Why the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are Not Collapsing
Global warming alarmists have suggested that the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica may collapse, causing disastrous sea level rise. This idea is based on the concept of an ice sheet sliding down an inclined plane on a base lubricated by meltwater, which is itself increasing because of global warming.
In reality the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets occupy deep basins, and cannot slide down a plane. Furthermore glacial flow depends on stress (including the important yield stress) as well as temperature, and much of the ice sheets are well below melting point.
The accumulation of kilometres of undisturbed ice in cores in Greenland and Antarctica (the same ones that are sometimes used to fuel ideas of global warming) show hundreds of thousands of years of accumulation with no melting or flow. Except around the edges, ice sheets flow at the base, and depend on geothermal heat, not the climate at the surface. It is impossible for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to ‘collapse’.
Much more at the link. But don’t worry… the ice is going to be here for quite some time.
September 5th, 2009 7:17 am
If it’s covered with ice, why is it called Greenland?
September 5th, 2009 10:23 am
Because about 800-900 years ago, if memory serves, Greenland was GREEN, as I’m sure you know. 😉 It used to be prime farmland. I’m sure that the people who lived there, mostly transplanted Vikings, thought the climate change that led to the ice was a pure catastrophe.
September 5th, 2009 8:05 pm
I actually heard somewhere that they switched up Iceland’s and Greenland’s names to mislead pirates into attacking Greenland instead of Iceland, hence protecting Iceland. Seems to me like it might be kinda hard to keep a country’s identity secret, even without GPS. But then, they did believe in sea monsters and the edge of the world, so who knows….
September 5th, 2009 9:13 pm
This is giving me ideas. What if we changed the name of the USA? Maybe the Left would be confused, and with no one on which to blame every problem of the world, maybe they would just go home and grow soybeans (for TOFU) and hemp (you figure it out… but I’m pretty sure they aren’t making rope).
The floor is open for new names for the USA.