times the volume of ice of Greenland. Its western ice sheet, known as WAIS, is of particular interest to scientists due to its inherent instability, a result of large areas of the continent's bedrock lying below sea level. But the ice sheet's potential contribution to sea level rise has been greatly overestimated, according to new calculations.

"There's a vast body of research that's looked at the likelihood of a WAIS collapse and what implications such a catastrophic event would have for the globe," said Jonathan Bamber, lead author of the study published in Science May 15. "But all of these studies have assumed a 5-meter to 6-meter contribution to sea level rise. Our calculations show those estimates are much too large, even on a thousand-year timescale."

Bamber and his colleagues found a WAIS collapse would only raise sea levels by 3.3 meters, or about 11 feet. Bamber, a professor at the University of Bristol in England, currently is a visiting fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, or CIRES.

…

[imdjh]

1. 11 feet and I'm close to being waterfront- but I think it's exaggerated

Sorry, I really do think it's bullshit. I look at all this urgency as being little different than the religious nuttbags who see the "signs" and the "prophecy" every time there is a hurricane in Florida while an earthquake in Japan, and a volcano erupts in Africa.

Edit- Apparently I should make it clear that I don't think environmentalism is bullshit, just that I think that the urgency with which some perceive the problem is exaggerated.

[XemaSab]

2. .

:popcorn:

[imdjh]

3. I didn't say that good stewardship isn't good- just that the timeline isn't what some think

[imdjh]

4. OK- I changed it a bit to avoid being flambeed

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Allow me to offer an analogy

In 2000, inspectors suggested that work needed to be done on the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis or it needed to be replaced. But people decided it wasn't urgent.

Photos taken in 2003 showed bowed gusset plates.
http://www.startribune.com/local/16927626.html

Here there was visible evidence that the bridge was in danger, but people decided it it wasn't urgent enough to do something about it.

Then in 2007, it collapsed, taking a bunch of people with it.

---

We've known about "The Greenhouse Effect" for some time now. Melting ice caps are like bending gusset plates.

At what point do you think the problem will become urgent enough to do something about it?

[imdjh]

7. What caused the Great Flood?

What could have been done about it? It isn't so much that I don't think it's possible for there to be a catastrophe, it's that I don't think there is anything we can do about it except perhaps to get out of the way, and I don't think that making sweeping changes which will hit us hard in the present hold a promise of producing the desired result.

Is that so unreasonable of me?

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. "I don't think there is anything we can do about it except perhaps to get out of the way."

So, you don't think we'll be able to improve things at all for (presumed) "future generations" by acting to at least slow climate change?

[imdjh]

11. I have to go somewhere, but in a nutshell

I think that environmentalism overall is a great idea. Who wouldn't? Climate Change as a whole, is not my favorite subject- there is a lot that concerns both in the information coming this way and in who is behind some of it, as well as who is questioning it.

SO my short answer would be : we need to make sincere efforts to improve the environment for future generations, but I'm not sure that that is synonymous with "slowing climate change".

[FiveGoodMen]

12. Which "Great Flood" would that be?

[htuttle]

14. The original story in the Epic of Gilgamesh, presumably

:shrug:

on edit:

Scratch that. Just remembered that I read that the story in Gilgamesh was probably copied from the even earlier Epic of Atrahasis...

[OKIsItJustMe]

15. It appears that the Gilgamesh flood saga may have been cribbed as well

(Sorry, can't give you a reference right now.)

[OKIsItJustMe]

17. Ah yes, here we are

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eridu_Genesis
http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.7.4#

(I was thinking there was an earlier version still, but there you go.)

[FiveGoodMen]

16. I was just curious how much of this discussion was predicated on religious texts

[OKIsItJustMe]

19. OK, so let's go with that analogy

(I'll use the Noah version.)

Noah was given prior warning. Noah got to work on the ark. (Noah did not wait until the flood waters were already rising.)

Noah collected up his sons and their wives. Noah collected up the animals, both clean and unclean. (Noah provided for the next generation.)

After the flood, Noah and his family were able to repopulate the Earth, but only because he had acted once he was warned.

[JohnWxy]

6. Indirect Land Use Changes of Oil use - which can be reduced by replacing gas with ethanol.

This should be sent to the EPA. If you want to consider Indirect Land Use Changes you have to consider the loss of land from rising sea levels.

As you replace gas with ethanol and get a 51% reduction in GHG emissions (for every gallon replaced) you are reducing the fuel that is accelerating the slide of these ice sheets into the ocean. This is why we have to do what we can NOW - that is, in the next few years. we cannot wait 20 years to get 10% to 20% reduction in gasoline consumption by deploying hybrids and plug-ins.

What the EPA still doesn't seem to understand is what we do now and in the next few years sets the stage for what will happen 15, 20 or 30 years from now. If we don't replace a certain amount of gasoline in the next 6 to 10 years (and the fastest way to do that is with boosting ethanol production and availability as rapidly as possible - getting to 30% of the fuel supply as fast as we can) it won't matter what we do 20 years down the road.

These ice sheets are accelerating their slide to the seas. You can't slow them down later once the atmosphere has heated up too much. ONCE A FREIGHT TRAIN IS MOVING A CERTAIN SPEED IT'S VERY HARD TO SLOW IT DOWN - EXPECIALLY WHEN THE FUEL (CO2 in the atmosphere) IS PRESENT AND PLENTIFUL. Better to not let it (CO2 concentration) get that high in the first place.

..(obviously, you do whatever else you can too. Like subsidize mass transit and greater efficiency in all engines and appliances).

[imdjh]

8. Bring me up to speed please.

What is the difference between burning ethanol and burning gasoline? I thought it was the burning which was suspect, not the fuel. I thought ethanol was about producing domestic fuel rather than improving the environment.

[JohnWxy]

9. I am short of time now. will give more complete response later. but

latest research shows ethanol reduces GHgs 51% vs gasoline.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Not all fuels contain the same amount of carbon

Coal, for example is essentially solid carbon with some impurities. Burn it, and you get, well CO₂ (and other stuff.)

Hydrocarbons are well, Hydrogen and Carbon. They have about twice as many hydrogen atoms as carbon atoms. Burn them and you get CO₂ and water vapor (and other stuff.)

Ethanol has Hydrogen, Carbon and an Oxygen atom. It's got 3 times as many hydrogen atoms as carbon atoms. Burning it produces CO₂ and water vapor, but in different proportions.

Hydrogen of course has no carbon whatsoever, so if you burn it, no CO₂ is produced. (But, if you produce a bunch of CO₂ to generate the hydrogen…)


See what I'm gettin' at here?

[JohnWxy]

18. more complete answer with links - it's not as simple as some would have you believe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=193966

actually, the comparison of ethanol to gasoline includes the amount of GHGs produced to make the product as well as GHGs produced when you burn it.

But all the comparisons of ethanol to gasoline have one big flaw (even the comparisons by the proponents of ethanol). All the studies compare ethanol to gasoline in terms of the heat value of the two fuels. Ethanols heat value (Low Heat Value) is 76,000 BTUs per gallon where gasoline's is 110,000 BTUs pr gallon.

But This igonres a very important fact. Ethanol is a high octane fuel (E85: 85% ethanol - is 105 octane) while high test gas is 92-93 octane). THis means you can burn ethanol in a high compression engine and get much more work out of it than you can gasoline which cannot be burned in a high compression engine.

How this is done is to use turbo-charging or super-charging to 'boost' combustion chamber pressures. YOu get more power out of an engine using ethanol and downsize the engine. Thus, you can get just as good as mileage (or better) with ethanol than with gasoline (which would need a larger engine of get the same amount of power. So the GHG emissions comparisons are overstate the emissions of ethanol vs gasoline. Many of the comparisons of ethanol vs gasoline GHG emissions understate the improvement in GHG emisssions for ethanol by over a third. All because they are pretending the only engine anyone is going to use ethanol in is the typical detuned ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) we use for low octane gasoline. But you can use turbo-charging or super charging with ethanol fuel and downsize the engine and get as good or better mileage with ethanol as you get with gasoline.

But the important thing to realize is Global Warming is accelerating. While hybrid and electric car technology is exciting and essential in the long run the time it will take to adopt hybrids and plug-ins to the point where they will reduce gasoline consumption enough to start to make a real difference means the benefits will come too late to make a difference. It will take about 20 to 30 years to sell enough hybrids to reduce gas consumption 20% to 30%. But before 20 years goes by global warming will be too far along to call back.

this is where ethanol comes in. YOu can replace the fuel faster than you can replace the cars that burn the fuel. By replacing gasoline with ethanol (try very hard to increase productin of ethanol to 20% then 30% of the total fuel supply as quickly as possible) and start reducing CO2 emmissions now and moreso in the next 6 to 10 yrs (to get to 20% and then 30% of the fuel supply). This will have an affect on Global Warming much sooner and therefor this makes it a more potent impact on Global Warming.

Now this will not be enough. We stillneed to deploy Hybrids and Plug-in hybrids. But inasmuch as their affect won't take effect soon enough we have to do what we can now - or the hybrids won't make any difference (the affect coming in 20 yeras or more).