[Aqua]

Heres another interesting and unexpected product of global warming.
“SWITZERLAND is drawing up emergency plans to cope with tsunamis after scientists warned that rocks from crumbling mountains could tumble into the country’s lakes and cause devastating tidal waves.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 74,00.html

[dissident]

The THC gets too much importance assigned to it. It transports about 15% of the heat that makes Europe habitable. The rest is just heat capacity of the Atlantic waters. The North Atlantic is undergoing a warming trend, part of this is the decline in the Arctic ice cap. This process offsets the weakening of the THC when it comes to maintaining the western Europe regional climate. We need the THC to shut down completely coupled with an orbit-associated climate cycle phase of the right sign to get an ice age initiated. But atmospheric CO2 is as high as it has been for at least 650,000 years so ice age onset may have shifted out of reach.

[Laurasia]

Dissident - just to clarify then; so if the THC were to shut down due to the loss-of-salinity mechanism we have heard about, then countries which are normally helped out by its warmth in winter would lose the benefit of about 15% extra warmth that they would usually get. But surely 15% is quite a substantial amount of heat to lose? So, much more frigid winters would still be the order of the day, correct? But also you are saying that this 15% would be mitigated somewhat by the general warming trend that this part of the world is experiencing, right? So that based on what the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Drift does in the near future, Northern Europe could expect probably colder winters, but not an Ice Age?

Well, good - an Ice Age we do NOT need.

Incidentally, I've long thought that we should refer to this whole warming phenomenon as 'climate change' rather than 'global warming' precisely because of things like this.

Regards,

L.

[MonteQuest]

With global warming in Europe one of the big impacts will be collapse of the continent's rivers, many of which are heavily fed by melting glacial water and, especially, melting snowpack at higher elevations. As the glaciers and snowpack disappear, the rivers will shrink or actually dry up (a process aided by the ruinous droughts and higher temps that are appearing). This will vastly decrease Europe's carrying capacity for people.

Liebig's Law once again. The least abundant necessity sets the carrying capacity. The Law of the Minimum.

[Laurasia]

Back to the original post - the idea of the Alps crumbling is a hard pill to swallow! I saw a programme a few weeks ago about the snows of Kilimanjaro becoming a thing of the past, also. I wonder how many more landmarks will be changed or lost forever?

Regards,

L.

[Heineken]

With global warming in Europe one of the big impacts will be collapse of the continent's rivers, many of which are heavily fed by melting glacial water and, especially, melting snowpack at higher elevations. As the glaciers and snowpack disappear, the rivers will shrink or actually dry up (a process aided by the ruinous droughts and higher temps that are appearing). This will vastly decrease Europe's carrying capacity for people.

Liebig's Law once again. The least abundant necessity sets the carrying capacity. The Law of the Minimum.

As is so often the case, the media focus on the "sexy" news of the moment (falling rocks witnessed by tourists) and give short shrift to the looming hydrological disaster that is in fact the real story here.

[Etalon]

I dont see how the glaciers disappearing will mean the end of the rivers. Precipitation will still fall, so why should the rivers disappear? Glaciers are not a source of water, just temporary storage of precipitation.

Of course, if overall there is a reduction in precipitation, river discharge will decrease however the presence of glaciers has nothing to do with precipitation.

[Heineken]

I dont see how the glaciers disappearing will mean the end of the rivers. Precipitation will still fall, so why should the rivers disappear? Glaciers are not a source of water, just temporary storage of precipitation.

Of course, if overall there is a reduction in precipitation, river discharge will decrease however the presence of glaciers has nothing to do with precipitation.

You need to do some reading on the subject, Etalon. In a nutshell, glaciers and winter snows store vast quantities of water at higher elevations that are slowly released by melting during the warmer months. The water flows downhill and contributes a large percentage of the water coursing in Europe's streams and rivers.

So as glaciers disappear and winter snows vanish, less and less water is sequestered at higher elevations. By summer, when rain is relatively scarce and evaporation rates high, the rivers may dry up just when their water is needed most.

Ditto for the American West and all sorts of other places.

BTW, glaciers do ultimately depend on precipitation. Where do you think the moisture that comprises them comes from?

[Graeme]

Glaciers have been shrinking for 100 years

Greenland's glaciers have been shrinking for the past century, according to a Danish study published on Monday, suggesting that the ice-melt is not a recent phenomenon caused by global warming.

The effect of the rising temperatures in the 1920s and 1930s was "visible dozens of years later, and that of the 1990s will be (visible) in 10 or 20 years", Yde said, adding that he expected Greenland's glaciers to melt even faster in the future.

The shrinking of the glaciers since the 19th century is "the result of the atmosphere's natural warming, following volcanic eruptions for example and greenhouse gases, created by human activities, which have aggravated the situation further", he said.

iol

[rwwff]

Says the man as he falls off the cliff that just broke beneath his feet.

"Told you Bob wouldn't push me."

[Zardoz]

The two authors of the study were to present their results on Monday at a conference in Cambridge, England on the impact of global warming on glaciers.

Undoubtedly someone will point out to them how long we've been burning fossil fuels, and how the effect on the Greenland ice cap may be much more significant than anybody had previously thought.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the mechanism that runs the biosphere is far more delicate than we thought it was. It could well be that we started screwing it up long before we've always thought we did.

[basil_hayden]

Glaciers have been shrinking for 18,000 years.


The volume of anthropogenic CO2 and the effects we're seeing do not add up for me. I'm beginning to think that it's not so much the volume of CO2 we put in the atmosphere, but where we put it.

Example - Lots of ICEs were chugging around from 1900 to 1945 or so. There were a couple world wars, etc. - but this was near the surface primarily where it gets greater chance to be recylced.

Since about 1945, for the last 60 years anyway, a large quantity of CO2 has been produced as a result of jet engines, from airplanes, much higher in the atmosphere where it doesn't get as much of an opportunity to recycle, the exhaust just hangs out up there at 35,000 feet.

Now there's a graph I'd like to view for correlation.

[Zardoz]

...Since about 1945, for the last 60 years anyway, a large quantity of CO2 has been produced as a result of jet engines, from airplanes, much higher in the atmosphere where it doesn't get as much of an opportunity to recycle, the exhaust just hangs out up there at 35,000 feet.

Now there's a graph I'd like to view for correlation.

That's a hell of a good point. It seems it's been overlooked, or at least hasn't had the attention paid to it that it should have.

How many jet aircraft are in the air at any one time, worldwide? They're always up there, 24/7.

[Graeme]

Glaciers have been shrinking for 18,000 years.


The volume of anthropogenic CO2 and the effects we're seeing do not add up for me. I'm beginning to think that it's not so much the volume of CO2 we put in the atmosphere, but where we put it.

Example - Lots of ICEs were chugging around from 1900 to 1945 or so. There were a couple world wars, etc. - but this was near the surface primarily where it gets greater chance to be recylced.

Since about 1945, for the last 60 years anyway, a large quantity of CO2 has been produced as a result of jet engines, from airplanes, much higher in the atmosphere where it doesn't get as much of an opportunity to recycle, the exhaust just hangs out up there at 35,000 feet.

Now there's a graph I'd like to view for correlation.

I find this observation interesting too. Do you have any further information/data/graph?

[Graeme]

I just did a quick google search for CO2 distribution in atmosphere. Most appears to be concentrated in the polar regions particularly Antarctica. esa
Whereas water vapor is concentrated in equatorial regions. wikipedia
As a preliminary conclusion, I would say that aircraft do not have an affect on the distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere.

[basil_hayden]

The problem is using that logic also says AGW is minimal, as there aren't many cars and industry at the poles....

I was thinking more of a number of jet engines or volume of jet fuel used and co2 conc over time graph...but thanks for the distribution input, I guess it may explain why the polar regions are affected more than other regions.

I'll see what I can find.

[Kez]

Since about 1945, for the last 60 years anyway, a large quantity of CO2 has been produced as a result of jet engines, from airplanes, much higher in the atmosphere where it doesn't get as much of an opportunity to recycle, the exhaust just hangs out up there at 35,000 feet.

According to the science of "Global Dimming", jet engine contrails lower the planet's temperature because microscopic water droplets attach to the particulate matter easily, which then reflect incoming light back out into space. Just google global dimming and read all of that. During September 12th-14th, 2001, when all planes across North America where grounded, conclusive data was finally found to prove the theory.

What this means is that as we pollute less, and remove particulate matter from the air (particles like ash, soot, smoke, pollen, etc.), the earth will heat up even more than it has been.

[Tanada]

I just did a quick google search for CO2 distribution in atmosphere. Most appears to be concentrated in the polar regions particularly Antarctica. esa
Whereas water vapor is concentrated in equatorial regions. wikipedia
As a preliminary conclusion, I would say that aircraft do not have an affect on the distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere.

CO2 in the equatorial regions tends to get absorbed by atmospheric moisture and scrubbed out by rainfall, that doesn't happen over the poles to any great degree so the relative concentration at the poles will always be higher for a given input over time.

[PeakOiler]

Since we were getting off-topic in the 2006 hurricane thread, I thought I'd start this one. Moderators: can you merge the posts made in the 2006 Hurricane thread with this one?

Check out this article: Glacier River Water

Barnett, Adam and Lettenmaier say the most vulnerable region where vanishing glaciers will impact water supplies in the coming decades is China, India and other parts of Asia because of their potential to affect vast populations throughout this region. The ice mass in the mountainous area of this region is the third largest on Earth following Arctic-Greenland and Antarctica .

[coyote]

It's already happening in the Andes, greatly exacerbating the Amazon rainforest drought. This is one of the great creeping crises in the world, one most people aren't aware of -- yet.

There is further concern that drought and low water conditions will only worsen in coming years as more forest is cleared and glaciers in the Andes continue to retreat. Glaciers, which are the source for as much as 50% of the water in the upper Amazon, are fast disappearing in Peru. According to a 1997 study by the Peruvian government, the country's glaciers have shrunk by more than 20% in the past 30 years. Further, the National Commission on Climate Change in Lima projects that Peru will lose all its glaciers below 18,000 feet in elevation in the next decade and possibly all its glaciers within the next 40 years. The impact on the Amazon, when combined with deforestation, could be devastating to the region's climate, water cycle and economy.

Amazon drought extends into second year - Mongabay