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Post by acidohm on Sept 9, 2015 17:50:54 GMT
Does anyone know if a study has been done on whether ice breaking in the Arctic contributes in a significant way to melting in the summer? Walt Meir, no denier he, has pooh poohed the idea, saying the increase in albedo (from the open water wake) would be minimal. But what about breaking up the ice? Especially in June and early July, wouldn't that cause more melt because smaller, broken pieces will melt faster than larger, stable ones when exposed to direct sunlight and the warmer open water? Anyone know how many icebreakers are plying the Arctic in the summer? Does it matter? I Doubt they'd ever tell us phydeaux, if icebreakers did affect the ice mass as a whole likelihood is there would be more out there then would be admitted to running 24/7, satellite guided for maximum efficiency!!
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Post by nonentropic on Sept 9, 2015 18:57:22 GMT
I don't know the answer to the question of impact of ice breakers, but the polar region is massive and half a dozen boats going flat out in ice covered sea which is pushed and pulled by wind and currents in every direction is probably trivial.
Go into the dessert in Australia and consider the chance of crossing a tire track once you are deep in. Its statistically zero. Australian central region is dwarfed by the arctic.
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Post by phydeaux2363 on Sept 9, 2015 19:54:32 GMT
Thanks, Messrs. acid and tropic. What you say is kind of what the "experts" have opined. It's too trivial to have a noticeable effect. It was interesting that one wag opined that the bigger impact would be from the CO2 produced in the diesel engine exhaust of the icebreakers. Funny guy. By the by, aren't a lot of the big Russian icebreakers powered by nukes?
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Post by Andrew on Sept 10, 2015 5:04:17 GMT
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Post by nautonnier on Sept 10, 2015 13:56:55 GMT
Thanks, Messrs. acid and tropic. What you say is kind of what the "experts" have opined. It's too trivial to have a noticeable effect. It was interesting that one wag opined that the bigger impact would be from the CO2 produced in the diesel engine exhaust of the icebreakers. Funny guy. By the by, aren't a lot of the big Russian icebreakers powered by nukes? I am not sure that is true. If the ice is broken up by icebreakers taking tourists (aka scientists) to the pole etc. and that is followed by a storm then the ice will be broken up and pushed/compacted by the storm far more readily than if it was a solid ice sheet. Similarly icebreakers transiting close to the coast can break the 'land anchor' of ice sheets resulting in them drifting away in a way that would not have occurred in the absence of the icebreaker. I would think that the impact is most when the ice is at or approaching summer minimum and air temperatures are still above ~270K with sea water still not freezing. As with any chaotic system the butterfly wing of the icebreakers might have a larger impact than expected.
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Post by phydeaux2363 on Sept 10, 2015 15:50:39 GMT
Interesting post, Mr. Nautonnier. Do you have any studies you can direct me to which discuss your theory?
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Post by acidohm on Sept 11, 2015 15:59:36 GMT
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Post by sigurdur on Sept 11, 2015 18:12:10 GMT
Yes, it will fall until it hits water.
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Post by Andrew on Sept 11, 2015 19:50:00 GMT
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Post by sigurdur on Sept 11, 2015 23:26:01 GMT
Wait till u see 90%+ of the.northern route ice free! Prob wont happen for.awhile tho.
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Post by Andrew on Sept 12, 2015 2:44:09 GMT
Wait till u see 90%+ of the.northern route ice free! Prob wont happen for.awhile tho. I doubt we are going to see the northern channel mainly ice free in our lifetimes.
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Post by nonentropic on Sept 12, 2015 3:37:25 GMT
Has anyone calculated the radiative flux that would flow out of the world should the surface of the Arctic be truly covered in water, yes even in the peak of summer the loss of energy from planet earth would be sensational. The ice holds energy in and the temperature is buffered to around zero by the very freezing.
This is our luck break. imagine if the Arctic were the same as the Antarctic that is a land mass it would also be covered in 3Km of ice and there would be no UK as an island, and if there could have been a second world war Hitler would have walked over to the UK. I suspect the very severe climate that would have prevailed would have made all and sundry of the western world unlivable. The southern oceans at certain geological times have been constrained from circulating around the Antarctic the result is thought to have been much more ice on planet earth. The globe has two very powerful temperature buffers in our current configuration that is the oceanic tropics are buffered by moisture and cloud formation, much is written on WUWT about this. Secondly the arctic radiation variance due to ice cover. Outside of a major geological reconfiguration or a radiative/solar influence we are locked where we are largely. Ice ages or warm phases have no earth bound cause.
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Post by Andrew on Sept 12, 2015 3:53:18 GMT
warm phases have no earth bound cause. If by warm phase you mean the surface temperature then because the oceans have a huge ability to store energy they also have a huge ability to influence climate many years into the future. Therefore nearly all of the variations in the last thousand years could only be caused by random changes happening beneath the outer atmosphere that have very little to do with what happens on the Sun
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Post by nonentropic on Sept 12, 2015 4:39:55 GMT
The oceans only store or buffer suggesting a moderator of change but change all the same.
There is much discussion about solar influence. In my mind the problem is that sunspots, solar flux, magnet influences etc etc are all symptoms not the cause. This is very definitely not settled science. We have barely constructed a usable thermal measure of the earths temperature, Satellites, we know there are temperature cycles most are longer than the time that we have these instruments going. We know there are temperature variations on other planets again, Satellites and no ocean buffers so maybe faster response. Yet there are fools who confidently tell us they know the whole story and the science is settled, they need to grow up!
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Post by Andrew on Sept 12, 2015 5:51:07 GMT
The oceans only store or buffer suggesting a moderator of change but change all the same. There is much discussion about solar influence. In my mind the problem is that sunspots, solar flux, magnet influences etc etc are all symptoms not the cause. This is very definitely not settled science. We have barely constructed a usable thermal measure of the earths temperature, Satellites, we know there are temperature cycles most are longer than the time that we have these instruments going. We know there are temperature variations on other planets again, Satellites and no ocean buffers so maybe faster response. Yet there are fools who confidently tell us they know the whole story and the science is settled, they need to grow up! If ocean currents change fairly rapidly anything must be possible I would have thought? Importantly we know next to nothing about the oceans in the context of an apparent/claimed warming in the last 150 years
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