"This Giant Ice Cube Represents How Much Ice We're Losing" Topic

…Every Year

"We talk about ice a lot here on Earther—or more specifically, the growing absence of it. A new study puts what's happening to the planet in striking perspective. While I can tell you the results show 1.2 trillion tons of ice disappeared every year since 1994, it's a lot easier to grasp as a visual.

That cube of ice up there towers 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) into the sky like a sunshade over Manhattan and stretches over a huge swath of New Jersey, from Newark Airport to Jersey City. That's how much we've lost to burning fossil fuels on average per year over the past two decades. The skyscrapers of the Financial District and Midtown are toothpicks. More ominously, the cube is getting bigger as ice loss accelerates…"

Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Now show the ice cube in relation to the entire planet.

Now show the ice cube in relation to the entire planet. grin

Why? It's the same as asking for the difference in average global temperature in Kelvin or Rankine over the past x amount of years and complaining that since you can't eyeball the slope, it's insignificant.

Small differences can be important, try and ask how it feels to have a body temperature of 293K :-)

Looks very big to me!… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Why?

Because the example dramatizes without relevance. Anyone could play that game with almost any cause and any data.

How big would a glass of bourbon be to utilize that cube properly?

Since most of the ice is underwater how can they know how thick it is and how can they calculate the weight accurately? It all sounds rather speculative to me.

Loss of ice eh, is that why for several years the "Global Warming" folks have been making making expeditions to Antarctica to measure how much ice has been lost, and they end up trapped in ice that was much more wide spread and thicker than their vaunted models predicted and have to be rescued?

try and ask how it feels to have a body temperature of 293K :-)

Okay. How does it feel?

Since most of the ice is underwater how can they know how thick it is and how can they calculate the weight accurately? It all sounds rather speculative to me.

Many different ways (this is a good thing, since all the different indirect methods provide constraints on the others to allow for a more precise number). The UK's Met Office has a nice little explainer here:

link

Okay. How does it feel?

He's dead Jim. 293k is room temperature (although some use 300 k ( to make the math easier)

Loss of ice eh, is that why for several years the "Global Warming" folks have been making making expeditions to Antarctica to measure how much ice has been lost, and they end up trapped in ice that was much more wide spread and thicker than their vaunted models predicted and have to be rescued?

That's two different types of ice, and a warmer world means more of the ice that traps ships (for now)

Longer explanation (This isn't my area of specialization, I do economic geography, but I do remember this from my undergrad days and I do have lunch (pre-covid) with people who research this stuff): As land ice melts on the antarctic continent (and this also happens to a lesser extent off of Greenland), the relatively warmer melt water floats on the ocean water. This water has lower salinity, therefore freezes faster and at a warmer temperature than you would expect from sea ice.

That's the other thing, they keep giving us the measurements of sea ice, towards the bottom or end of the glaciers and show us dramatic pictures of huge ice bergs calving off into the ocean to support this claim. What about the other end of the scale, the glaciers keep moving because there is more snow falling near the top or beginning point making the ice thicker towards the top of the glacier. I never hear them talk about the ice thickness towards the top or beginning point.

Here's Dr Richard Alley explaining all of that and more:

YouTube link

Thanks Martin!….

Amicalement
Armand

A bit of it is in my yard, and at end each side of my driveway.