Has anyone else seen this glitch in the global warming problem?

Question

Theres a very flawed arguement in the arguement of global warming. I think many revolutionaries that are pushing awareness of the issue do not see the major flaw in their arguement.

One of the big problems is the melting of glaciers. These and other ice formations are floating. Or, to better suit this arguement, these structures are displacing water. The amount of water displaced is equal to the weight of the ice.

When the world nears disaster and these ice monsters start melting away, they will not affect the water level at all. As the water sheds off, the ice becomes lighter and displaces less. Sure theres more water in the sea, but it's proportional to the lesser amount of ice in the water. In fact, ice is less dense than water, so the volume of overall water will actually decrease.

I think people dont sit down to think about ideas like this. They just assume melting ice means their waterfront homes are going to go under.

Answer 1

The planet is a living system and it's taken a lot more than we'll ever give it and healed itself. At any rate, it's hard to buy global warming when i'm sitting here freezing my --- off.

Answer 2

I'm sorry but this has indeed been taken into consideration. What you say holds true for any free floating ice that is in the water like and iceberg. But the majority of the water that the higher sea level figures come from is ice that is on land. Antarctica is a continent not an ice sheet. It is one of the biggest land masses on the planet and it has ice covering it to a height of 700 feet in many places.

Ice is indeed less dense than water. That is why it floats and the part that floats above the water makes up the difference. So in this case you do NOT get a decrease.

How high the sea level will rise is very difficult to calculate accurately. The problem is that the ice WILL melt. Whether the oceans rise a little or a lot seems to be a very minor point.

Answer 3

The glitch in the glitch. Glaciers form on land and as the glaciers, break off, or melt Several things occur. The mass of the glacier is decreased and the weight on the land decreases. The concept of Isostacy come into play where the weight of the glacier, which is in no way small, actually pushes the crust into the lithosphere and as the glacier disappears it results in uplifting of that area and contributes to the waters increase. The idea of adding a liquid to an existing volume of liquid and having less liquid is rather foreign to me any how.. How did the coastal plains become part of the sea shelf in the past.

Answer 4

I respectfully disagree.

The way I look at it, the ice sits on top of the water. I believe that when the ice melts, it will raise the sea level. water and ice serve different purposes. Both are needed.

You are missing the importance of ice and how ice reflects solar energy. We need the ice, it reflects the sun's rays, sending them back to space. This helps maintain our temperatures on earth. So, when the ice melts, the earth will heat up quicker.

We also have to consider how the ice melting will affect the salt levels in the ocean. The salt levels also serve a purpose when looking at the ocean currents.

Everything is related and we (including animals) have adapted to our current environment. Major changes to the environment (either natural, man-made, or both) will have an effect on us.

There is no flaw to global warming, but one can argue how extreme of a situation we are in.


No offense the ones who do not believe in global warming, but you think this way because you do not see the big picture. you cannot make the situation a simply as you would like.

Answer 5

Re the comments on isostatic rebound of the earth's crust: this can't cancel out the effect of sea level rising because the rebound occurs over 100's of THOUSANDS of years. Geological evidence of past ice ages suggests that continental deglaciation may occur within only a few hundred. The ice thickness over portions of the Antarctic continent is up to 2 MILES. Do the math.

Answer 6

yeah, but like a lot of the answerers you didn't take into account the landlocked ice in Greenland and Antarctic. But THEY aren't taking into account isostatic rebound of those two lands, which will raise them up (some) and keep the amount of sea level rise down a bit.

How about this, though (another glitch): As climate warms more evaporation takes place. More evaporation, more clouds, the more clouds, less insolation (solar radiation reaching the ground), the less insolation, cooler temperatures.......

Answer 7

Its true that water levels wouldn't rise, I'm not sure where that idea comes from, unless they count all the ice sitting above sea level in antarctica. The only real problem is the cold water mixing with the warm ocean currents and disrupting the natural flow of the ocean, causing more Hurricanes, worsened El-Nino weather patterns etc etc..

Answer 8

There are lot of glaciers on earth meaning on hills,high altitudes and huge hill like ice formations in polar regions which are likely to melt and inundate low lying areas like BANGLADESH and some of Pacific islands and flooding areas near river mouth basins all over the world.

Answer 9

youre totally right about the icemelting. but did you think to remember that antartica DOESNT FLOAT. but its actually suspended ice on land. as for other glaciers, all glaciers lay no land, and meltin that ice does increase teh volume of the ocean.

given the shear volume of teh worlds oceans, a tempreature rise, also makes the oceans rise.

Answer 10

you forget the glaciers on land will melt also, they aren't displacing any water, and can be very large.
and waterfront homes ARE starting to go under, from a combo of raising water & erosion.

al gore is a movie star?!?

Answer 11

How about this:

forget about global warming and look out your window?

Go the weather sites and the NASA sites and see for yourself that no matter what you call it, THINGS are changing dramatically and increasingly so. I can remember typical summer days as a child being filled with sunlight and maybe one or two memorable downpours. In the last 10 years I have seen "typical" summer days reduced to overcast skies and weeks of no rain to weeks of drizzle. I have also observed early blooming of flowers only to see them die from frost in april.

Open your eyes. Global Warming..pollution...whatever you wanna call it, things are changing and if people can and do something to slow the changes that are happening, then we should do them. That's all there is to it. Weather is the breath that gives life to our world.