mostly true, I would think that very little of the worlds total ice formations are bergs. The polar ice caps are not floating ice bergs are they?

It is correct that melting of floating sea ice will do little to raise sea levels. The problem is mostly the huge glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica. These are supported by land above sea level. From what I have read, if those melted completely the resulting sea level rise would be on the order of 200 feet. What has some climatologists worried is the Greenland glaciers are now moving much faster than expected.

A lot is floating ice. I don't know the percentage.

Wow, last thread I was chastised for my "man made global warming is BS" view, but... I feel right at home here ;-)

Will, I do not believe that Golbal Warming is man caused (Completely maybe .9%), but the Earth does change!!!!!

Recent studies indicate that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are gaining mass. It is speculated that warmer temperatures will increase snowfall in those areas, more than offsetting increased melting.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1115356v1
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/308/5730/1898

More mass = more beach, it's all good.

So which is the better investment, property on the beach or property in the mountains? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

the polar cap melting thing has always baffled me - so I ran some numbers. Note that the north pole is a floating ice cap so I've ignored it in the figures. The south pole is an ice sheet over land.

Ocean Surface area of the earth: 361 million km^2
Required Volume of water to raise the oceans 200 feet (.06 km): 22+ million km^3

The south pole has roughly 14 million km^2 of ice surface area and if we were to just look at the contribution of the south pole, the ice would have to be 1.6 km thick (above the water) to contain 22 million km^3. Reportedly (Wikipedia), there is 30 million km^3 of ice on the south pole alone - but I don't know how much of this is ice cap, ice sheet, or submerged.

Greenland's ice sheet surface area is a little over 1.8 million km^3...throw that into the volume calculation and the average ice thickness above the surface for Greenland and the South Pole would need to be 1.4 km thick.

Obviously, there's some more ice in Russia and Canada, so let's just toss in the whole surface area of Canada to approximate them both. Now the average ice thickness above the surface in Greenland, Antarctica, and Canada (assuming completely covered evenly) would be .8 km thick.

Basically, it's not as outrageous as I first thought (assuming that ALL of it would melt - dunno how practical that really is).

If possible, I would have bought land in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Maud_Land <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
Should be really nice once the ice is gone. Once it was tropical there, same as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard

I have seen only one estimate of total climate change related to "greenhouse gasses", 2%, and cannot vouch for the accuracy. The only thing certain is change, and that includes global climate.

I've no idea how much or how soon, but change is coming.

Jake,

Are we taking into account the "Lay of the land" as it were.

For example, one of our lakes here in NM was sooooo low, (reported 80') Now, this summer, there was enough rain in the area, to cause a 20' rise over 3 weeks, now my guess is that if we have the same amount of water flow (in and out) it would take an ever increasing amount of time (there for water) to completely fill the lake. Islands dissappear and such.

As the water rises, flows past mountains and hills and into valleys.

Humm,

Other than SF Bay getting larger and Florida and Louisiana disappearing everything remains pretty much status quo.

I think change is happening, however I think our contribution is minimal. It's a VERY complicated matter and nobody fully knows the answers. The problem is that the general public are sheep and easily scared. Scared people can be controlled, control is power. There is money and power in global warming and that's why it's a hot issue. I personally am more worried a/b a big cooling than a mild warming. The earth is an open system and continuously changing... a little more complex than what we modeled in class <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Speaking of sea levels. I know Jake simplified it quite a bit by not considering that area will change as levels rise. It was a good exercise in feasibility and got the wheels turning in my head. This would offset the total increase to some extent. I'm not even going to sit down and try to estimate the math. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Pun intended? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Me pun?... never <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Something else to worrieeeeeeee about, somebody told me a few weeks ago that the moon is leaving the earth's orbit!!!!!

Yes, at an alarming rate of 1" per year eeeeekkkksssss.

So, with less gravitonal pull from the moon, let the ice melt <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> in about 1,000,000 years, the water levels will be right back to where they are now. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

The best investment is almost always in reducing uncertainty.

Lets say you think there's a 95% chance of a sea level rise, which will cost $100 billion to mitigate. It's a good investment to spend $1 billion (i.e. 1%) in research if you can increase that certainty to 99% (or decrease it 90%).

Don't forget the time-value of money either. Say you can buy land in Antarctica for $1/acre today, and it will be worth $10,000/acre in 200 years when that 1 km of ice melts off. Is that a good investment?

$1 invested at 5% per year = $17,293 after 200 years. Of course, none of us will be around to enjoy it, but this is all about our children, and our children's children etc. right?

It is heartening to see that, while so many of us can't be bothered to save for our own retirement, we still want to spend so much money on problems that will only affect the next generations. I guess we're not as selfish as we think we are.

Do you get the water rights?

I don't have any kids, may I have the $1 now, instead of investing?