U.S. sized ice sheet melts in Arctic

[one...two...tree 2,762]

An area of Arctic ice the size of the United States has melted so far this year.

That's according to the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which described a threatening rate of accelerating, real time climate change to negotiators this week at the UN climate talks in Doha, The Guardian newspaper reports.

"Climate change is taking place before our eyes, and will continue to do so as a result of the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have risen constantly and again reached new records," WMO's secretary general Michael Jarraud said.

Some scientists have warned that the world could be closer to a global warming tipping point than previously thought.

Soon after Jarraud warned Doha, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported a record loss of Arctic ice and snow from Oct. 2011 through August 2012, the Guardian wrote. That included the loss of almost all of Greenland's surface ice over four days in July.

In more alarming signs of change from NOAA, the Guardian notes that "Blooms of algae sprouted beneath the permanent sea ice in the middle of the Arctic ocean, feeding off the sunlight filtering through melt pools. The report cites a massive bloom of phytoplankton beneath the Chukchi sea ice stretching for more than 60 miles, as well as algae blooms near melt holes in the central Arctic.

"On land, shrubs are spreading across the lower Arctic because of a longer growing season."

Some tundra plants like moss and lichen are declining.

Perhaps most staggering of all: Conditions are building for Arctic wildfires, the article states.

http://www.smartplan...ag=search-river

[TBoneTX 45,267]

*** Thread moved from P&R to Off Topic -- topic is more scientific than political. ***

Edited December 11, 2012 by TBoneTX

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

*** Thread moved from P&R to Off Topic -- more scientific than political. ***

I'm glad someone finally recognized that global warming is scientific fact rather than political opinion.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

So what piece of land disappeared under the rising seas levels? I mean a piece of ice the size of the Untied States (including Alaska and Hawaii?) MELTS and no one drowns? Not even a polar bear?

Huh?

[TBoneTX 45,267]

I'm glad someone finally recognized that global warming is scientific fact rather than political opinion.

Topic of discussion in the posted article was not as political in nature as it was nonpolitical (in this case, scientific) in nature.

[Darnell 8,478]

Surely we can bottle the greenhouse gases and re-use them for something, yes?

and for the extra water, well, it's always fun cleaning up after a hurricane in New York, aye?

So, if the extra water was USED for something else, what would that look like ?

[rlogan 2,036]

Excellent. I hope it continues. All that land becoming more productive in Alaska. Staggering.

If the sea rises our house in the Philippines will be inundated and we'll have to build a new one. The family is smart enough to move before the water is over their nostrils though. People adapting to change like this is going to be an enormous disappointment to "It's all bad" crowd.

[Caryh 5,206]

Maybe they're smart enough to move before the water gets too high, but I wouldn't put money on it for the population as a whole. Take all the homes washed away and people killed in areas affected by the last typhoon. By next year people will have built homes and businesses right on top of the places that were washed away last week. People will still live in villages as illegal logging and mining strips all the trees from the mountains around them until one day heavy rains releases the mud and wipes out the village. In a few years a village will be right back in the same spot. I've seen squatters areas built right on rivers get washed away, and be rebuilt within months. When land is scarce and the population high and poor, people worry about getting through today, not the flood or storm that may come tomorrow. The survivors usually remember enough to clear the heck out on the next warning. But a few more warnings without them getting washed out and pretty much everyone is staying put until it happens again.

Excellent. I hope it continues. All that land becoming more productive in Alaska. Staggering.

If the sea rises our house in the Philippines will be inundated and we'll have to build a new one. The family is smart enough to move before the water is over their nostrils though. People adapting to change like this is going to be an enormous disappointment to "It's all bad" crowd.

[rlogan 2,036]

Maybe they're smart enough to move before the water gets too high, but I wouldn't put money on it for the population as a whole. Take all the homes washed away and people killed in areas affected by the last typhoon. By next year people will have built homes and businesses right on top of the places that were washed away last week. People will still live in villages as illegal logging and mining strips all the trees from the mountains around them until one day heavy rains releases the mud and wipes out the village. In a few years a village will be right back in the same spot. I've seen squatters areas built right on rivers get washed away, and be rebuilt within months. When land is scarce and the population high and poor, people worry about getting through today, not the flood or storm that may come tomorrow. The survivors usually remember enough to clear the heck out on the next warning. But a few more warnings without them getting washed out and pretty much everyone is staying put until it happens again.

Our house, which I built with her father, and I mean literally with my own hands, has withstood two typhoons in two years, direct hits. Our sea-wall held against the waves, but it took out the house on one side of us despite being made of steel reinforced concrete. The house on our other side is protected by our sea wall, so it is still standing. I carried the largest rocks to that sea wall. We did it over two years, with a smaller wall first as a base and then the magnum wall in front and on top of it.

I don't "do" collective guilt-tripping as is the fashion these days. I take care of me and mine and the world is just too big a place for me to have any affect on. Whereas the people who cry and whine about squatters don't lift a finger to help them. They're just pawns to use in guilt-tripping others. Most of the whiners burn ten times the fossil fuels I do or more so the hypocrisy is also delicious. The people killed last year? Iligan City, where my wife's family lives. Most of the deaths were two bridges over from our house. So you're not tellin' me nuthin about Philippines.

But if you marry into squatters like me, build them a house and a sea wall that protects them and their family, send their siblings to college and help out their extended family - then you'll be labelled an evil exploiter of the poor victim child bride/#######. You're going to get guilt-tripped no matter what you do so "In your face" sez me.

Alaskans for Global Warming. Yee-Haw.

Edited December 12, 2012 by rlogan

[Caryh 5,206]

The house my wife grew up in was built over the ocean. No seawall is going to help when the sea is right below the house The kids had picked up the family before I even knew my wife. They built a cement house in a subdivision away from ocean. Its pretty flat land around there, so no worry about mud slides to. Her siblings all went to college, except the special needs children they adopted. But in their earlier poverty stricken days, two of her brothers died in childhood. Probably from lack of medical care. My wife is the youngest if you don't include the adopted kids. Now all the blood siblings own their own homes very close to each other. We help for out only for unexpected needs, mostly for her mother and the adopted twins. They've done a good job at pulling the family out of poverty on their own, and my wife certainly didn't marry me to help the family. It was more because she doesn't trust Filipino men. Too many want to have more than one woman. After she'd been down the path of one cheating abusive bf, she never wanted another Filipino bf and set her sites on meeting a Kano.

I'm not trying to pull any guilt trip, I just know how it goes in countries like the Philippines. They're repeat the same mistakes over and over until they lift their people out of poverty. And thats not going to happen until they stop breeding faster than they can grow their economy. The Davao area had never been hit by a typhoon before. Now they've just been hit by one of the strongest. Was it climate change? Maybe, heck I'm an engineer, not a weatherman. If things get too warm on the planet, we could always blow off a few nukes on deserted islands in the Pacific. They tell us a nuclear exchange would give us a nuclear winter after. Or maybe set off some volcanoes with explosives to put more dust in the air and cool things down. We do know the earth is warming, how much man adds to that, well its mainly guesses. We could probably do a few things to turn it around the other way if we had the will. I know here in Minnesota we don't normally get the amounts of snow we used to. I won't bother to own a snowmobile now because you have to go so far north to get decent use out of one.

Minnesotans for More Snow. Yee-haw

Our house, which I built with her father, and I mean literally with my own hands, has withstood two typhoons in two years, direct hits. Our sea-wall held against the waves, but it took out the house on one side of us despite being made of steel reinforced concrete. The house on our other side is protected by our sea wall, so it is still standing. I carried the largest rocks to that sea wall. We did it over two years, with a smaller wall first as a base and then the magnum wall in front and on top of it.

I don't "do" collective guilt-tripping as is the fashion these days. I take care of me and mine and the world is just too big a place for me to have any affect on. Whereas the people who cry and whine about squatters don't lift a finger to help them. They're just pawns to use in guilt-tripping others. Most of the whiners burn ten times the fossil fuels I do or more so the hypocrisy is also delicious. The people killed last year? Iligan City, where my wife's family lives. Most of the deaths were two bridges over from our house. So you're not tellin' me nuthin about Philippines.

But if you marry into squatters like me, build them a house and a sea wall that protects them and their family, send their siblings to college and help out their extended family - then you'll be labelled an evil exploiter of the poor victim child bride/#######. You're going to get guilt-tripped no matter what you do so "In your face" sez me.

Alaskans for Global Warming. Yee-Haw.

[rlogan 2,036]

We help for out only for unexpected needs,

This is minimization (only) and rationalization (unexpected needs). You help out her family, period. Death, sickness, typhoons, etc. are all expected unless a person is an idiot, going through life not seeing sickness and death all around them.

mostly for her mother and the adopted twins.

Yanking on the heart strings by saying it is "mostly" for her mother and adopted children doesn't change one iota the fact you are helping her family. Money is fungible. We can say the money is being given for the poor sick children but if they spent their own money on cigarettes and booze instead of saving for medicine then what you are doing is subsidizing their cigarettes and booze. And "mostly" also tells us you pay for other things too.

So why not just own up to the fact you help her family instead of trying to minimize/rationalize it.

They've done a good job at pulling the family out of poverty on their own, and my wife certainly didn't marry me to help the family.

So the fact you are helping her family is just an amazing coincidence.

And hey, such an amazing coincidence too that you randomly bumped into a Filipina instead of, say, a wealthy American or West European. Here you were looking so hard amongst the wealthy of the world and this Filipina from a poor family dropped down from the sky in the middle of the caviar and champaign party you were having on the French Riviera.

I'm not trying to pull any guilt trip, I just know how it goes in countries like the Philippines. They're repeat the same mistakes over and over

With the exception of course of your wife. Every Filipino is stupid except yours.

Sometimes people aren't listening to themselves. We have plenty of people building in flood plains here in the USA and as a matter of fact a big storm just wiped out large areas in the East Coast of the U.S. Guess what they'll do? Rebuild right where their houses were just destroyed. And it isn't necessarily "stupid" in either case - the Philippines or the USA.

I object to posing Filipinos as too stupid to move to higher ground when seas rise. I also wasn't born yesterday so when an Americano marrys a Filipina and is helping her family financially I just don't buy the story that neither one of them considered that prior to marriage.

There isn't anything wrong with that, it's just wrong to pretend otherwise when it is so easily seen through.

[Caryh 5,206]

This is minimization (only) and rationalization (unexpected needs). You help out her family, period. Death, sickness, typhoons, etc. are all expected unless a person is an idiot, going through life not seeing sickness and death all around them.

I certainly don't expect a typhoon here in Minnesota, as typhoons have not been expected in the Davao area until just the other week. No one plans for someone to get sick next week, or die tomorrow. Things like that happen in life, but no one is really expecting a date they will happen.

Yanking on the heart strings by saying it is "mostly" for her mother and adopted children doesn't change one iota the fact you are helping her family. Money is fungible. We can say the money is being given for the poor sick children but if they spent their own money on cigarettes and booze instead of saving for medicine then what you are doing is subsidizing their cigarettes and booze. And "mostly" also tells us you pay for other things too.

Most of the time when we have sent cash, it has been for them. Her mother makes her own money with a sari sari store, and making rooster leashes. But there are relatives that have come around and "borrowed" from the store until its empty and she cannot afford to restock. We restock it then and she and the adopted special needs kids are good. That is until the next time this happens. But its usually a year or two until mother lets herself get taken advantage again. Bought her mother false teeth to, when she had them all pulled because they were causing her so much pain, but couldn't afford false teeth.

So why not just own up to the fact you help her family instead of trying to minimize/rationalize it.

Yes we help her family, but we don't give an allowance to support anyone who is too lazy to work.

So the fact you are helping her family is just an amazing coincidence.

And hey, such an amazing coincidence too that you randomly bumped into a Filipina instead of, say, a wealthy American or West European. Here you were looking so hard amongst the wealthy of the world and this Filipina from a poor family dropped down from the sky in the middle of the caviar and champaign party you were having on the French Riviera.

French Riviera? Never been there, they tell me its nice. But I have been to a lot of third world countries scuba diving, which is how I met my wife. I will not say that prettier and younger than the market at home had nothing to do with it. A better attitude than most of the women I met back home to.

With the exception of course of your wife. Every Filipino is stupid except yours.

All people are extremely good at self deception. Doesn't matter who or where they are. That includes myself and my wife. Even in hindsight, many people will deceive themselves that they were ignoring the obvious. That is why someone with a home on the coast or river will ignore rising water and say its never happened before while I was here. Its not the water that is now higher or closer every day, its the big storm that comes in which they wanted to believe would never happen.

Sometimes people aren't listening to themselves. We have plenty of people building in flood plains here in the USA and as a matter of fact a big storm just wiped out large areas in the East Coast of the U.S. Guess what they'll do? Rebuild right where their houses were just destroyed. And it isn't necessarily "stupid" in either case - the Philippines or the USA.

I object to posing Filipinos as too stupid to move to higher ground when seas rise. I also wasn't born yesterday so when an Americano marrys a Filipina and is helping her family financially I just don't buy the story that neither one of them considered that prior to marriage.

Of course we talked about what help we would give her family. Neither of us wanted to be enablers allowing them to quit working and live off a family member that would have to work 80 hours a week in the USA and have no life. She has a brother who would do that in a heartbeat if we gave him the chance. There's no reason he should be doing as poorly as he is, he's a seaman and makes good money when he works. But he married a woman who thinks she's a millionaire now, or hit the lottery since she got married. She spends his money faster than he can make it. He's finally getting wise to that, and instead of sending her money directly, he's now sending it to his sister, to dole out so there's some left when he comes back for a few months. But then he himself has a tendency to spend like there's no tomorrow, and has to borrow money to get back to Manila and wait to work again. We don't bail him out of his troubles, he made them, he can fix them. In fact he had said he was going to buy momma teeth when he got back, but when he got back he was too busy spending like a drunken sailor and playing big shot partier to remember to do so. Its not a surprise his wife thinks they're rich the way he acts when he returns each time. He always has big plans, but when the money is there, he never carries through on them.

There isn't anything wrong with that, it's just wrong to pretend otherwise when it is so easily seen through.

Direct money we've sent to her family has been pretty minor amounts. We spend much more for gifts to the family, for birthdays and Christmas. My wife is still half owner of a loan business there, which continues to grow in assets. Profits from that takes care of many things (house payment, electric, water bills) for her mother and the special needs twins.