|
Post by sigurdur on Sept 23, 2013 0:51:27 GMT
phydeaux2363 you said "unprecedented melting of the southern ice sheet" andor you said "Anarctica has a record ice .... all-time new record high and continues to trend up!!" So phydeaux2363 where is your information coming from and what about your andor? Somebody is right and somebody is wrong. One metric here Code: arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/antarctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
|
|
|
Post by phydeaux2363 on Sept 23, 2013 14:31:15 GMT
phydeaux2363 you said "unprecedented melting of the southern ice sheet" andor you said "Anarctica has a record ice .... all-time new record high and continues to trend up!!" So phydeaux2363 where is your information coming from and what about your andor? Somebody is right and somebody is wrong. Mr. Whacker, I was trying to be sarcastic. If you read my posts, you'll see I fancy myself something of a wise guy. It's a shame, but I usually fail.
|
|
|
Post by sigurdur on Sept 23, 2013 15:34:47 GMT
phydeaux2363 you said "unprecedented melting of the southern ice sheet" andor you said "Anarctica has a record ice .... all-time new record high and continues to trend up!!" So phydeaux2363 where is your information coming from and what about your andor? Somebody is right and somebody is wrong. Mr. Whacker, I was trying to be sarcastic. If you read my posts, you'll see I fancy myself something of a wise guy. It's a shame, but I usually fail. Naw, you don't fail. You are actually very witty.
|
|
|
Post by greenlandexile on Sept 23, 2013 22:11:56 GMT
|
|
|
Post by sigurdur on Sept 23, 2013 22:24:46 GMT
Great observation greenlandexile.
|
|
|
Post by cuttydyer on Sept 24, 2013 7:30:02 GMT
|
|
|
Post by sigurdur on Sept 24, 2013 12:15:24 GMT
Soot is an issue.....no question about that.
|
|
|
Post by nonentropic on Sept 24, 2013 19:04:23 GMT
the area is impacted by China also.
the soot issue is massive and probably the biggest driver of ice decline its the only big difference between the NH and the SH and the ice levels in the NH are the only ones in decline.
|
|
birder
Level 3 Rank
Posts: 223
|
Post by birder on Sept 24, 2013 19:30:40 GMT
the area is impacted by China also. the soot issue is massive and probably the biggest driver of ice decline its the only big difference between the NH and the SH and the ice levels in the NH are the only ones in decline. I bet there was much more soot in the atmosphere in the 1950's and 60's, I remember regular bad fogs in those days, you don't get them now.
|
|
|
Post by sigurdur on Sept 24, 2013 20:29:54 GMT
the area is impacted by China also. the soot issue is massive and probably the biggest driver of ice decline its the only big difference between the NH and the SH and the ice levels in the NH are the only ones in decline. I bet there was much more soot in the atmosphere in the 1950's and 60's, I remember regular bad fogs in those days, you don't get them now. I think the soot that the "West" added during the 50's and 60's has been displaced by the soot that China and India have added. Their contribution, considering the rate of coal consumption, would be even greater than Europe and the USA. China now recognizes that air pollution is a serious problem and is in the process of installing scrubbers etc. Not sure about India tho.
|
|
|
Post by icefisher on Sept 24, 2013 21:34:42 GMT
I bet there was much more soot in the atmosphere in the 1950's and 60's, I remember regular bad fogs in those days, you don't get them now. I think the soot that the "West" added during the 50's and 60's has been displaced by the soot that China and India have added. Their contribution, considering the rate of coal consumption, would be even greater than Europe and the USA. China now recognizes that air pollution is a serious problem and is in the process of installing scrubbers etc. Not sure about India tho. Indeed we, the US and Europe, have actually reduced soot greatly. But CO2 emissions in total are 10 times what they were then and the majority of the added emissions come from Asia with a large percentage of that in coal burning. So while we enjoy cleaner air here the world average air is worse. It also provides for an explanation for why the Pacific Ocean has more mercury pollution despite being a lot bigger and being able to disperse it a lot more than the level of mercury pollution in the Atlantic. The weather in the northern hemisphere moves west to east. This is another huge argument for progress as opposed to the green retrogression that seems to drive a lot of environmental politics. Read "Hard Green" by Peter Huber. . . .this is part of the evidence offered in support of the kind of progressiveness of T. Roosevelt, described by Huber as a "conservative manifesto". This was diametrically compared to the self-styled progressives today who in great part seem to admire physical retrogression in order to promote spiritual progression, with Al Gore singled out. Roosevelt's great efforts at conservation was to promote human aesthetics to invigorate spiritual progress and was done in balance within a physical progress that Roosevelt even more strongly promoted through reclamation. Obviously not all human endeavors turn out right but then the world really does not dance to our tune either. Your mileage may vary. I am not arm and arm in Huber's agenda either. But Huber does a remarkable job of establishing measurable and realistic standards for what "wise use" should be. The Asians would do well to study T. Roosevelt and it would be worthwhile, IMHO, for America to revisit it also.
|
|
|
Post by nautonnier on Sept 26, 2013 0:48:15 GMT
the area is impacted by China also. the soot issue is massive and probably the biggest driver of ice decline its the only big difference between the NH and the SH and the ice levels in the NH are the only ones in decline. Obviously, soot is an issue in the Northern Hemisphere - but it is not the only difference with the South. One of the major differences is the lack of landmasses especially landmasses with mountains. So the Antarctic polar vortex is stronger and less perturbed (if at all); whereas the Arctic polar vortex is continually perturbed by the orographic effects of the winds passing over the landmasses particularly meridonal jetstreams being driven over mountains as with the Indian monsoons as the jetstream is lifted by the Himalayas and form breaking Rossby waves and sudden stratospheric warmings. This leads to considerable differences between the poles. That is before the consideration of one pole being a static continent the other being a sea with the ice moving in large wind and ovean current driven gyres.
|
|
|
Post by nonentropic on Sept 26, 2013 1:32:07 GMT
I agree totally but the soot thing is a bit misunderstood. we the west, have this view that the west pushed out something like the same amount of soot last century as China etc now. I don't know for sure but coal and general poor combustion the source of soot currently in my view is much higher. More people hugely larger GDP and the fact that the CO2 explosion over the last decades is so large supports the idea that more soot than ever is being pushed predominantly into the NH. The hemispheres are very different. The blocking highs are very prevalent in both hemisphere at this time so a linkage exists.
|
|
|
Post by magellan on Sept 26, 2013 2:24:53 GMT
I agree totally but the soot thing is a bit misunderstood. we the west, have this view that the west pushed out something like the same amount of soot last century as China etc now. I don't know for sure but coal and general poor combustion the source of soot currently in my view is much higher. More people hugely larger GDP and the fact that the CO2 explosion over the last decades is so large supports the idea that more soot than ever is being pushed predominantly into the NH. The hemispheres are very different. The blocking highs are very prevalent in both hemisphere at this time so a linkage exists. Except according to what I've read the air is cleaner now than it was 50 and 100 years ago. So much so that a solar brightening has been the case for several decades. China is an outlier, and although their GDP has been growing (some say artificially), much of the country still lives in the stone age. hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/09/paper-finds-brightening-of-sunshine.htmlwattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/19/shocker-global-warming-may-simply-be-an-artifact-of-clean-air-laws/The vast amount of CO2 is created in nature, and somehow a .0001 mole fraction increase in atmospheric CO2 doesn't seem like an explosion to me.
|
|
|
Post by slh1234 on Sept 26, 2013 19:09:46 GMT
I agree totally but the soot thing is a bit misunderstood. we the west, have this view that the west pushed out something like the same amount of soot last century as China etc now. I don't know for sure but coal and general poor combustion the source of soot currently in my view is much higher. More people hugely larger GDP and the fact that the CO2 explosion over the last decades is so large supports the idea that more soot than ever is being pushed predominantly into the NH. The hemispheres are very different. The blocking highs are very prevalent in both hemisphere at this time so a linkage exists. Except according to what I've read the air is cleaner now than it was 50 and 100 years ago. So much so that a solar brightening has been the case for several decades. China is an outlier, and although their GDP has been growing (some say artificially), much of the country still lives in the stone age. hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/09/paper-finds-brightening-of-sunshine.htmlwattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/19/shocker-global-warming-may-simply-be-an-artifact-of-clean-air-laws/The vast amount of CO2 is created in nature, and somehow a .0001 mole fraction increase in atmospheric CO2 doesn't seem like an explosion to me. On the China reference: Last time I posted on here, I was living in the Seattle Area and had just moved there from the San Francisco Bay Area. Since that time, I've lived in China, and am preparing for a move to Korea (The only place moss has ever grown under my wife's and my feed was Seattle, and that's just because it grows everywhere there ). We lived in Shanghai, but you might guess, business took me to Beijing a number of times, and just because of opportunity, we travelled a lot to the outlying areas, but still didn't make it everywhere we wanted to go. Not a big problem, though, since it isn't THAT far from Korea to Shanghai or Beijing, or the other areas where we want to go. Observation: Shanghai really isn't as bad as everyone told me it would be. Just looking visually, I took this specifically for comparison to show my friends. The view from our apartment in Shanghai one day: The next morning, my wife and I got on the train and went to Beijing for business. The view from our hotel room when we checked in in Beijing: Now, to put it in perspective and be honest. It rained the day prior to that Shanghai picture, so it was a clear day. Still, you can see the two suspension bridges. On a bad day in Shanghai, I could barely make out the outline of the nearer suspension bridge, but we're talking about maybe 5 - 10 miles there. Beijing is terrible in the winter where the whole place smells like the charcoal based heating fuel (Which I haven't actually seen in China, but I remember it from my days in the '80's when I lived in Korea where it was used at that time). It's bad in the summer, too. Autumn, it can clear off and be surprisingly clear (surprisingly if you've only had contact through news). Actually, two days after I took that picture, the air cleared up in Beijing to where I could see the park, and all of the buildings out that hotel window. But on its bad days, it's several times worse than Los Angeles was back in the 1970's even - or at least it is according to my memory. I NEVER remember a day in LA that compared to a bad day in Beijing. However; even on the bad days, on the express train, you get to see that you really only need to get out of the 7th ring in Beijing before it becomes pretty clear. The areas between Beijing and Nanjing is really clear and pretty. Going north, the times I've gone to Badaling to see the great wall, it's similar. When you get to the outer rings of Beijing, the sky clears dramatically, and by the time I've gotten to the great wall, it's been clear. That's nice because the mountains are beautiful in that area - reminds me of the Southern California mountains a bit. I wouldn't mind posting pictures from there to give an example if someone would like to compare. This is where I have a little trouble putting the soot argument together. All I have to go by, and all I've ever had to go by is my own experience, observations, and anecdotes which I compare against the news or "scientific" data that people push out. I'm back in Seattle very temporarily as I write this, and there is no doubt the air is crystal clear here as I'm writing, but with China fresh on my mind and near again in my future, I can't tell that much difference between here and the rural air quality in China - it's not perceptible. The localized areas - specifically Beijing - can be very bad, but it seems to me that it is very localized - it's not visible even in the rural areas surrounding Beijing. Because of this observation, I find it difficult to believe that cities are having that big of an impact on the soot levels of the arctic. I can believe it has an impact around the surrounding areas, especially since that has to go somewhere, but staying suspeneded, dodging the rain and precipitation prior to getting to the arctic, and then being deposited in significant amounts in the arctic or antarctic is specifically what I have a little difficulty believing is happening. EDIT: Yes, China DOES recognize it has a problem, and is working to fix the issue. A lot of China is very different in person from what my friends and colleagues outside of Asia think it is, but in this, yes, China does recognize it has a problem and is working to address it.
|
|