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Ice Loss in Antarctica is not Linear

longview said:
Humans have been adapting to increasing sea level for a long time, (all of Human existence).
Seattle raised much of the downtown area by up to 30 feet in the early 1900's by making the first floors the basements,
and creating a new street level, Something like this could happen in NYC, if the needs arise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground
It likely would not hurt to build flood walls around the subway entrances now, because raising sea level or not,
NYC will get another Hurricane and another storm surge.
I say if, because in spite of all the rhetoric, the sea level in NYC has been falling for about 8 years.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750
Click to expand...

One can interpret the chart as falling for the last eight years, but that's coming from an extreme high circa 2010. Take away that high point, and I see an increase over the last eight years, which is backed by a slow increase of the past decades.

A lot of NYC is already underground. An increase in sea level will increase the pressure on the infrastructure holding the water back. A few centimeters extra is not a lot of extra pressure, but extend that over the entire underground, there will be more leaks to deal with. And given that a lot of that underground is many decades old, it will be more difficult to maintain that underground.

Seattle is a good example of humanity making decisions as conditions change. I lived in High River, Alberta for four years, a town noted for frequent floods. After the big flood of 2013, the town decided to raze certain neighborhoods rather than rebuild them. If sea levels are rising, I'm sure the coastal areas will adapt.
 
longview said:
Why is it pretty clear, when it has not been observed that it is happening?
We have some long term (Century plus) records on sea level from tide gauges around the world.
Brest, France 1.08 mm/year
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=190-091
New York City, 2.84 mm/year
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=8518750
San Francisco, 1.96 mm/year
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=9414290
Sydney, .65 mm/year
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=680-140
Balboa, Panama, 1.45 mm/year
Karachi, Pakistan, 2.01 mm/year
Cebu, Philippines,1.16 mm/year
Ect.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/mslGlobalTrendsTable.html
I sorted the data by highest last year, and then sorted only 2016 and 2017 by lowest first year.
Out of curiosity, I got the average of all the stations at least 50 years old (1968) it came in at .89 mm/year.
The average of only the positive stations, 50 years old and older is 2.26 mm/year
If we use the 3 mm per year, (greater than the 50 year old average) the sea level will be about 10 inches higher than today by 2100.
Click to expand...

Again, you are assuming linearity.
 
TDGonDP said:
One can interpret the chart as falling for the last eight years, but that's coming from an extreme high circa 2010. Take away that high point, and I see an increase over the last eight years, which is backed by a slow increase of the past decades.

A lot of NYC is already underground. An increase in sea level will increase the pressure on the infrastructure holding the water back. A few centimeters extra is not a lot of extra pressure, but extend that over the entire underground, there will be more leaks to deal with. And given that a lot of that underground is many decades old, it will be more difficult to maintain that underground.

Seattle is a good example of humanity making decisions as conditions change. I lived in High River, Alberta for four years, a town noted for frequent floods. After the big flood of 2013, the town decided to raze certain neighborhoods rather than rebuild them. If sea levels are rising, I'm sure the coastal areas will adapt.
Click to expand...

Seattle had a fire in 1889 that pretty much wiped out the city. Instead of rebuilding conventionally, they rebuilt the city at a higher elevation. Planned rebuilding of coastal cities would be very expensive, not to mention the intrusion effects on people's lives.
 
Media_Truth said:
Seattle had a fire in 1889 that pretty much wiped out the city. Instead of rebuilding conventionally, they rebuilt the city at a higher elevation. Planned rebuilding of coastal cities would be very expensive, not to mention the intrusion effects on people's lives.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, we have to go through a disaster or two (or three or more) to design our municipalities to handle these kinds of events with better risk management. This speaks to our flaws of governance.

A few years prior to the flood of 2013, High River opened up a new suburban subdivision right on the flood plain and another just over the crest of the flood plain (where flood waters could not drain out readily). Both were razed after the flood, along with several other long-standing neighborhoods. These areas will not be built up again. Nor should they have been built in the first place.
 
Media_Truth said:
Again, you are assuming linearity.
Click to expand...

If we are to use this data, it seems there is a linear relationship between time and sea levels. However, the relationship may indeed more exponential, with increasing rates of rise. This data does not show that YET.
 
TDGonDP said:
One can interpret the chart as falling for the last eight years, but that's coming from an extreme high circa 2010. Take away that high point, and I see an increase over the last eight years, which is backed by a slow increase of the past decades.

A lot of NYC is already underground. An increase in sea level will increase the pressure on the infrastructure holding the water back. A few centimeters extra is not a lot of extra pressure, but extend that over the entire underground, there will be more leaks to deal with. And given that a lot of that underground is many decades old, it will be more difficult to maintain that underground.

Seattle is a good example of humanity making decisions as conditions change. I lived in High River, Alberta for four years, a town noted for frequent floods. After the big flood of 2013, the town decided to raze certain neighborhoods rather than rebuild them. If sea levels are rising, I'm sure the coastal areas will adapt.
Click to expand...

They have a link to the CSV file, no interpretation necessary, it has fallen a little.
yes they will adapt.
 
TDGonDP said:
I'll just see if I can be a little more explicit by using New York City as an example. NYC sits more or less at sea level. If sea levels rise, it will become more expensive to maintain the city, either to build infrastructure to handle the rise or to repair storm damage which is becoming more frequent. In the end, the free market will make a decision whether to keep NYC at the same location or move further inland. I can see quite a few businesses moving when the benefits of staying of staying in NYC do not outweigh the costs of increasing sea levels.

Maybe to put this in another way, if a Hurricane Sandy happens every two years, that will be an incentive for many businesses to move out. This will take away residents and other secondary business.
Click to expand...
This entire argument is based on Pascal's Wager, a fallacy. While Pascal applied the fallacy to Christianity, it applies to all religions, including the Church of Global Warming.
TDGonDP said:
However such changes will be gradual. There won't be a mass exodus. The economy will slowly adjust.
Click to expand...
NYC thinks it is the center of the economy. It isn't, even though the stock exchange currently resides there.

The center of the economy is Main St, USA. That means every town, every village, every bakery, every auto repair shop, every restaurant, everywhere there is people. If the stock exchange is destroyed, it will simply occur elsewhere. The loss of NYC will not stop the economy. The free market is immortal. You can't kill it. A sudden loss would disrupt things, but it sure wouldn't kill it. A gradual loss wouldn't even disrupt anything.

NYC wouldn't even exist without continuous supplies from outside. Those supplies ARE the economy.
 
Into the Night said:
This entire argument is based on Pascal's Wager, a fallacy. While Pascal applied the fallacy to Christianity, it applies to all religions, including the Church of Global Warming.

NYC thinks it is the center of the economy. It isn't, even though the stock exchange currently resides there.

The center of the economy is Main St, USA. That means every town, every village, every bakery, every auto repair shop, every restaurant, everywhere there is people. If the stock exchange is destroyed, it will simply occur elsewhere. The loss of NYC will not stop the economy. The free market is immortal. You can't kill it. A sudden loss would disrupt things, but it sure wouldn't kill it. A gradual loss wouldn't even disrupt anything.

NYC wouldn't even exist without continuous supplies from outside. Those supplies ARE the economy.
Click to expand...

I'm not seeing the connection between Pascal's Wager and rising sea levels in NYC. If the rising sea levels are certainty, it doesn't matter whether one believes or not. If the sea levels are not rising, it doesn't matter whether one believes or not.

If it becomes to expensive to do business in NYC, some businesses will move out and new business will not want to start in NYC. If rising sea levels increase the expenses of running the city (meaning higher taxes), the trend to do business elsewhere will be higher. The free market will sort this out; everyone will to allowed to stay or go as they wish. The change will be gradual, and probably not fully realized for a couple of generations.
 
TDGonDP said:
Maybe I am using the wrong definition of "ice shelf." My apologies, and I hope you understood what I meant.
Click to expand...
I do. I answered accordingly.
TDGonDP said:
To use your analogy, put 2 centimeters of water in a tall glass. Fill the rest of the glass with ice cubes. You will notice the weight of the higher ice cubes is pushing bottom ice cube to the bottom of the glass. When the ice cubes melt, the water level will rise.
Click to expand...
True. It will rise until the remaining ice is floating, then it will stop.
TDGonDP said:
If ice is already sitting on the bottom of the ocean floor, then any further accumulation of ice on the surface will contribute to sea level rise (if melted).
Click to expand...
Only the amount required to get the ice to touch the bottom. After that, no further rise. Once the remaining ice floats, no further rise.
TDGonDP said:
As for whether this ice shelf is sitting on the ocean floor or actually floating, I don't know.
Click to expand...
No, by definition. Ice shelves are floating ice. Ice touching land is known as 'landed' ice.
TDGonDP said:
I was aware that Antarctica was a desert. But all that ice had to have come from somewhere, probably from thousands of years of very small snowfalls.
Click to expand...
Snowfall is not necessary. Direct deposition also occurs. Like frozen dew. As far as 'all that ice', there really isn't that much of it. What snowfall and deposition that does occur flows down the mountains and fills the valleys, but that's about it. Landed ice is actually accumulating in Antarctica. It has for some time. When the first expeditions went down there, they set up a camp with a 100 ft tall radio tower to broadcast to the world their accomplishments. That tower is still there. It's sticking out of the snow about 2 ft now. The current camp is built on top of the old one.

In 2014, the Natl Snow and Ice data center recorded the greatest ice extent (coverage of ice on the winter soltice of that pole) ever recorded for Antarctica.
In 2015, it was near minimal. In 2013, it was about the middle. The size of the winter solstice ice extent in Antarctica varies radically from year to year. The Church of Global Warming cherry picks this data to their advantage.

Greenland has no significant ice shelves. Most of it's snow and ice is landlocked between two mountain ranges, running north and south on either coast. There is a drainage near the northwest corner. It is currently a glacier. It used to be a fairly large river.

Melting snow and ice does not necessarily drain to the sea. Much of it simply absorbs into the soil or evaporates away (either before or after it's melted).

TDGonDP said:
If the rate of sublimation was higher than the rate of deposition, there would no little ice shelves (or whatever) in Antarctica today.
Click to expand...
Ice shelves do not come from landed ice. They are formed by the freezing of seawater (producing freshwater).
TDGonDP said:
As I alluded to earlier, is continental rebound or subsidence significant to sea level rising?
I suspect tectonics a moot point.
Click to expand...
I would say not. Water is water, whether it's ice or liquid. It weighs the same.
 
longview said:
Humans have been adapting to increasing sea level for a long time, (all of Human existence).
Seattle raised much of the downtown area by up to 30 feet in the early 1900's by making the first floors the basements,
and creating a new street level,
Click to expand...
That was not caused by rising sea level. The sea level in Seattle is exactly the same as it was then.

The story of how that came to be is somewhat amusing, though.

Originally, Seattle had an island in the bay called Denny Island. At that time, Alaskan Way was literally a floating road built out across the bay, with part of the bay behind it. Denny Island was too small for any practical use.
Before the fire, Seattle had sewers that ran directly to Elliot bay from the houses and businesses. The slope was not sufficient, however, and these sewers would back up at high tide, causing the toilets to flood. Building the toilets upstairs solved this problem somewhat, but to get the necessary slope for the sewage system, they ran the pipes on stilts OVER the streets, rather than under them. This was a town with leaking, stinking, sewage pipes dripping on the muddy streets below.
After the fire, they piled the rubble in the center and covered these pipes, building the street on top. The businesses were still at the original street level, however. In those days, you could fall off the street and kill yourself on the sidewalk 10 ft below.
Eventually, new sidewalks were built overhead, leaving an indoor shopping mall below. New business entrances open up at the new level, and stairs allowed you to visit the business entrances still below. This lower level became a problem for crime and other undesirable activity, so they eventually closed those entrances completely. You can still see it on the tour though.
The waters behind Alaskan Way became nasty because of debris trapped in the water by the road. To solve this problem, Denny Island was sacrificed to the soil was used to fill in the area behind Alaskan Way. This area is now known as the 'regrade'. The island is gone, and Alaskan Way doesn't stink nearly as bad as it used to!
 
Media_Truth said:
Seattle had a fire in 1889 that pretty much wiped out the city. Instead of rebuilding conventionally, they rebuilt the city at a higher elevation. Planned rebuilding of coastal cities would be very expensive, not to mention the intrusion effects on people's lives.
Click to expand...

Seattle was not built at higher level due to sea level changing. It was built higher to cover the lousy sewer system that it used.
 
TDGonDP said:
Unfortunately, we have to go through a disaster or two (or three or more) to design our municipalities to handle these kinds of events with better risk management. This speaks to our flaws of governance.

A few years prior to the flood of 2013, High River opened up a new suburban subdivision right on the flood plain and another just over the crest of the flood plain (where flood waters could not drain out readily). Both were razed after the flood, along with several other long-standing neighborhoods. These areas will not be built up again. Nor should they have been built in the first place.
Click to expand...

Adaption occurs.

Once, we had I=90 travel through the center of North Bend, WA. It was one of two stoplights along the entire stretch of freeway all the way to Boston (the other was in Wallace, ID).

They build a bypass around North Bend to remove the need for the traffic light. This deprived the town of revenue from the traffic passing through.

It's been entertaining watching the entire town move over to the new bypass like an amoeba searching for its food over the last few years.
 
TDGonDP said:
I'm not seeing the connection between Pascal's Wager and rising sea levels in NYC. If the rising sea levels are certainty, it doesn't matter whether one believes or not. If the sea levels are not rising, it doesn't matter whether one believes or not.
Click to expand...
Not what I was referring to.
TDGonDP said:
If it becomes to expensive to do business in NYC, some businesses will move out and new business will not want to start in NYC. If rising sea levels increase the expenses of running the city (meaning higher taxes), the trend to do business elsewhere will be higher. The free market will sort this out; everyone will to allowed to stay or go as they wish. The change will be gradual, and probably not fully realized for a couple of generations.
Click to expand...
True. However, this is all speculation. Many things could make NYC uninhabitable. Don't worry about it. People will cope with whatever happens.
 
Into the Night said:
Seattle was not built at higher level due to sea level changing. It was built higher to cover the lousy sewer system that it used.
Click to expand...

Did I say Seattle was built at higher level because of rising sea level? Do you read English? Tell me, in my statement below, where I said this :thumbdown

Seattle had a fire in 1889 that pretty much wiped out the city. Instead of rebuilding conventionally, they rebuilt the city at a higher elevation. Planned rebuilding of coastal cities would be very expensive, not to mention the intrusion effects on people's lives.
 
Media_Truth said:
Did I say Seattle was built at higher level because of rising sea level?
Click to expand...
Yes.
Media_Truth said:
Do you read English? Tell me, in my statement below, where I said this :thumbdown

Seattle had a fire in 1889 that pretty much wiped out the city. Instead of rebuilding conventionally, they rebuilt the city at a higher elevation. Planned rebuilding of coastal cities would be very expensive, not to mention the intrusion effects on people's lives.
Click to expand...
You said it in related statements, not this one, although you alluded to it in this one.
 
Media_Truth said:
Both your fellow Conservatives and liberals are disagreeing with you on post after post. This should tell you something.
Click to expand...

He hasn't learned yet just how wrong he is on so many things. I don't think he ever will.
 
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