ok ... As the title states ... Heres a thread covering ANYTHING people feel they need info on ...

I'll start off ..

Global Warming .. Ok .. We know the Earth goes through periods of "temperature change" and that, debatably, man is helping the planet go through those changes ...

My point is .. Scientist are stating that if, through global warming, the ice-caps melt, sea levels will rise and flood vast tracts of currently habitated lands.

#How have scientists reached this assumption ?

ex: ... Take a large bowl and three quarters fill it with water .. (The earth oceans) ..

Now take a two jugs and scoop out X amount of water, then freeze those jugs overnight ..(North & south pole ice caps) .. The water level obviously drops when you remove the water.


In the morning. Remove from the jugs (somehow) the frozen water and replace back into bowl ..

The water level will return to the same point as when the experiment started regardless of the fact that the water is now frozen..

The weight of the water remains constant so no levels will rise.

Even when the frozen water melts, the levels will NOT rise.

So how do those clever bods reach their conclusions ?

I am, of course, assuming that the weight/mass of the planet remains reasonably constant....






over to you !! ....Hope your've been eating your fish suppers on Friday nights. (Brain food)





Or failing an answer to that ... Any other questions regarding ANYTHING elase ??

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So how do those clever bods reach their conclusions ?

Well... Most of the ice is on land (mountains southpole) not drifting in sea...

But I do wonder; If it get's warmer and more ice melts, wouldn't the aprox. same amount of water vapourise ?

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correct, Seer ... The amount of water floating over our heads is phenominal ...

As regards to water that is on land .. Thats what I meant about the mass of the Earth remaining constant (not just the oceans) Its all pressing down into the sea, after all !!

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Thats what I meant about the mass of the Earth remaining constant (not just the oceans) Its all pressing down into the sea, after all !!

Yes, but you could also reason that the water is lying (Or is it laying ?) on the land (ocean floor).. Try your experiment again by "building a beach", put the ice on the land and let it melt..


Let's try some "art.."

``````___[Ice]___>land/beach"
~~~ -sea level
___|
ocean floor

~[Ice]~________ land/beach/sea level...

_____|
Ocean floor...


edit 2

Darn.. It leaves out the spaces.. the "````" is there to "correct" it....

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Well actually there are several problems here which you both have touched upon above.

It's really a combination of these observations that have given the "experts" reason to debate exactly what will happen.

An increase in evaporation of water gives rise to two camps as to what global warming will lead to.

Some will claim "the melting of polar ice caps" theory while others will claim "the new ice age theory" based on the fact that solar energy inflow will now decrease as the atmosphere thickens.

Which will lead to massive flooding will certainly depend on the area you live in.

As for the melting bit it's more a question of displacement than weight.

I'm sure everyone here would agree that if you submerge a weight in a bathtub you will "displace" an amount of water equal to the "volume" of the weight you have put in.

This is a brilliant way to find out the exact volume of a very irregular object. However it is totally irrespective of the objects weight. This could be copper, steel, gold, aluminum. Different weights same volume.

Going back to the "floating polar ice caps" since only approximately 1/3 of the total volume of the water frozen is "displacing" water one might argue that melting it fill out the rest of the 2/3's.

Problem is that someone mentioned above that frozen ice on land might make a difference here and in areas with enough frozen ice I'm almost certain it would but in the opposite way.

Since glaciers represent a significant weight on the land masses it is widely known that a release of this weight would in fact cause land to rise (as seen in the remains of the last ice ages.)

So in the end a large scale melting of polar and land based ice masses could cause both flooding and landrising in specific locations.

Or the other way around in the case of a new ice age.

In the end your guess is as good as mine.

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This is why I started this thread ..

Some very intelligent, Well thought out prognosis's (is that the right word ?)

Any more input ?

How about ... Is the Earths mass always constant ?

Think about it ...

Boy meets girl .... > Procreation .. More people.. More weight ?

But the "ingredients" (for want of a better word) have been used to make these extra people ... And when other people pass away .... Those peolpe return back to those .... Chemicals.

{ Mass staying same !!

Apart from meteor strikes ... The Mass of the Planet must surely remain constant ?

Over you you !!

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I dont suffer from Insanity - I enjoy it

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And what of all the fossil fuels being consumed? All that thermal energy (matter) being radiated into space.

How does that compare to solar radiation impinging the planet?

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Yeah ... Wow .. This is all getting heavy ;;


lol

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I dont suffer from Insanity - I enjoy it

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"Yeah ... Wow .. This is all getting heavy ;;"

You're probably right there.

The gravitational well created by the earth is a bugger to escape and I don't foresee large amounts of mass leaving this planet short of cataclysmic.

Energy as you all know cannot be destroyed only transformed (I'm not into modern day physics so I'm not 100% certain about that) and we are certainly losing joules of it every day to space.

In short you could say that the planet is cooling (on a planetary scale) and we probably attract more mass to the planet than we send to mars or the moon or whereever.

All in all I see no large changes being made to the planet in the foreseeable future.

What do our astrophysicists say?

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Paging SlimJim !!

Ah .. I think he's an astronomer !!

Oh well ..... Sounds the same.

lol

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Paging SlimJim !!

Ah .. I think he's an astronomer !!


IIRC in PM he did mentione he wrote some books on the subject..

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Everything you say will be misquoted and used against you..
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Quote:

Energy as you all know cannot be destroyed only transformed (I'm not into modern day physics so I'm not 100% certain about that) and we are certainly losing joules of it every day to space.

I'm not really up on modern physics, however AFAIK you're almost right. IIRC energy and matter be converted either way, however in normal conditions this isn't really noticable. I do remember reading somewhere that if you could somehow convert all the matter in a thimbleful of something into energy, you could boil all the oceans with it. How correct this is I don't know, but burning fossil fuels doesn't affect the planet's mass significently if at all - it's essensially a closed system.

Anyone know more than me?

---edit---

I've had a quick look though some sites like this, and while nuclear reactions can convert some matter to energy, I've no idea about standard combustion.

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Quote:

Steff wrote: Some will claim "the melting of polar ice caps" theory while others will claim "the new ice age theory" based on the fact that solar energy inflow will now decrease as the atmosphere thickens.

From a TV show on the BBC (the one about early man serviving the "ice age") I understand that we are still in an ice age, since we still have permenant ice caps? Just a thought

Gemini

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Quote:

The_Editor wrote: Paging SlimJim !! Ah .. I think he's an astronomer !! Oh well ..... Sounds the same. lol

Usually, "astronomer" == "astrophysicist"

I'm no expert in enviromental physics, but I do know
some stuff about planets ...

As an introduction:
The so-called green-house effect that has been so
prominently displayed as [one of] our time's largest
enviromental problems is quite interesting to
discuss. Traditionally, the effect of this warming is
due to an increase of dust and carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere - all due to humanity's irresponsible
burning of dossile fuels etc. Most people know of
this and learns all about it in school

It's quite interesting that in later years, theories
have been put forth that somewhat reduce our
blame in the evidently increasing global
temperature. A Danish scientist (I even met him in
person once) presented (I think it was in the
mid-nineties) a theory that Eartht's climate is
actually more controlled by the sun than we
originally thought. He found a striking resemblance
between the change of the Earth's cloud cover and
the activity of the sun.

(Of course "striking" in scientific circles is
somewhat misleading. Many people have
questioned his findings since - and as is common in
the scientific communities (and in another
community we all love) "camps" emerge having
different opinions on how important this
"cloud-sun" correlation really is.)

Aaanyway, regardless of scientific quabbles, it
is well known that the so-called "small-iceage" that
happened in the mid 16th to 17th century (if I
remember correctly) happened during a period of
unusually low solar activity (the activity can be
gauged by the amount of sunspots, and this they
could observe even back then). This just an
example. Later on several studies have shown the
sun activity to have other influences on the
constant high altitude winds that move the majority
of airmass over the surface of the planet.

Overall the idea of a very influental sun is not so
far-fetched also from an objective point of view - few
consider this, but we are actually right inside
the sun's atmosphere here. The temperature
outside Earth is very, very high (but the
"hot"(or more correctly, energetic) particles are so
dispersed we will still freeze of course).

----------------------

... But you we not asking about that, now where
you? [Scroll,scroll] Sorry. You discussed what
would happen to the oceans or somesuch?

Firstly, Antartica is a continent. A frozen continent,
but still a continent. That means there is solid
ground under the eternal glaciers. I think the same
is true for Grönland (or "Greenland" for the people
who want an english name for an obviously nordic
-named continent).
Melting of these ice-masses alone will most
certainly increase the overall see level of the Earth
as far as I can see. To that comes an increased
flow-out from other land-based glaciers and
mountains. It's true however that the north pole
melting won't affect the water level, since these
ice-bergs are already displacing water as per the
Archimedes principle (actually I wonder if that's
actually strictly true, since ice has a lower density
than water. Hmm...).

Then there is that thing with the Golf stream. An
increased global temperature might stop the salt
"pump" that drives the Golf stream. Without the Golf
stream, England and the Nordes will have a much
colder climate. Sweden is actuall at the same
latitude as Greenland. We would have glaciers here,
just as on Greenland. Ironically, an increased
overall temperature might actually instill a new
Ice-age...

Food for thought.
.
SlimJim

Quote:

The_Editor wrote: This is why I started this thread .. Some very intelligent, Well thought out prognosis's (is that the right word ?) Any more input ? How about ... Is the Earths mass always constant ? Think about it ... Boy meets girl .... > Procreation .. More people.. More weight ? But the "ingredients" (for want of a better word) have been used to make these extra people ... And when other people pass away .... Those peolpe return back to those .... Chemicals. { Mass staying same !! Apart from meteor strikes ... The Mass of the Planet must surely remain constant ? Over you you !!

The mass of the Earth is almost constant. But only
almost. There are two primary sources of mass loss
and one of mass gain (that I can think off - off the
top of my head).

Daily mass loss is caused (mainly) by energetic
hydrogen atoms in our upper atmosphere reaching
escape velocity. Trillions of atoms leave us this way
every moment, but still the total mass is of course
almost completely irrelevant. In the case of Mars,
however the gravity is low enough to have heavier
molcules leave orbit, and is probably one of the
reasons why Mars doesn't have a thick atmosphere
today.
The second source of mass loss is ejection through
meteorite impacts. This is - luckily - a lot less
common, but it has happened in the past and will
happen again. An explosion on the surface (from a
meteorite or why not a nuclear bomb) throws dirt
aqnd stones fast enough to escape the planet
alltogether.

This debris can then hit other planets and become a
source of new material. It has been proven that a lot
of material has been exchanged both ways between
Mars and Earth in the past. Of course all forms of
meorite impacts increase the mass of out planet.

I would say that weighting the loss and gain, Earth
is in fact slowly increasing its mass. After all,
several hundred kilos of space debris hit Earth
every day. If you cdhoose to ignore "meteorite
strikes" we are slowly oozing away however.

-Edit-
... And of course, if we want to be picky, we are
constanly exchanging "weight" in the form of
radiation with our surrounding space (weight and
radiation (or rather energy) is connected to each
other by Einstein's most famous of formulas after
all).
.
SlimJim

Nice replies, SlimJim.

Anyone for anymore "Brain Matter" ??

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I dont suffer from Insanity - I enjoy it

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Quote:

The_Editor wrote: Nice replies, SlimJim. Anyone for anymore "Brain Matter" ??

I'll bite. Here goes: "Why should humanity put
valuable resources into exploring space?"

(I have a very strong opinion and philosophy on
this, but what did you expect? I'm interested to
hear what others think.)
.
SlimJim

... and for the record, I still think Top ten
members should be measured by word count and
not silly things such as number of posts ...
.
SlimJim

Well, for one, we are an expanding species (theoretically), When were not exterminating each other that is ...

The Earth only has X amount of resources that are useful to our existance and as such, there must come a time when those resources, in their current, natural, ie: non waste format, become depleted.

We need to search for new vistas, squash new monsters, and .. Make space a safe place for the human race....

Sorry, Got carried away with my Captain Kremen impression.

Seriously though.. An alternative abode for our species woul;d be highly desirable as we never know if/ when something of a extinction level, threatens our planet.



Of course .. It would be kewl to meet any other intergalactic specie as well. (We come in peace ... shoot to kill )

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I dont suffer from Insanity - I enjoy it

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"Why should humanity put
valuable resources into exploring space?"

Thats gotta be a trick question right?

Granted there might be a few (maybe even more than a few) areas where mankind should concentrate it's efforts rather than in space exploration but honestly Slim (you should have at least an idea) on a scale of 1-10 how much resources are wasted in space exploration (not counting efforts made in purely commercial endeavors such as satelite technology) compared to any other totally useless ettempts at self annihialation such as warring amongst ourselves.

If the exploitation of space wasn't more than just a hobby for a few then Slim Jim would be probably have a significantly larger pay check than what he has today (thats without knowing in least what he makes )

Having said that, I think it is as valuable to make the leap into space as is any other research done on the face of this planet.

We have far to go before we have a complete understanding of the universe and how it works and these are all fundamental for our understanding of our own private universe here on earth.

Specifically I would imagine we could learn more of just these things we have discussed in this thread.

Ice age or no? Are these changes "natural" or "man made"? Can we learn something of our planet by observing it from a distance?

We speak of genetic differentiation these days and it's impoverisation for mainly economic reasons.
What if we could find DNA on other planets? Wouldn't that add a few wrinkles to genetic engineering?

Depleted resources? This voracious race of ours couldn't use up all the available resources in our puny galaxy in the next 10 million years no matter how hard it tried (I won't make any solid bets on that one though! )

Then there is the space of course. Living in sweden I get used to lots of space and I don't think we should crowd all that much in the future.
I don't think we'll have any big success suggesting celibacy on a large scale? People like to have their fun, it seems.

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