The only thing I try and debunk is that the science on this particular subject is "settled". The thread title and my accompanying comments in OP were more of an omage to the old thread than anything else. I expected ale and soulfly to bitch and moan like little women. Watching shocker and OHW fall over themselves was a bit of a surprise, though.
Massive amounts of fresh water, glacial melt pouring into Gulf of Alaska 03/19/2015 CORVALLIS, Ore. – Incessant mountain rain, snow and melting glaciers in a comparatively small region of land that hugs the southern Alaska coast and empties fresh water into the Gulf of Alaska would create the sixth largest coastal river in the world if it emerged as a single stream, a recent study shows. Since it’s broken into literally thousands of small drainages pouring off mountains that rise quickly from sea level over a short distance, the totality of this runoff has received less attention, scientists say. But research that’s more precise than ever before is making clear the magnitude and importance of the runoff, which can affect everything from marine life to global sea level. The collective fresh water discharge of this region is more than four times greater than the mighty Yukon River of Alaska and Canada, and half again as much as the Mississippi River, which drains all or part of 31 states and a land mass more than six times as large. “Freshwater runoff of this magnitude can influence marine biology, nearshore oceanographic studies of temperature and salinity, ocean currents, sea level and other issues,” said David Hill, lead author of the research and an associate professor in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University. “This is an area of considerable interest, with its many retreating glaciers,” Hill added, “and with this data as a baseline we’ll now be able to better monitor how it changes in the future.” The findings were reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, by Hill and Anthony Arendt at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. It was supported by the North Pacific Research Board. This is one of the first studies to accurately document the amount of water being contributed by melting glaciers, which add about 57 cubic kilometers of water a year to the estimated 792 cubic kilometers produced by annual precipitation in this region. The combination of glacial melt and precipitation produce an amount of water that’s larger than many of the world’s great rivers, such as the Ganges, Nile, Volga, Niger, Columbia, Danube or Yellow River. “By combining satellite technology with on-the-ground hydraulic measurements and modeling, we’re able to develop much more precise information over a wider area than ever before possible,” Hill said. The data were acquired as an average of precipitation, glacial melting and runoff over a six-year period, from 2003 to 2009. Knocked down in many places by steep mountains, the extraordinary precipitation that sets the stage for this runoff averages about 6 feet per year for the entire area, Hill said, and more than 30 feet in some areas. The study does not predict future trends in runoff, Hill said. Global warming is expected in the future, but precipitation predictions are more variable. Glacial melt is also a variable. A warmer climate would at first be expected to speed the retreat of existing glaciers, but the amount of water produced at some point may decrease as the glaciers dwindle or disappear. Additional precision in this study was provided by NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE satellites, which can make detailed measurements of gravity and, as one result, estimate the mass of glaciers they are flying over. As the glacial mass decreases over time, the amount of melted water that was produced can be calculated. The close agreement of land-based measurements also help confirm the accuracy of those made from space, a point that will be important for better global understanding of water stored in a high-altitude environment. Some of the processes at work are vividly illustrated at Glacier Bay National Park, where some of the most rapidly retreating glaciers in the world are visited each year by hundreds of thousands of tourists, many on cruise ships.
The unfortunate thing for America, and the Earth, is that the US has a such a corrupt political system that it will be awhile for the US to actually be able to employ LCOE across the different power sources. Until campaign finance is fixed, both the left and right will be buying politicians to skew both sides of the energy battle. While there are sunsets for renewable energy subsidies, the billions of dollars that subsidize fossil fuels will be around quite awhile thanks to the Kochs, and they will continue to portrayed as the "best and cheapest" options.
haven't been on in a few days what's up oh chatch is making a complete fool of himself-- again *close browser*
I'm no climate scientist but it just makes sense to me that we're going to have a potentially serious effect on world climate in the future if we aren't already doing so now. The way the world has changed in the past 100 years alone is incredible. How anyone could look at that and not extrapolate lasting climate effects in the long term is beyond me.
Catch is an environmentalist at heart, he just has to disguise it in #hottakes not be shunned by fellow R's
Not only that but moving away from finite resources just seems to make sense as well. Petroleum based products are abundant and super useful. Why would we burn up most of that resource when we could use it for hundreds of years to make plastics and other useful shit? Same with coal and natural gas.
It's as if there are some major players involved that stand to lose a lot of money if their respective industries were shifted from #1 to a lesser priority. Luckily for us, our government wouldn't let those players maintain control of the future of our nation.
threads like these are similar to the penn state investigation threads i have no idea who is serious and who is trolling and it drives me crazy
Here is where I'm very much in agreement. Give me a cogent 30 year plan for eliminating our dependence on foreign oil, developing cost-effective renewable energy, and reducing pollution to acceptable levels and I'm all for it....because we should want to live on a planet that isn't one big trash pile, surrounded by polluted water, not because I think that we have somehow managed to drastically alter the earth's climate to the point where the oceans are going to rise us and swallow us whole after super hurricanes destroy coastal cities while mass extinction and starvation drives us to eat each other, in order to survive the following ice age.
My current full size SUV is a flex fuel. I'll likely keep it for skiing trips and buy something that gets 30+ as an every day driver. I'm doing my part to keep Miami above water.
I love it when people argue against moving completely to renewables by saying "Well, renewables will still require traditional power sources during their production!" How fucking stupid can you be. Yes, production at this time is still going to require fossil fuels. But as more and more is produced and as technology advances, less and less will rely on fossil fuels. And even if industry is so power hungry that it still has to use traditional power generation, having homes, small and medium sized businesses, and all the cars off of fossil fuels will have a HUGE impact.
Represent.Us just put out a YouTube video that better describes why we are nowhere near getting to LCOE for power sources.
It's a shame we lost soulfly 's finest hour in the crash. All he had to do was just sit there while TheChatch initiated his self-destruct sequence.
Oh hey guys, TheChatch is dumb as fuck http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/n...ca-s-larsen-b-ice-shelf-nearing-its-final-act NASA Study Shows Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice Shelf Nearing Its Final Act A new NASA study finds the last remaining section of Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf, which partially collapsed in 2002, is quickly weakening and likely to disintegrate completely before the end of the decade. A team led by Ala Khazendar of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, found the remnant of the Larsen B Ice Shelf is flowing faster, becoming increasingly fragmented and developing large cracks. Two of its tributary glaciers also are flowing faster and thinning rapidly. "These are warning signs that the remnant is disintegrating," Khazendar said. "Although it’s fascinating scientifically to have a front-row seat to watch the ice shelf becoming unstable and breaking up, it’s bad news for our planet. This ice shelf has existed for at least 10,000 years, and soon it will be gone." Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf is likely to shatter into hundreds of icebergs before the end of the decade, according to a new NASA study. Credits: NSIDC/Ted Scambos Ice shelves are the gatekeepers for glaciers flowing from Antarctica toward the ocean. Without them, glacial ice enters the ocean faster and accelerates the pace of global sea level rise. This study, the first to look comprehensively at the health of the Larsen B remnant and the glaciers that flow into it, has been published online in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Khazendar's team used data on ice surface elevations and bedrock depths from instrumented aircraft participating in NASA's Operation IceBridge, a multiyear airborne survey campaign that provides unprecedented documentation annually of Antarctica's glaciers, ice shelves and ice sheets. Data on flow speeds came from spaceborne synthetic aperture radars operating since 1997. Khazendar noted his estimate of the remnant's remaining life span was based on the likely scenario that a huge, widening rift that has formed near the ice shelf's grounding line will eventually crack all the way across. The free-floating remnant will shatter into hundreds of icebergs that will drift away, and the glaciers will rev up for their unhindered move to the sea. Located on the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Larsen B remnant is about 625 square miles (1,600 square kilometers) in area and about 1,640 feet (500 meters) thick at its thickest point. Its three major tributary glaciers are fed by their own tributaries farther inland. "What is really surprising about Larsen B is how quickly the changes are taking place," Khazendar said. "Change has been relentless." The remnant's main tributary glaciers are named Leppard, Flask and Starbuck -- the latter two after characters in the novel Moby Dick. The glaciers' thicknesses and flow speeds changed only slightly in the first couple of years following the 2002 collapse, leading researchers to assume they remained stable. The new study revealed, however, that Leppard and Flask glaciers have thinned by 65-72 feet (20-22 meters) and accelerated considerably in the intervening years. The fastest-moving part of Flask Glacier had accelerated 36 percent by 2012 to a flow speed of 2,300 feet (700 meters) a year -- comparable to a car accelerating from 55 to 75 mph. Flask's acceleration, while the remnant has been weakening, may be just a preview of what will happen when the remnant breaks up completely. After the 2002 Larsen B collapse, the glaciers behind the collapsed part of the shelf accelerated as much as eightfold – comparable to a car accelerating from 55 to 440 mph. The third and smallest glacier, Starbuck, has changed little. Starbuck's channel is narrow compared with those of the other glaciers, and strongly anchored to the bedrock, which, according to authors of the study, explains its comparative stability. "This study of the Antarctic Peninsula glaciers provides insights about how ice shelves farther south, which hold much more land ice, will react to a warming climate," said JPL glaciologist Eric Rignot, a coauthor of the paper. The research team included scientists from JPL, the University of California, Irvine, and the University Centre in Svalbard, Norway. The paper is online at: http://go.nasa.gov/1bbpfsC
Obvious liberal bias who took the grant funds for the profits and probably made up all their data. Need to get a good, wholesome O&G group to do the actual research
good thing Ted Cruz is fighting to defund this kind of research at NASA because earth sciences aren't "real science"