Flying by Air- the carbon footprint

[Road Runner]

(katoeylover @ Feb. 20 2007,18:49) Yes, but how many NEW glaciers are being formed in other places,

Hello KL,

Maybe I was asleep at this point in met?    

For a 'new' glacier to form you would have to have a new river course forming in an area where the ambient temperature was below freezing point.
I stand to be corrected but I believe this to be highly unlikely. This river course would then have to have a sustained water source.  Even less likely.

I'm guessing  -  but I think what you are trying to say is that glaciers are increasing in some areas the same way they are receeding in others.

I would not dispute that  -  but from what I have seen in the last 20 odd years the total volume of ice around the world is decreasing.
I'm not a meterologist  -  I only collect data and get the weather maps which I'm trained to interperate.  The incidence of ice in the northern hemisphere has receeded very year since 1980.
That's nothing to do with records  -  that's when I started getting and interpreting the maps.
In fact the years of 1911 - 1914 were the last years in which a significant number of icebergs travelled from the North Pole as far south as the mid atlantic.
In 1912 one large iceberg reached as far as Bermuda  - it's possible that this was the one that the Titanic hit!
As far as I know no iceberg has got further south than the lower end of Newfoundland Bank since 1915-16.

RR.

[Guest]

(Tomcat @ Feb. 20 2007,21:34) Greg Egan (August 20, 1961, Perth, Western Australia) is an Australian computer programmer and science fiction author.

You note that he is a computer programmer and a science fiction writer. Are his credentials any less worthy than your own?

My impression of New Scientist is that it targets a lay audience who might feel at home wearing Spock ears at a Trekkie convention.

Whatever New Scientist prints is absolutely irrelevant except in regards to one thing: increasing the number of revenue generating science-dilettantes and pocket-protecting nerds who subscribe.

[Guest]

(Tomcat @ Feb. 17 2007,23:36) I think Scientists in general are the most Skeptical people you will ever meet and i think that when they have concensus, its time to at least listen and think.  

Crichton's cogent words on "consensus" science:

"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

"Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

"There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

"In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.

"In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.

"There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.

"Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.

"And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy€¦the list of consensus errors goes on and on.

"Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way."

[Guest]

(Road Runner @ Feb. 21 2007,05:24)

(katoeylover @ Feb. 20 2007,18:49) Yes, but how many NEW glaciers are being formed in other places,

Hello KL,

Maybe I was asleep at this point in met?    

For a 'new' glacier to form you would have to have a new river course forming in an area where the ambient temperature was below freezing point.
I stand to be corrected but I believe this to be highly unlikely.  This river course would then have to have a sustained water source.  Even less likely.

I'm guessing  -  but I think what you are trying to say is that glaciers are increasing in some areas the same way they are receeding in others.

Flowing water is not the source of glacial ice.

Glaciers are formed mostly in mountain basins, but could be in any area flat enough and cold enough to retain snow accumulation.

Accumulation of snowfall is the feed source of glaciers. As snow accumulates, the weight compacts the lower layers, which become dense, layered, aerated ice. As glaciers increase in weight, the begin to slowly slide toward the sea (assuming this is down-grade). When the ice is no longer supported by land, and the weight of the portion hanging over the water is great enough to overcome the force of the bond, the ice breaks off and icebergs are calved.

The whole continent of antarctica is one big glacial dome. The center is (if I remember correctly) several miles thick. The continent is in a constant state of pushing outward and calving off as ice accumulates in the center.

That is how glaciers are formed.

[Road Runner]

Hello Grunyen,

Thanks I did know that  -  I said 'water source' not flowing water.  As you say snow is by far the usual the water source but not exclusively.

Either way the formation of new glaciers is a highly unusual event as far as our perceived timespan goes.

RR.

[Tomcat]

There was an article about this last week in the Telegraph. There is some new formation but this is heavily outweighed by loss.. In Tibet around 50 square miles are lost each year.

the Ice is now fracturing as well as melting therefore the water cascades to the bottom  making matters worse.

http://news.independent.co.uk/enviro...icle345926.ece

[Tomcat]

My Dear Ivana

I am deeply distressed by your insinuation that i have been spotted wearing Spock Ears at a Trekkie convention.....indeed the best quality "Ears" on the market , and the only ones to be seen worn at conventions are hand crafted in Syntho-Skin by a company called Alienoid and there is a three year waiting list......

On a more serious level can honestly tell you that journals like NSc, Scientific American and Nature shun the Ear wearing fraternity along with Xfilers, and other loonies.

Thanks for your contribution Ivana , ill print and read later. some of us have to work for a living.

A good day to you.

[Guest]

Hornets hit France and could reach Britain
By Peter Allen in Paris
Last Updated: 2:40am GMT 21/02/2007



Swarms of giant hornets renowned for their vicious stings and skill at massacring honeybees have settled in France.

And there are now so many of the insects that entomologists fear it will just be a matter of time before they cross to Britain.


A hornets nest
Global warming has largely been blamed for the survival and spread of the Asian Hornet, Vespa velutina, which is thought to have arrived in France from the Far East in a consignment of Chinese pottery in late 2004.

[Guest]

(grunyen @ Feb. 21 2007,23:07) By Peter Allen in Paris

Everyone knows Peter Allen is a gay piano player and sometime singer. Also he died years ago !

Do you trust your sources grunyen ?

   

"Thanks for your contribution Ivana , ill print and read later. some of us have to work for a living."


That's the 2nd time I've seen this comment by TC here. It took me all of 5 minutes to read the Crichton article. It has been up here for at least 1 day and in that time TC has posted on it twice, the 1st time without even reading it (took a little pressure before he admitted to that ) the 2nd time again without fully reading it

Now he says he will read it when his 'work commitments' allow.

Well I have to work for a living too. But if I have the time to post here, I think it's also a given that I have the time to consider what I post.

[katoeylover]

RR,

sorry for my lack of correct trminology.

what i meant was as some are melting, others are getting stronger, and new ones are starting.

http://newsbusters.org/node/10796

[katoeylover]

I believe this is a "new" glacier:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulutson_Glacier

http://www.usatoday.com/news....ers.htm

[Road Runner]

Hello KL,

What I like is that while we have some widely differing views we can have a sensible discussion about the whole thing.

I've been involved in collecting meterological data for a long time but I've learned several new things from this thread.

RR.

[katoeylover]

And we can do it without name calling!!

[Guest]

(lemarquis @ Feb. 21 2007,23:53) That's the 2nd time I've seen this comment by TC here. It took me all of 5 minutes to read the Crichton article. It has been up here for at least 1 day and in that time TC has posted on it twice, the 1st time without even reading it (took a little pressure before he admitted to that   ) the 2nd time again without fully reading it  

Now he says he will read it when his 'work commitments' allow.  

I am not surprised that a global warming advocate would be dishonest.

Obviously, he has not read State of Fear (by Michael Crichton)...

[Torurot]

>>Hornets hit France and could reach Britain
By Peter Allen in Paris
Last Updated: 2:40am GMT 21/02/2007

also at

Hornet death squads menace France
Honeybees massacred by oriental assassins
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/21/killer_hornets/