DUH!!!!
WHEN WATER MELTS IT DECREASES IN VOLUME!!
sorry to shout, nothing personal...
as i said, do the experiment for yourself!
put water and icecubes in a glass(enough water that the ice is floating). mark the level. let the ice melt and then mark the level again.
if all the ice in the poles melts(of which the majority is under water! i thought that's what the 90% was about. it's certainly not that much, but whatever! it's probably more like 70% of polar ice under water. we mentioned icebergs!)the sea level will remain the same or even DROP! it HAS to. not all of the newly liberated water will remain in the ocean or on the surface.
one of the special properties of water is that ice is less dense than liquid water. that's why ice floats on water.
it SEEMS obvious if the ice melts that the level will rise, but it just ain't so.
do the experiment yourself and see!
this is 1st grade science. here's a link to a teacher's site about just this phenomenon. it is fundimental to life on earth and is regularly taught:
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae389.cfm
and a little less on the subject but about it still:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/dirt/sinking.htm
if land-locked ice were the only factor, the 200ft prediction might be accurate, but the fact is that MOST of the polar ice is in the ocean. from bingo's article:
"Millions of square miles of sea ice surround Antarctica; the extent annually experiences a five-fold increase and decrease, with the winter maximum more than doubling the entire Antarctic region's area of ice coverage"
so....70% of the fresh water becomes 140% in the winter? these figures are misleading.
either the writer of this article is ignorant, just repeating some factoids gathered from his various sources, or he is writing an intentionally misleading piece.
how about the sun burning hotter than ever, heading into it's hottest known phase in history? could that be part of the problem? why so little coverage in popular scientific articles? why only in scholarly papers?
what about technologies designed to heat the atmosphere directly like HAARP? tech that by design can superheat selected portions of the atmosphere, spin up storms, cause earthquakes and disrupt communications, but is sworn to never be used like that....
no, it must be us little piggies who need to be regulated, not the ones who would build such devices or design economies around false shortages of abiotic, plentiful and dirty burning crude.....
oh, it must be CO2! of course, CO2 is used by plants, especially trees, which when CO2 levels are high, grow like crazy, give off O2 and then cool the environment....or haven't you been to a hot area and then found a group of trees and felt the cooling effect? in the very short term, rising CO2 levels MAY cause a rise in temp. this will be quickly followed by a drop. catastrophic global warming needs more factors.
a slightly more "scientific analysis(including the words "melting ice MAY enter the ocean"):
http://www.science.org.au/nova/082/082key.htm
notice that landlocked antactic ice may not melt no matter what, or it might because of some factor not seen yet. currently, the ice sheets in danger of melting are mostly already in the ocean and although the melt might be the harbinger of true destruction, it won't be from rising oceans. still, this article is a traditional governmental "global warming" teror fest.
here is a truly scholarly article on the subject(you know, from a university study, a school):
http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2 ... ce-trends/
be sure to click on "misconceptions" linked also here:
http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/c ... nceptions/
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2006-06-20 17:21 ]</font>
