Wait for it.

The chorus from the Climate Change deniers: 'THIS IS A NATURAL PROCESS! THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING!'

When this baby goes, the rest of the ice sheets in Antarctica will rapidly follow. And when all that ice is melting in the rapidly warming oceans, there WILL be a rise in world sea levels. A big one!

Not to mention the ensuing methane release. (hi Kem!)

ooooooooooooh sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet...............

And the debaters of all this in coastal cities may need to shift their planned meetings to plan the meetings about the meetings after the other meetings INLAND.

What will they say when the Greenland Ice sheet falls into the Atlantic and sea levels rise by 20 ft in a couple of weeks?

The sacremento valley in California is only 25ft above sea level. Bangkok with its 10M inhabitants is only a foot or so above. Manhattan, miami.

got refugees?...

I've got a beach house for sale. Any takers?

Wilkins is essentially gone. It's one more milestone, albeit a big one.

We will miss its reflectivity sending sunlight back into space.

The real global warming/methane danger for this generation is not the ocean permanently rising 25 feet, but a 25 foot or 38 foot tidal surge from a really huge hurricane. NYC and Washington DC are going to be somewhat vulnerable. Miami is a bowling pin watching the bowling balls roll to the left and the right -- sort of like Barack Obama bowling. Bertha was a historically early Category 3 hurricane, but it's a gutter ball for sure, so whew! Next?

"This is nature speaking. Don't confuse me with the corporate market".

There is more at stake in this situation than rising sea levels, although that in itself is a major disaster. With the breaking up and melting of these ice sheets, there will follow - how soon we don't know - a slowing and eventual stoppage of the gulfstream, which flows up and warms the north Atlantic area on both sides of this ocean. This is what has enabled the British Isles to be so much warmer than land masses at that latitude would normally be. Look for an ice age to descend on lands at the upper latitudes, and mass migrations to lower latitudes. I leave it to your imaginations to consider the ensuing population and resource disasters. This isn't speculation, it's science.

The Antarctic ice sheet is losing as much as 36 cubic miles of ice a year. In 2002, Antarctica's 1,255-square-mile Larsen B ice shelf broke off, broke up, and melted away in just 35 days. Without the buttress of the ice shelf to anchor them and lubricated by floating on an ever increasing sea of meltwater, nearby glaciers are now flowing into the sea eight times faster than before. Since 1974, 5,213 square miles of ice shelves have disintegrated in the Antarctic Peninsula. The continent holds 90% of the world's ice, and the disappearance of even its smaller West Antarctic ice sheet could raise worldwide sea levels by an estimated 20 feet. One meter of sea level rise in just the lower 48 United States would put about 25,000 square miles under water, with thousands more rendered unarable due to infiltration of seawater into the water table. Ice is more reflective than water — nine times more reflective; ice reflects 80% of incoming solar radiation back into space; blue water absorbs 80% of the sun's heat. More than 100 million people live on land within one meter of sea level. New York City is 33 feet above sea level, Dublin 29, Boston is 10.

APOCALYPSE NOW!

Some quick links for those not too depressed about this yet:
Max sea rise potential USGS estimate:
http://www.smith.edu/libraries/research/class/idp108USGS_99.pdf

sorry for the multi-posts. slow moderation today...

LEFTSAILOR

re: your beach house. yes i'm interested............where is it? the himalayas?

We're at 6,000 feet. Don't need an ark but the methane will get us for sure.

When the Anarctic thaws, sea levels will rise over 250 feet. And there is a cold water river that ran from southern Anartica to northern Alaska, it has already altered course. That cold undersea river kept the methane in the ocean's floor beds up there stable for the past five billion years. Oh-oh.

KEM PATRICK

well, i thought you had given up the ghost............i'm going to go out with my tape measure over the weekend and see how many feet i'm above sea level. depending on the results, i might just change my insurance policy. what do you mean by the river altered course? is it like the nile river? does it have anything to do with the magnetic fields? are we well and truly buggered?

K E M,

Perhaps you've read that the _ M E T H A N E _ burp is a LIKELY cause of Humongous tsunami waves, as the fireball of ignited ( by lightning ) methane cloud will billow an extreme set of many waves,
that might even make it all the way into Arizona ( depending where the Methane "cuts loose" at ).

Devilish "farts" they be, sea level is hardly a constraint here, perhaps several thousand feet high is "safe".

Namaste « Presence »

I must have missed the part where it stated that the Antarctic (and Greenland) ice sheets are actually GROWING, no shrinking! But then these articles are always long on scare tactics and short on facts.

Hi there ~COCO~, I been fishing again, seven nice rainbows and three small mouth bass.

I take it "buggered" is a polite form of the word FUCKED? Or as the Limey's may say ,"Get Stuffed". We may be buggered, stuffed, and fucked. Most scientists by far have been saying "fifty to a hundred years" until this year. Now they are very concerned that we may have passed the "Tipping Point" several years hence. ___ Or is it hance?

You don't have to use a tape measure Babe, just ask your local tourist bureau what's up?
Very seriously, we humans have a massive world-wide problem that is the most serious issue humanity has faced since Noah in Yiddish yelled out, "All Aboard". ___ So let us All argue about McCain, Obama, Hillary and the falling WTC buildings.

Only even with Noah, methane was not an issue. It is now and it is difficult for me to maintain my sense of humor about it. If we still do have a chance, We either stop burning coal and fossil fuels, or our next generation is shit out of luck. Which is a shame and a crime. ___ We'll see soon enough.

Hi there ~GEO 522~, you incredible idiot. Don't you realize it is people such as yourself who have caused the issue to be controversial? You and others such as yourself have caused so much damage.

What you just posted is a damn lie too. Why do you insist on doing that, don't you care about the children? Are you an evil Geek, or are you actually an idiot as I suggest. Maybe all three?

Oh ~COCO~, "in layman's terminology". That undersea cold water river in the Pacific ocean is very much like the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. Millions of gallons an hour of icy cold water flow northward from Antartica from miles beneath that melting ice shelf. The Brisish have been studying it for about ten years now. It is very important for our normal world climate patterns. The "river" has altered it's normaml course due to the melt-down of the ice shelf.

~GEO 522~ or anyone who denies global warming and the methane ___"BURPS".___ Please read this three minute to read article in the link I will post here and tell me why the author is incorrect.

BTW, the well written article was first published in 2003 and we were warned.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html.

For any who may feel that I am "overly rude" with my blunt comments directed at ~GEO 522~, please allow me to explain my reasons.

~GEO 522~ is a constant denier of global warming here at Common Dreams and totally ignores the current credible evidence of scientists such as ~Michael J. Benton~, who is a distinguished vertebrate paleontologist. He has warned us that what occurred in the Permian extinction of life, is due to occur once again if we do not put an immediate end to our burning fossil fuels, especially coal.

World-wide, human activity annually emmits as much Co-2 into our atmosphere as that of 17,000 active volcanoes, the size of Hawaii's Kilauea and that began just 200 some years ago with the advent of our industrial age and it has accellerated annually ever since it first began.

Currently, the Arctic's methane is releasing, and once that begins in ernest, "there is no turning back, no do-overs", as the author of the article in the link I posted states. He is a world renouned geologist who is highly respected by his peers. ~GEO 522~ disagrees with them and other scientists and climatologists and I stand by my opinion that ~GEO~ is a very harmful idiot.

Kem - Anyone who is still a Climate Change denier by this late date (Geo522 as example) is either a paid shill or brain-damaged.

G A L E N,

Please see my rebuttal to a similar recent comment _here_

Namaste « Presence »

G A L E N, __________________ Calling pro-truth seekers "conspiracy theorists" is an equivalent Ad Hominem fallacy of illogic, as calling skeptics of man caused Global Warming "contrarians" or deniers.

I usually find your comments agreeable, but this branding of deniers is just too much.
I been over this until KEM will barely converse with me, and as a scientist, I must tell you that you are acting quite non-objective.

Initially, you conflagrate general Global Warming ( which is factual ), with the assumed consensus paradigm of man caused Global Warming

You irresponsibly group all opponents of the consensus viewpoint as "either a paid shill or brain-damaged."

There is more truth out there then fits into your idea of reality, and you are far outside of the circle of real science, when attacking people who hold different views and beliefs. You are playing a superflicial wanna-be scientists role, and don't have the requisite practice, skills, and rigor.

G A L E N,

¿ So please do go ahead and prove to me how this dude is such as you suggest ?THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE

Namaste « Presence »
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world » — Gandhi
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed » — Gandhi
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King

VERACITY

well, i've just done a search for this jeffrey a glassman and really didn't find anything concrete apart from the 'under construction' website which sounded like a lot of gobbledegook to me. i think he's bogus and his ideas. but i did find a rather interesting and amusing blog at the following:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2029841/posts

KEM PATRICK

hence, and henceforth we are buggered, screwed, fucked, stuffed and up shit creek without a paddle.............take a look at this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7503060.stm

I had no idea you were a "climatologist" scientist, or a geologist ~Namasate~. You are defending ~GEO 522~, ~MiMiCcS~ and the other global warming denyers? If so, I'm truly sorry to see that you fit the mold of an idiot also.

The general consensus of almost every climatic scientists and geologist on Earth is, the current global warming and Greenhouse effect is caused by humanity. If you deny that, please do argue the words of the authors of the two links I have offered here and state your expert "scientific" reasoning.

BTW, it does not require scientific training to fully understand the words of scientists who have spent their entire adult lives studying a specific subject. So for you to chide or condemn ~Galen~ for not being a scientist and for stating the obvious about ~GEO 522~ is rather amusing. ___ Not funny, amusing.

I do find it a bit strange, that a working "scientist" has so much free time available, to post a hundred or more comments a week here at Common Dreams and offer such a wide spectrum of opinions that are always so expert, so profound and so full of perfect logic and advice, and also often offer links that don't display a great deal of common sense. ___ Funny. Not ha-ha funny however.

Thank you for posting that link about the Arctic thaw ~COCO~, it sure makes ~GEO 522~ look as foolish as he/she is. Any comments there, ~Verasity~, ~Presence~, ~Namaste~? Whichever name you may choose, this fine warm day.

I'm sure you have some more eloquent words to offer us undereducated knaves.

Oops, Here is the other link for you to argue ~Namaste~.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080423_methane.html

"In the past three decades, six Antarctic ice shelves have collapsed completely — Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf."

This Wilikins shelf seems to be just one more in a long line of warming events largely ignored. Just move along folks. Nothing to see, nothing out of the ordinary here. Please just move along ... maybe go shopping ...

See? Nothing to worry about. All is well in the realm. Climate change is not real. Denial is bliss. War is Peace.

veracity said: "G A L E N, ¿ So please do go ahead and prove to me how this dude is such as you suggest ? THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE"

From the article you posted: "Vostok data support an entirely new model. Atmospheric CO2 is absorbed by the oceans. Fires, volcanoes, and now man deposit CO2 into the atmosphere, but those effects are transient. What exists in steady state is CO2 perpetually pumped into the atmosphere by the oceans. Atmospheric CO2 is a dynamic stream, from the warm ocean and back into the cool ocean.
Public policy represented by the Kyoto Accords and the efforts to reduce CO2 emissions should be scrapped as wasteful, unjustified, and futile."

No one denies that the ocean's effect on CO2 concentrations may eventually 're-right' the system that has been 'transiently' pulled apart by anthropogenic CO2. The climate may eventually settle down to normal... a thousand years from now.

But, one of the consequences of this 'transient' climate anomaly is that, in the interim, sea levels may rise by 20ft or so. That would result in the permanent extinction of a whole lot of 'transient' humans, for no reason than that we lacked the fortitude to act when we needed to. I find a HUGE disconnect between the first paragraph I excised from your article, and the second one.

GEO 522 is a troll, he just comes here to piss people off, looks like it's working!
What bothers me is all the enviromental news posted here comes from Europe. The US press ignores these stories and keeps the sheeple without computer access ignorant of the dire straits we find ourselves in. Now nothing will be done thanks to shrub for 6-7 more months. Now that's scary!

Well ~UMBREW 12~ evidently you don't agree with the links I posted or the link COCO posted. All of those scientists are wrong in your opinion.

well I bleieve you are very wrong and that sea levels will rise well over 20 feet, more like 220 feet. However we won't likely be here to witness that because the methane will have done it's work long before that occurs.

Now I would really appreciate it if you would address what is written in those links and explain why those authors are incorrect. The Co2 we humans have been for the past 200 years and currently are pumping into the atmoshpere is not natural and mother nature cannot handle it as was designed. Your entire post is nonsense and not based upon the proven evidence.

Y E S , _ I _ A M _ A T T E M P T I N G _ T O _ B E _ O B J E C T I V E,

Perhaps it's your own lack of clarity, objectivity, and training -- that makes for the AUTHORITARIAN appeal to "THE" consensus of MAN's CAUSATION -- that I sincerely question.

( 1.) Did you miss that part of my accepting Global Climate change, but not being convinced of human causation ?

( 2.) Did you miss that part ( also shown in the figure posted by COCO ) of the 1000 year delay in the FACTUAL historic record between temperature rise OCCURRING _B_E_F_O_R_E_

the RISE of CO2?I guess the concept of causation is left to the biggies to figure out, and you folks don't find it odd that the CART appears ( to me and others ) to be in front of the HORSE ?

I do not deny the _p o s s i b i l i t y_ that all of the hundreds of thousands of years of homeostatic observed ACTUAL historic data has been swamped out by the last 100 years of human dominated ( relative increases ) environmental abuses.

The article I posted goes into much detail that appears quite authentic to me, about how naturally occurring RELATIVELY MUCH LARGER increases in CO2, have not caused any similar to "predicted" major perturbation in global temperature ( through run away positive feedback ).

An honest review of that article would also discover two severely DAMAGING OBSERVATIONs:☆_1_☆ That the gathering of historic CO2 from the equatorial regions ( Mona Kea data sets ), and

☆_2_☆ That the gathering of historic CO2 from the polar regions
B_O_T_H suffer from massive data biases due to the natural cycle of CO2 uptake into the COOLER polar oceans, while the OPPOSITE effect occurs in warmer equatorial regions with the release of CO2 from the ocean back into the air.

This means that the VOSTOK Antarctica data is BIASED lower than actual "average" concentrations measured elsewhere assuming well mixed atmosphere, while the opposite is true for Equatorial Mona Kea data being BIASED higher than the actual "average" concentrations measured elsewhere assuming well mixed atmosphere.

( 3.) The scientific "consensus" reality can be hoodwinked in the short run, especially with the strict control of DIRECTED funding for larger research efforts ALL coming from gov't feeding troughs. The sheer arrogance to suggest that any one that that doesn't 100% kowtow to this pseudo-"consensus"-reality -- is a hidden 'ad hominem' logical fallacy ( just like calling 9_!_! pro-TRUTH movement folks "conspiracy nuts", deniers, and contrarians.)

( 4.) No I'm not a climatologist, but I can read a scientific paper, and strive to see the bigger picture regardless of what I'm lead to think ( especially when done that way ).

I post a lot here on CD, alternating between searching for a job _ K E M _.

( 5.) There is no real evidence YET, of the run away "positive feedback" impacts, that the scare tactics are using to ride people into a desired mind set. Of course there is a lot of melting coming on, and that is scary AND REAL. But why is it occurring ?

( 6.) If you want FEAR to rule your lives, go ahead, and accept the "science" as gospel truth, while the reality is that many scientists are not convinced, have no vested interest in OIL companies, and that the "consensus reality" has been again and again been proven to be susceptible to manipulation for corrupt and illicit means.

( 7.) Perhaps some of you might argue how The Catholic Church was correct, when all of the world's scientists were arrayed against Galileo ?

Or that bu$h!t and dark_dick were honest in reacting /\_not_causing_9_!_!_/\ and manipulating the American public to agree to attacking two innocent & Sovereign country's ?

Fool me once shame on … { me } …
… ya can't fool me agin …Namaste « Presence »

No I didn't miss that you question humanity is causing the current global warming and Geo totally denies it and that was my point.

You failed to address the links I posted ___ as usual.

I do not post my opinions here on this subject, I refer to the scientists who state with authority that humanity is causing the current global warming and they have well proven that is a fact.

Your's and GEO's and MiMICCS's opinions on the other hand about the subject are not well founded and are in disagreement with the world's very best climate and geological scientists.

You therefore are a problem and only help to cause uncertanty in people's minds and that helps to prevent anything prosductive being done to correct the most serious issue humanity faces.

__ K E M __,

Well, that's not too bad actually, as I've had worse Bush's War on Veracity

Sorry to inform yaall, but this is a natural occurrence which happens probably ever twenty million years or so. It is the earths way of protecting itself from flipping sideways due to so much weight at north and south poles combined with centrifugal force.
Humans helped but nothing can be done, mother nature will have her way.

No need to apologize to us for informing us all and writing stupidity ~Damien~. You'd better let everyone know that information and show how smart you are.

God, where do they come from?

I see you're not gonna address those links ~VERACITY~. That's your way anymore, a closet denier who writes a lot of nonsense and detracts from the issue.

__ K E M __,

I'll check out your links.

Have you ever heard of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem ?

KIVALS said last year ( June 14th, 2007 10:59 am )

[ Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem] that says that for any non-trivial logic such as the propositional calculus no finite set of rules will answer all questions that may be posed, so any rule-based system in which the programmer provides all the rules, such as what you seemed to describe, would be inadequate. That is why any robust AI system for handling a similar set of problems must have the ability to create its own rules based on learning, and that would almost certainly require the implementation of some sort of system of probabilistic logic.

In simpler terms, this means that within a self-consistent theory or "box", that there are always truths that can never be proven TRUE, unless that "box" or theory is opened up to a larger size. But then, the same idea perpetuates itself into each successively larger "box".

Therefore, the consensus global warming theory has a blind side of certain truths, that although not possible to prove true at this level, are nonetheless capable of being proven true when placed into a larger "box".

Namaste « Presence »

~NAMASTE~ NO, I have not heard of Godel, is he/she a climatologist or a geologist?

Have you ever heard by burning fossil fuels, humanity annually emits as much Co2 into the atmosphere as 17,000 volcanos the size of Hawaii's Kilaueu?

Have you ever seen the current satellite photos of the Arctic ice melt? It very well may all be gone within two to three years.

Do you know that the methane in the Arctic has been safely frozen in the perma-frost for millions of years and when it escapes because of thawing, it will insure the world temperatures will climb by over ten degrees and then global warming will be so dramatic that the methane in the oceans will also escape into the atmosphere.

When the methane which is now "safe" in the ocean's floor beds does "burp" out, all life will be eradicated within hours, down to the microbal level, with only bacteria and some deep sea life left alive. That may occur within five to seven years also.

Have you ever heard of ~Michael J. Benton~? Doctor Benton is a distinguished vertebrate paleontologist, who states that what is currently occurring from our burning fossil fuels, occurred previously in Earth's history and nearly all life died withnin hours.

That massive die off was in the Permian era, when the ocean's methane "burped out" into the atmosphere. That time the excess Co2 in the atmosphere and resulting global warming was caused by massive volcanic eruptions, which were likely caused by a strike of a huge asteroid, which in turn caused the earthquakes to commense eruptions.

All of that theory has been proven by examination of dirt, rocks, an inch thick layer of sediment which is found at the same level around the globe and came from volcanic activity, fossils and bones from that time frame and I'm not about to argue with Doctor Benton, or Doctor Atcheson and the hundreds of other qualified scientists who agree totally with them . You may if it so suits you, it's still a free country.

Do you disagree with those comments, like some of the idiots who have posted crazy comments here? If so, ~NAMASTE~, you are arguing with obvious facts and the warnings of the most highly qualified scientists on the planet, ___ not ME or MY words.

Knock yourslf out, and post some more gibberish that has no bearing whatsoever on the issue, but is only written to confuse and detract so yu cna satisfy yourself for some reason unknown to me. I find it so sad to see you write such comments, in an obvious "attempt" to display superior knowledge. ___ It's very sad.

Oh, I forgot. In that same time frame of the Permian era, there is a half inch thick layer of a rare element found around the globe, which is normally only found in some asteroids.

There was a massive asteroid which struck the Earth, massive volcanic activity began and life was soon after obliterated. Pretty neat science investigating huh? ___ Tell em they are wrong.

Just love that Hillary made famous word, "obliterate". She should have been the Demo's nominee.

What happened ~VERACITY~? I see you've been posting several comments on a thread that's been buried in the archives for two days.

Oh I'd suggest you don't just take a look at those links. Study them and get more educated on the subject, it is an importnt issue. Can't think of any that are more, or even as serious.

KEM,

I don't use the "archives".

I open each day's new postings as TABs, and then store all those TABs as a folder ( with the proper date ) -- to create my own ( more accessible ) version of CD archives.

Each days' bookmark collection, can be opened all at once.

P.S. I know of the similar asteroid's iridium and K-T ( aka C-T ) boundary layer from 65 million yr ago, which also either triggered or made worse the massive volcanism ( and extinctions ) of that time. And that was just a "little" Mt of rock and metal, compared to what is "out there"

Computer modelling of climate change and melting is not predicting the rapid rate of warming and ice sheet break up. Before we were complaining the models were too pessimistic. Now we will have to complain they were too optimistic. So the G8 leaders think they might start doing something by 2050? Wow. Climate change is rushing on its way already, aiming for infinity, and the human race is still on the starters block.

~Namaste~, the 'similar' one YOU KNOW about, is the same one I referred to. Well as usual, I see you won't address those links I posted and in a few minutes this thread will be buried. You are fully aware that once a thread is buried in the C/D archives, it is buried. Well, perhaps we will have an opportunity to debate this important issue again someday.

~ K E M ~

You nicely stated "Oh I'd suggest you don't just take a look at those links. Study them and get more educated on the subject, it is an importnt issue. Can't think of any that are more, or even as serious."

I suppose it was impolite for me not to acknowledge that "offer", and explain that I've been doing much more than focusing solely on this issue.

Perhaps when Yellowstone CALDERA erupts in 3 or 4 years, you'll reconsider that there are other issues, that might just "possibly" swamp out methane gas ?

I suggest that when I say I'm going to look into them, that you consider that my word is good enough w/o addition chastising from you about ARCHIVES.

There are going to be 3-5 articles every week about the human caused Global Climate change, so I don't see the relevance of rushing to respond to this one.

Your passion is admirable, but overall perspective is also a virtue, and convincing people is a VERY slow process.

Consider that the anxiety you sustain, may not be the most effective method or approach, because I'd rather have a healthier KEM here longer to discuss important issues …

By way of example:Did you ever realize that those people who really want to EAT a LOT,

should consider not eating as much each meal,

as that adds years to their lives,

so that they can overall EAT MORE food …

Uh-huh, sure.

Once more in case you msssed it, it is not my opinions that matter. I quote the opinions and scientific evidence of those who know the score. You argue with me and refuse to address their opinions and instead often belittle me for what I post here, saying things like you just wrote. I don't give a rip if you reply to those articles now or later or ever.