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Modi’s net zero in just 49 years is not a good sign – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,132
    edited November 2021
    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    That's not the mistake I would expect an ABC or Welby to make. It's more common that they would make a contribution that the specialist audience would understand and that the media misinterpret because it went over their heads. Remember what happened to Rowan Williams after his very sensible contribution on English Law and Sharia Law in 2008?

    ABCs are continually involved in all kinds of initiatives with Jewish and similar leaders. It would not surprise me if a Jewish colleague at the conference warned him, and got him to reverse-ferret so quickly to make the story "ABC does X and apologises" rather than "ABC does X" in the first news cycle.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    If Cherbourg becomes a new channel island…
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631
    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    Are you counting the polar ice caps?
    I was not.

    But let's have a little play there too, shall we?

    Firstly, we're going to assume that every single bit of ice is going to melt there. (Which would be an astonishing warming of the earth, given that the South Pole still only gets to around 28 degrees below in summer.

    But let's start with the North Pole. According to Wikipedia: "Earth's North Pole is covered by floating pack ice (sea ice) over the Arctic Ocean. Portions of the ice that do not melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about 1 meter thick. The area covered by sea ice ranges between 9 and 12 million km2." Let's go with 5 meters over the whole lot.

    Let's just play with numbers. 10 million km at 5m depth compared to 150 million km of oceans. Now, I'm rounding here, but that means that if the whole North Pole was to melt, that would add about 30cm to world sea levels.

    Hmmm... Not getting to a 70 meter increase there.

    Let's add the South Pole shall we.

    That's 14.6 million square miles. Let's round up to 15 million miles. And let's assume an average depth of 100 meters. That means that Antarctica could add 10 meters to sea levels. But again those seem like pretty chunky top of the head calculations, even ignoring the fact that there's been no diminution of ice levels at the South Pole and that it remains pretty damn cold there.
    The Antarctic ice sheet is several miles thick, and contains enough ice that were it to melt entirely, raises the sea level 60m.

    https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/ice-sheet/
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129
    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    Yes, but the Antarctic ice cap is much thicker than 100m. The sea level has been significantly higher in past geological times.

    Even a couple of meters floods an awfully large area of the world's most fertile, productive and inhabited land.
    Oh, I completely agree with that.

    I just think that 70 meters is ridiculous, because it would require a truly ridiculous level of warming to melt the entire Antarctic ice cap. Let's not forget that its average *summer* temperature is -28. For the summer average to rise to zero probably requires a degree of global warming that would see England hotter than Saudi Arabia.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664
    edited November 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    1.5km thick ice sheet?

    Wow. Sounds like I could be wrong.

    That seems awfully thick. I mean the highest height in Greenland is only about 3km above sea level.
    A lot of the ice sits on ground below sea level (as per Antarctica). The whole landscape is just ice.

    This is interesting though:
    https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/uvm-scientists-stunned-discover-plants-beneath-mile-deep-greenland-ice

    It suggests that Greenland wasn't ice covered in the fairly recent past...

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    It wasn't even an offhand comment, it seemed to be an extended metaphor that he must have considered at some length. How he didn't see it coming is a mystery.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,782

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Sea levels don't rise uniformly because of the gravitational effect of the ice sheet. If the ice cover of Antarctica and Greenland melt sea levels will actually drop in both these places and increase even more the further away you get because the large ice sheet has a greater gravitational effect on the sea water around it.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    Are you counting the polar ice caps?
    I was not.

    But let's have a little play there too, shall we?

    Firstly, we're going to assume that every single bit of ice is going to melt there. (Which would be an astonishing warming of the earth, given that the South Pole still only gets to around 28 degrees below in summer.

    But let's start with the North Pole. According to Wikipedia: "Earth's North Pole is covered by floating pack ice (sea ice) over the Arctic Ocean. Portions of the ice that do not melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about 1 meter thick. The area covered by sea ice ranges between 9 and 12 million km2." Let's go with 5 meters over the whole lot.

    Let's just play with numbers. 10 million km at 5m depth compared to 150 million km of oceans. Now, I'm rounding here, but that means that if the whole North Pole was to melt, that would add about 30cm to world sea levels.

    Hmmm... Not getting to a 70 meter increase there.

    Let's add the South Pole shall we.

    That's 14.6 million square miles. Let's round up to 15 million miles. And let's assume an average depth of 100 meters. That means that Antarctica could add 10 meters to sea levels. But again those seem like pretty chunky top of the head calculations, even ignoring the fact that there's been no diminution of ice levels at the South Pole and that it remains pretty damn cold there.
    Let's not assume an average depth of 100 metres, let's go with the well established average depth of two kilometres, maxing out at 5 kilometres. this makes a difference.
  • Just received my first Brexit driving license. Glad that we've taken advantage of leaving the EU to make it look as shitty and cheap as possible. Looks like it's been designed on an early 90s version of Microsoft Word.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631
    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    Yes, but the Antarctic ice cap is much thicker than 100m. The sea level has been significantly higher in past geological times.

    Even a couple of meters floods an awfully large area of the world's most fertile, productive and inhabited land.
    Oh, I completely agree with that.

    I just think that 70 meters is ridiculous, because it would require a truly ridiculous level of warming to melt the entire Antarctic ice cap. Let's not forget that its average *summer* temperature is -28. For the summer average to rise to zero probably requires a degree of global warming that would see England hotter than Saudi Arabia.
    I don't think that you can count on the Antarctic climate remaining proportionally the same as the rest of the world. Such massive climatic change will alter climate there tremendously. In geological times hippos lived there.

    It won't happen in our lifetimes, though a metre is quite plausible, particularly if positive feedback occurs such as permafrost melting and releasing methane.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664
    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    Yes, but the Antarctic ice cap is much thicker than 100m. The sea level has been significantly higher in past geological times.

    Even a couple of meters floods an awfully large area of the world's most fertile, productive and inhabited land.
    Oh, I completely agree with that.

    I just think that 70 meters is ridiculous, because it would require a truly ridiculous level of warming to melt the entire Antarctic ice cap. Let's not forget that its average *summer* temperature is -28. For the summer average to rise to zero probably requires a degree of global warming that would see England hotter than Saudi Arabia.
    Ice isn't static though. It flows. Even if it isn't melting in the centre, it can flow out to places where it is. That's how glaciers work, after all.

    You don't end up with no ice sheet, but you do end up with a lot less ice.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    MattW said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    MattW said:

    On topic.

    Why is this not a good sign?

    Because no matter what is agreed to, it;s not good enough in the eyes of Greta.
    The only problem with the Indian announcement is how to blame the UK government. Blaming the India government won't happen.
    That does rather tie into how much flak Boris will get if the whole event is a bit lacklustre. Nations used to take months or even years to thrash out agreements sometimes - though granted we can communicate a lot faster - and presumably that's still the case behind the scenes, so unexpected breakthroughs at summits and the like must be pretty rare. How much is any host expected to personally 'achieve'.
    I'd say (with my ingrowing cynicism) that Boris will get flak regardless, as there are plenty out there who regard going for BJ as equally as high a priority as anything else - as a Tory Govt is EVIL and has to be destroyed.
    That's certainly true, but the opposite is true too - whatever resolution the conference comes up with, the Government will claim it was a resounding success. One has to look beyond the rhetoric at what is actually promised before, during and directtly after the event.

    A one-minute PPB that my lot are showing at our stand there, in case anyone is curious:

    https://youtu.be/OEY64a4TsUI
    Dairy is one of the cheapest and most efficient sources of protein for the poor in the developing world. But who cares about them anyway?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,132
    MattW said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    That's not the mistake I would expect an ABC or Welby to make. It's more common that they would make a contribution that the specialist audience would understand and that the media misinterpret because it went over their heads. Remember what happened to Rowan Williams after his very sensible contribution on English Law and Sharia Law in 2008?

    ABCs are continually involved in all kinds of initiatives with Jewish and similar leaders. It would not surprise me if a Jewish colleague at the conference warned him, and got him to reverse-ferret so quickly to make the story "ABC does X and apologises" rather than "ABC does X" in the first news cycle.
    Incidentally, the Rowan Williams lecture to the Royal Courts of Justice:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20080711171754/http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1575
  • Charles said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    If Cherbourg becomes a new channel island…
    That's quite encouraging. The Cotswolds survive.

    Nothing to worry about then. :)
  • IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Erm if sea ice is floating on water then melting it will cause no change in sea level whatsoever. A gent by the name of Archimedes worked that one out about 2000 years ago. It is already displacing the sea just by floating on it. (This does not quite apply if it is anchored to nearby land)
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,800
    Biden is just incomprehensible. He cannot even read a tv prompt. It is sad and pathetic.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    1.5km thick ice sheet?

    Wow. Sounds like I could be wrong.

    That seems awfully thick. I mean the highest height in Greenland is only about 3km above sea level.
    A lot of the ice sits on ground below sea level (as per Antarctica). The whole landscape is just ice.

    This is interesting though:
    https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/uvm-scientists-stunned-discover-plants-beneath-mile-deep-greenland-ice

    It suggests that Greenland wasn't ice covered in the fairly recent past...

    Clue’s in the name?

    😂
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Sea ice is 90% submerged. Water expands as it freezes by about 9%. Therefore sea ice melting is fairly close to net neutral.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631
    edited November 2021

    Charles said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    If Cherbourg becomes a new channel island…
    That's quite encouraging. The Cotswolds survive.

    Nothing to worry about then. :)
    It looks like my house will have a sea view (I am at 140m above sea level) but my football team may need to swap to water polo.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Erm if sea ice is floating on water then melting it will cause no change in sea level whatsoever. A gent by the name of Archimedes worked that one out about 2000 years ago. It is already displacing the sea just by floating on it. (This does not quite apply if it is anchored to nearby land)
    It brings to mind an interview question I was asked once...


    You are on a duck pond in a rowing boat. For some reason someone has put a brick in the boat.

    You take the brick out of the boat and drop it into the pond. What happens to the level of the pond?
  • Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    Ignoring that Welby's was a clunking metaphor that made no sense in its own terms, he was probably also caught out by the changed zeitgeist. Last Century, the objection to Welby's comment would be that it was wrong, whereas today there is more awareness and sensitivity around the holocaust.

    However, is it the Jewish community that is outraged? A quick check of the Jewish Chronicle site shows it is not news there. A quick check of Twitter suggests it is mainly climate sceptics offended, and a few Corbynistas taking potshots at a man they see as Boris's ally.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    If Cherbourg becomes a new channel island…
    That's quite encouraging. The Cotswolds survive.

    Nothing to worry about then. :)
    I’m good to 35m in California and 45m in London 😄
  • rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    1.5km thick ice sheet?

    Wow. Sounds like I could be wrong.

    That seems awfully thick. I mean the highest height in Greenland is only about 3km above sea level.
    Unless I'm misreading that page it seems like the Greenland ice sheet is determined as 7m of sea level equivalent, while almost everything else is just centimetres of sea level equivalent, so that pretty much seems to match your back of an envelope original calculations.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,631
    DavidL said:

    Biden is just incomprehensible. He cannot even read a tv prompt. It is sad and pathetic.

    The clip on the radio came over quite well. Clearer than most that we have heard.

    It will all be torn up by Trump if he gets back in of course, for no other reason than to spite the Democrats.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664
    Charles said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    1.5km thick ice sheet?

    Wow. Sounds like I could be wrong.

    That seems awfully thick. I mean the highest height in Greenland is only about 3km above sea level.
    A lot of the ice sits on ground below sea level (as per Antarctica). The whole landscape is just ice.

    This is interesting though:
    https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/uvm-scientists-stunned-discover-plants-beneath-mile-deep-greenland-ice

    It suggests that Greenland wasn't ice covered in the fairly recent past...

    Clue’s in the name?

    😂
    That was an early form of political spin, I believe?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    kjh said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Sea levels don't rise uniformly because of the gravitational effect of the ice sheet. If the ice cover of Antarctica and Greenland melt sea levels will actually drop in both these places and increase even more the further away you get because the large ice sheet has a greater gravitational effect on the sea water around it.
    A science fact I actually knew (thanks to Randall Munroe's "How to"), which is a rarity.
  • Charles said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    1.5km thick ice sheet?

    Wow. Sounds like I could be wrong.

    That seems awfully thick. I mean the highest height in Greenland is only about 3km above sea level.
    A lot of the ice sits on ground below sea level (as per Antarctica). The whole landscape is just ice.

    This is interesting though:
    https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/uvm-scientists-stunned-discover-plants-beneath-mile-deep-greenland-ice

    It suggests that Greenland wasn't ice covered in the fairly recent past...

    Clue’s in the name?

    😂
    Yet another excuse to link to the Mitchell & Webb sketch on explorers naming countries (including Greenland)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-g3v1Z34Hk
  • rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    1.5km thick ice sheet?

    Wow. Sounds like I could be wrong.

    That seems awfully thick. I mean the highest height in Greenland is only about 3km above sea level.
    A lot of the ice sits on ground below sea level (as per Antarctica). The whole landscape is just ice.

    This is interesting though:
    https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/uvm-scientists-stunned-discover-plants-beneath-mile-deep-greenland-ice

    It suggests that Greenland wasn't ice covered in the fairly recent past...

    My wife and I went on an expedition cruise to Antarctic and South Georgia for our retirement present to each other in 2009, and it was and is the most breathtakingly beautiful place we have ever visited with amazing wildlife and glaciers by the score
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,103

    Fr/UK relations are in bad shape

    Senior French officials tell me Macron - who once thought he could establish chummy relations with Johnson - now regards him as a malevolent clown whose word can't be trusted

    The Brits are more polite: Fr oversold fish deal - & is electioneering


    https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1455236274319724558?s=20

    I remember when a certain Emmanuel Macron warned that underestimating Johnson was a serious mistake.
    So "malevolent clown whose word can't be trusted" is a positive reappraisal of Johnson then. The belated realization by a blindsided French president that he's a tough as teak shrewdie working ruthlessly in the UK's national interest. Interesting view.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    1.5km thick ice sheet?

    Wow. Sounds like I could be wrong.

    That seems awfully thick. I mean the highest height in Greenland is only about 3km above sea level.
    A lot of the ice sits on ground below sea level (as per Antarctica). The whole landscape is just ice.

    This is interesting though:
    https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/uvm-scientists-stunned-discover-plants-beneath-mile-deep-greenland-ice

    It suggests that Greenland wasn't ice covered in the fairly recent past...

    Clue’s in the name?

    😂
    That was an early form of political spin, I believe?
    Marketing based on truth

    https://visitgreenland.com/articles/10-facts-nellie-huang/

    According to Visit Greenland, that famously unbiased source…
  • BalrogBalrog Posts: 207
    Isn't the other factor that as the water warms in the ocean it changes density, expands indeed. And it can't go sideways so it goes up. I don't know how much by but I thought it was significant.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129
    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    Are you counting the polar ice caps?
    I was not.

    But let's have a little play there too, shall we?

    Firstly, we're going to assume that every single bit of ice is going to melt there. (Which would be an astonishing warming of the earth, given that the South Pole still only gets to around 28 degrees below in summer.

    But let's start with the North Pole. According to Wikipedia: "Earth's North Pole is covered by floating pack ice (sea ice) over the Arctic Ocean. Portions of the ice that do not melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about 1 meter thick. The area covered by sea ice ranges between 9 and 12 million km2." Let's go with 5 meters over the whole lot.

    Let's just play with numbers. 10 million km at 5m depth compared to 150 million km of oceans. Now, I'm rounding here, but that means that if the whole North Pole was to melt, that would add about 30cm to world sea levels.

    Hmmm... Not getting to a 70 meter increase there.

    Let's add the South Pole shall we.

    That's 14.6 million square miles. Let's round up to 15 million miles. And let's assume an average depth of 100 meters. That means that Antarctica could add 10 meters to sea levels. But again those seem like pretty chunky top of the head calculations, even ignoring the fact that there's been no diminution of ice levels at the South Pole and that it remains pretty damn cold there.
    Let's not assume an average depth of 100 metres, let's go with the well established average depth of two kilometres, maxing out at 5 kilometres. this makes a difference.
    The highest point in Antarctica is below 5km - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinson_Massif - and that definitely contains quite a lot of rock. From the picture there's clearly rock at the actual surface.

    And remember you can't count the ice below sea level. Because that will actually, as it melts, lower sea levels.
  • OT David Starkey has launched his own Youtube channel. He looks quite old now, and should buy a separate webcam, or move the one he has.
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6t5oQs-YSfhgOC4Y5UEqqA/videos
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,372
    Foxy said:

    Charles said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    If Cherbourg becomes a new channel island…
    That's quite encouraging. The Cotswolds survive.

    Nothing to worry about then. :)
    It looks like my house will have a sea view (I am at 140m above sea level) but my football team may need to swap to water polo.
    They seem to have Newcastle and Sunderland the wrong way round
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    edited November 2021
    .

    Diplomacy, French style:

    SYDNEY, Nov 1 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron said Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison lied to him over the cancellation of a submarine building contract in September, and indicated more efforts were required to rebuild trust between the two allies.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-macron-says-australia-pm-lied-him-submarine-deal-2021-10-31/

    @CarlottaVance I know you quite correctly like calling out inexcusable political decision making, so I am disappointed that you inadvertently omitted to post the Rob Roberts story earlier. It must have been an unforeseen error on your part.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,871
    Evening all :)

    The "environment" - if you think housing and health are complex subjects which defy simple or simplistic solutions, let's try this one.

    Yes, the UK has made huge progress starting with the Coalition and while we might wish to blow our own trumpet, I suspect our per head carbon footprint, while lower than it was, is still a lot higher than the average citizen of Mauritania, Bolivia or Fiji.

    Now, some might say I'm deliberately conflating apples and oranges but we all live on the same planet so continuing to do things better in our corner of the world isn't insignificant or negligible but helps.

    The central issue is how we create economic prosperity for those parts of the world which are still a long way removed from the standard of living we enjoy/take for granted (delete as appropriate). These people are entitled to better lives but not at the cost of the planet. Creating growth on a different and sustainable economic model from the one the West used would seem a desirable goal.

    We can and should be pioneering the sustainable economic growth model and exporting it via investment to the rest of the world. Leading and sharing technological advances which mitigate the current CO2 emissions would also seem a priority - it may not be a general view but if we see ourselves as partly responsible for the current problem, let's make ourselves responsible for the solution.

    I'm a firm believer in human ingenuity - the response to the coronavirus is a fine example and, like the virus, climate change will blight the poorest hardest whether in the suburbs of coastal cities or on the poorer parts of islands. The rich can go to higher ground and build defences, the poor generally cannot.

    On a final point, the victimisation of passenger air travel - what about all the cargo planes and the military planes? I grew up in the Bronze Age (the third best age) and we didn't have bananas, strawberries and other exotic fruit and veg in the winter. The ability to produce and transport fruit and veg from other parts of the world has enriched our diet and food options but is the cost of that in environmental terms justifiable?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    https://www.floodmap.net/ lets you play with the levels if you think 70m is silly (which it is). The cloggies are basically fucked by even a 1 metre rise; any more than that, Cambridge are serious losers.

    Apologies for the redundant "any more than that" in the preceding sentence.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    Melting the sea ice won't raise sea level!

    #Archimedes
    It will if it's 1500-4000m thick; see the better informed posts above.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    Are you counting the polar ice caps?
    I was not.

    But let's have a little play there too, shall we?

    Firstly, we're going to assume that every single bit of ice is going to melt there. (Which would be an astonishing warming of the earth, given that the South Pole still only gets to around 28 degrees below in summer.

    But let's start with the North Pole. According to Wikipedia: "Earth's North Pole is covered by floating pack ice (sea ice) over the Arctic Ocean. Portions of the ice that do not melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about 1 meter thick. The area covered by sea ice ranges between 9 and 12 million km2." Let's go with 5 meters over the whole lot.

    Let's just play with numbers. 10 million km at 5m depth compared to 150 million km of oceans. Now, I'm rounding here, but that means that if the whole North Pole was to melt, that would add about 30cm to world sea levels.

    Hmmm... Not getting to a 70 meter increase there.

    Let's add the South Pole shall we.

    That's 14.6 million square miles. Let's round up to 15 million miles. And let's assume an average depth of 100 meters. That means that Antarctica could add 10 meters to sea levels. But again those seem like pretty chunky top of the head calculations, even ignoring the fact that there's been no diminution of ice levels at the South Pole and that it remains pretty damn cold there.
    Let's not assume an average depth of 100 metres, let's go with the well established average depth of two kilometres, maxing out at 5 kilometres. this makes a difference.
    The highest point in Antarctica is below 5km - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinson_Massif - and that definitely contains quite a lot of rock. From the picture there's clearly rock at the actual surface.

    And remember you can't count the ice below sea level. Because that will actually, as it melts, lower sea levels.
    Why are we basing conversation on back of the envelope calculations when actual scientists have done in depth calculations on how much ice there is?
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664
    edited November 2021
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    Melting the sea ice won't raise sea level!

    #Archimedes
    It will if it's 1500-4000m thick; see the better informed posts above.
    It isn't sea ice if it isn't floating!
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Sea ice is 90% submerged. Water expands as it freezes by about 9%. Therefore sea ice melting is fairly close to net neutral.
    It doesn't matter if it submerged or not. If it is floating in or on the water then it is already displacing all the water it is ever going to displace. It is pretty basic physics.

    Land ice of course is a completely different matter which is why the areas of concern are Greenland and the Antarctic continent.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,103
    edited November 2021

    Fr/UK relations are in bad shape

    Senior French officials tell me Macron - who once thought he could establish chummy relations with Johnson - now regards him as a malevolent clown whose word can't be trusted

    The Brits are more polite: Fr oversold fish deal - & is electioneering


    https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1455236274319724558?s=20

    Macron might be seeking to win the adoration of the FBPE Twitter crowd with that childish language.

    Not sure its going to achieve much else though.
    It's not great, no, but to be pedantic, "malevolent clown whose word can't be trusted" isn't childish language, it's aggressive and insulting. That it's true doesn't make it acceptable or good practice or productive. But it's not childish. An example of childish communication would be a British PM telling a French president to "donnez moi un break" or "prennez un grip", this sort of thing. Being hypothetical here, obviously, and a bit silly, since I don't suppose that would actually happen.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897
    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    There was nothing remotely offensive about it to Jews.

    If anything by comparing the failure of world leaders to combat Nazism in the 1930s (thus enabling the Holocaust) to the risk of world leaders today failing to do enough to combat climate change he was saying not enough was done to protect Jews then.

    As far as I can see he had no need to apologise whatsoever
  • IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    Melting the sea ice won't raise sea level!

    #Archimedes
    It will if it's 1500-4000m thick; see the better informed posts above.
    No it really won't. This is not a climate change argument it is basic physics. If it is sea ice then it is already displacing all the water it is ever going to displace. It is all about mass not volume. Land ice is a different matter which is where I think you are confused. Sea ice doesn't get to the sorts of thicknesses you describe.
  • Brenda dropping another hint that London Bridge will soon fall.

    The Queen has called on world leaders to look beyond their own lifetimes and “answer the call of future generations” with an ambitious agreement to tackle climate change.

    In a speech delivered by video to more than 120 leaders gathered in Glasgow for the Cop26 climate change conference she said that “none of us will live for ever” and urged them to rise above “the politics of the moment”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cop26-queen-tells-delegates-in-glasgow-it-is-time-for-action-lxpqmbdwr
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897
    DavidL said:

    Biden is just incomprehensible. He cannot even read a tv prompt. It is sad and pathetic.

    Biden's average net disapproval in the US now up to 50.7%, just 42.9% approve of his presidency

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?ex_cid=rrpromo
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,027
    edited November 2021
    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    There was nothing remotely offensive about it to Jews.

    If anything by comparing the failure of world leaders to combat Nazism in the 1930s (thus enabling the Holocaust) to the risk of world leaders today failing to do enough to combat climate change he was saying not enough was done to protect Jews then.

    As far as I can see he had no need to apologise whatsoever
    It was wholly unnecessary and he is right to apologise

    He is head of the Anglican Church and his language was ill judged, but then who listens to the clergy these days anyway
  • Brenda dropping another hint that London Bridge will soon fall.

    The Queen has called on world leaders to look beyond their own lifetimes and “answer the call of future generations” with an ambitious agreement to tackle climate change.

    In a speech delivered by video to more than 120 leaders gathered in Glasgow for the Cop26 climate change conference she said that “none of us will live for ever” and urged them to rise above “the politics of the moment”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cop26-queen-tells-delegates-in-glasgow-it-is-time-for-action-lxpqmbdwr

    Turns out the only reason HMQ has suspended official duties is because she is moonlighting as an Uber driver.

    The Queen spotted driving car near Windsor estate
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59123349
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,871
    IshmaelZ said:

    https://www.floodmap.net/ lets you play with the levels if you think 70m is silly (which it is). The cloggies are basically fucked by even a 1 metre rise; any more than that, Cambridge are serious losers.

    Apologies for the redundant "any more than that" in the preceding sentence.

    A 2-meter rise puts Stodge Towers at risk.

    We have the Thames Flood Barrier though we're on the wrong side and have to rely on the Barking Creek flood barrier - the world's largest guillotine. It's a brave idea to cut off the tidal flow - the problem is all the water backing up down the River Roding would have nowhere to go and we'd be flooded from the land side.

    It's an unattractive prospect.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Erm if sea ice is floating on water then melting it will cause no change in sea level whatsoever. A gent by the name of Archimedes worked that one out about 2000 years ago. It is already displacing the sea just by floating on it. (This does not quite apply if it is anchored to nearby land)
    A common fallacy which ignores the fact that Archimedes is about mass, not volume. Icebergs melting raise sea level by about 2.6%

    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/345381/does-the-sea-level-increase-if-an-iceberg-melts

    https://wobbly.earth/post/archimedes/

    https://phys.org/news/2010-04-icebergs-sea.html
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    edited November 2021
    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Biden is just incomprehensible. He cannot even read a tv prompt. It is sad and pathetic.

    Biden's average net disapproval in the US now up to 50.7%, just 42.9% approve of his presidency

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?ex_cid=rrpromo
    Weren't we occasionally down in the thirties when your boy was President?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    There was nothing remotely offensive about it to Jews.

    If anything by comparing the failure of world leaders to combat Nazism in the 1930s (thus enabling the Holocaust) to the risk of world leaders today failing to do enough to combat climate change he was saying not enough was done to protect Jews then.

    As far as I can see he had no need to apologise whatsoever
    It was wholly unnecessary and he is right to apologise

    He is head of the Anglican Church and his language was ill judged, but then who listens to the clergy these days anyway
    I repeat, what was actually offensive about it to Jews?

    He is also primus inter pares of the Anglican communion, representing 92 million Anglicans worldwide, as well as head of the Church of England. Plenty listen to him, including me
  • Brenda dropping another hint that London Bridge will soon fall.

    The Queen has called on world leaders to look beyond their own lifetimes and “answer the call of future generations” with an ambitious agreement to tackle climate change.

    In a speech delivered by video to more than 120 leaders gathered in Glasgow for the Cop26 climate change conference she said that “none of us will live for ever” and urged them to rise above “the politics of the moment”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cop26-queen-tells-delegates-in-glasgow-it-is-time-for-action-lxpqmbdwr

    Turns out the only reason HMQ has suspended official duties is because she is moonlighting as an Uber driver.

    The Queen spotted driving car near Windsor estate
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59123349
    Told you, she didn't want to go to Glasgow because of the rubbish food experience.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,103

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    There was nothing remotely offensive about it to Jews.

    If anything by comparing the failure of world leaders to combat Nazism in the 1930s (thus enabling the Holocaust) to the risk of world leaders today failing to do enough to combat climate change he was saying not enough was done to protect Jews then.

    As far as I can see he had no need to apologise whatsoever
    It was wholly unnecessary and he is right to apologise

    He is head of the Anglican Church and his language was ill judged, but then who listens to the clergy these days anyway
    Sounds like we all are!
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,603

    Brenda dropping another hint that London Bridge will soon fall.

    The Queen has called on world leaders to look beyond their own lifetimes and “answer the call of future generations” with an ambitious agreement to tackle climate change.

    In a speech delivered by video to more than 120 leaders gathered in Glasgow for the Cop26 climate change conference she said that “none of us will live for ever” and urged them to rise above “the politics of the moment”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cop26-queen-tells-delegates-in-glasgow-it-is-time-for-action-lxpqmbdwr

    Turns out the only reason HMQ has suspended official duties is because she is moonlighting as an Uber driver.

    The Queen spotted driving car near Windsor estate
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59123349
    "You'll never guess who I had in the front of my cab the other day."
  • Brenda dropping another hint that London Bridge will soon fall.

    The Queen has called on world leaders to look beyond their own lifetimes and “answer the call of future generations” with an ambitious agreement to tackle climate change.

    In a speech delivered by video to more than 120 leaders gathered in Glasgow for the Cop26 climate change conference she said that “none of us will live for ever” and urged them to rise above “the politics of the moment”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cop26-queen-tells-delegates-in-glasgow-it-is-time-for-action-lxpqmbdwr

    Turns out the only reason HMQ has suspended official duties is because she is moonlighting as an Uber driver.

    The Queen spotted driving car near Windsor estate
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59123349
    Is a Windsor estate better than a Windsor saloon or hatchback?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897
    edited November 2021

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Biden is just incomprehensible. He cannot even read a tv prompt. It is sad and pathetic.

    Biden's average net disapproval in the US now up to 50.7%, just 42.9% approve of his presidency

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?ex_cid=rrpromo
    Weren't we occasionally down in the thirties when your boy was President?
    Biden's is the second lowest approval rating of any US President at this stage of their Presidency in the last 50 years after Trump yes.

    Trump lost his re election bid so that is not much encouragement for Biden (and Trump is not my boy, in US terms I would be a moderate Republican at most not a Trumpite)
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    There was nothing remotely offensive about it to Jews.

    If anything by comparing the failure of world leaders to combat Nazism in the 1930s (thus enabling the Holocaust) to the risk of world leaders today failing to do enough to combat climate change he was saying not enough was done to protect Jews then.

    As far as I can see he had no need to apologise whatsoever
    It was wholly unnecessary and he is right to apologise

    He is head of the Anglican Church and his language was ill judged, but then who listens to the clergy these days anyway
    I repeat, what was actually offensive about it to Jews?

    He is also primus inter pares of the Anglican communion, representing 92 million Anglicans worldwide, as well as head of the Church of England. Plenty listen to him, including me
    Did you listen to him when he wanted universal credit abolished?

    If not, why not?
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Erm if sea ice is floating on water then melting it will cause no change in sea level whatsoever. A gent by the name of Archimedes worked that one out about 2000 years ago. It is already displacing the sea just by floating on it. (This does not quite apply if it is anchored to nearby land)
    A common fallacy which ignores the fact that Archimedes is about mass, not volume. Icebergs melting raise sea level by about 2.6%

    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/345381/does-the-sea-level-increase-if-an-iceberg-melts

    https://wobbly.earth/post/archimedes/

    https://phys.org/news/2010-04-icebergs-sea.html
    But doesn't a glass of frozen water go down in volume when it melts?
  • stodge said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    https://www.floodmap.net/ lets you play with the levels if you think 70m is silly (which it is). The cloggies are basically fucked by even a 1 metre rise; any more than that, Cambridge are serious losers.

    Apologies for the redundant "any more than that" in the preceding sentence.

    A 2-meter rise puts Stodge Towers at risk.

    We have the Thames Flood Barrier though we're on the wrong side and have to rely on the Barking Creek flood barrier - the world's largest guillotine. It's a brave idea to cut off the tidal flow - the problem is all the water backing up down the River Roding would have nowhere to go and we'd be flooded from the land side.

    It's an unattractive prospect.
    Ilford is just upstream from you!

    Actually, the name Ilford derives from an old name for the Roding: the Hyle.
  • HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Biden is just incomprehensible. He cannot even read a tv prompt. It is sad and pathetic.

    Biden's average net disapproval in the US now up to 50.7%, just 42.9% approve of his presidency

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?ex_cid=rrpromo
    Weren't we occasionally down in the thirties when your boy was President?
    The thing I fear most is that Trump wins again

    It would be a disaster for the whole world

    Everyone of sound mind must hope and pray it does not come about
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664
    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    Are you counting the polar ice caps?
    I was not.

    But let's have a little play there too, shall we?

    Firstly, we're going to assume that every single bit of ice is going to melt there. (Which would be an astonishing warming of the earth, given that the South Pole still only gets to around 28 degrees below in summer.

    But let's start with the North Pole. According to Wikipedia: "Earth's North Pole is covered by floating pack ice (sea ice) over the Arctic Ocean. Portions of the ice that do not melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about 1 meter thick. The area covered by sea ice ranges between 9 and 12 million km2." Let's go with 5 meters over the whole lot.

    Let's just play with numbers. 10 million km at 5m depth compared to 150 million km of oceans. Now, I'm rounding here, but that means that if the whole North Pole was to melt, that would add about 30cm to world sea levels.

    Hmmm... Not getting to a 70 meter increase there.

    Let's add the South Pole shall we.

    That's 14.6 million square miles. Let's round up to 15 million miles. And let's assume an average depth of 100 meters. That means that Antarctica could add 10 meters to sea levels. But again those seem like pretty chunky top of the head calculations, even ignoring the fact that there's been no diminution of ice levels at the South Pole and that it remains pretty damn cold there.
    Let's not assume an average depth of 100 metres, let's go with the well established average depth of two kilometres, maxing out at 5 kilometres. this makes a difference.
    The highest point in Antarctica is below 5km - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinson_Massif - and that definitely contains quite a lot of rock. From the picture there's clearly rock at the actual surface.

    And remember you can't count the ice below sea level. Because that will actually, as it melts, lower sea levels.
    Vinson is a fairly isolated volcano.

    Here is a map of the rock underneath Antarctica...
    https://cpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.uci.edu/dist/8/1765/files/2018/10/products_bed.jpg

    Note how much of it is below sea level (although there's no sea there at the moment because it is sealed out by the ice).

    Ice thickness...
    https://cpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.uci.edu/dist/8/1765/files/2018/10/products_thickness.jpg

    You'll notice it is quite thin on the mountain ranges, but these are actually holding back the vast mass of ice sheet in the interior.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Biden is just incomprehensible. He cannot even read a tv prompt. It is sad and pathetic.

    Biden's average net disapproval in the US now up to 50.7%, just 42.9% approve of his presidency

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?ex_cid=rrpromo
    Weren't we occasionally down in the thirties when your boy was President?
    Biden's is the second lowest approval rating of any US President at this stage of their Presidency in the last 50 years after Trump yes.

    Trump lost his re election bid so that is not much encouragement for Biden (and Trump is not my boy, in US terms I would be a moderate Republican at most not a Trumpite)
    "Trump lost"? You, Trump and Robert Cahaly were unconvinced of that until the bitter end I seem to recall.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Why has it taken Macron so long to realise Boris is a “malevolent clown”.

    Most of us have known this for some time.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,837
    On the general topic of sea level rises caused by melting glaciers: the 70m estimate assumes the collapse of the entire East Antarctic ice sheet, which is very stable and seems unlikely to go except under very extreme circumstances.

    If both the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt completely then I think that gets us to somewhere around 15m, but even that would take several centuries. It's really only people living in very low lying areas or those vulnerable to flooding caused by swollen rivers or stormwater run-off that have much to worry about within the lifetime of anybody posting here.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859

    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Erm if sea ice is floating on water then melting it will cause no change in sea level whatsoever. A gent by the name of Archimedes worked that one out about 2000 years ago. It is already displacing the sea just by floating on it. (This does not quite apply if it is anchored to nearby land)
    A common fallacy which ignores the fact that Archimedes is about mass, not volume. Icebergs melting raise sea level by about 2.6%

    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/345381/does-the-sea-level-increase-if-an-iceberg-melts

    https://wobbly.earth/post/archimedes/

    https://phys.org/news/2010-04-icebergs-sea.html
    But doesn't a glass of frozen water go down in volume when it melts?
    You've forgotten that ice floats and therefore there's a chunk sticking out of the water. Enough to sink a ship, so I heard.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    There was nothing remotely offensive about it to Jews.

    If anything by comparing the failure of world leaders to combat Nazism in the 1930s (thus enabling the Holocaust) to the risk of world leaders today failing to do enough to combat climate change he was saying not enough was done to protect Jews then.

    As far as I can see he had no need to apologise whatsoever
    It was wholly unnecessary and he is right to apologise

    He is head of the Anglican Church and his language was ill judged, but then who listens to the clergy these days anyway
    I repeat, what was actually offensive about it to Jews?

    He is also primus inter pares of the Anglican communion, representing 92 million Anglicans worldwide, as well as head of the Church of England. Plenty listen to him, including me
    Did you listen to him when he wanted universal credit abolished?

    If not, why not?
    Yes of course I listened to him, he is head of my church as much as Boris is head of my party and the government and the Queen is head of my country.

    However just because I listen to him does not always mean I agree with him, although he has made some sensible comments on the dangers of payday lenders
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    There was nothing remotely offensive about it to Jews.

    If anything by comparing the failure of world leaders to combat Nazism in the 1930s (thus enabling the Holocaust) to the risk of world leaders today failing to do enough to combat climate change he was saying not enough was done to protect Jews then.

    As far as I can see he had no need to apologise whatsoever
    It was wholly unnecessary and he is right to apologise

    He is head of the Anglican Church and his language was ill judged, but then who listens to the clergy these days anyway
    I repeat, what was actually offensive about it to Jews?

    He is also primus inter pares of the Anglican communion, representing 92 million Anglicans worldwide, as well as head of the Church of England. Plenty listen to him, including me
    Your blind love is the least surprising

    And for a Christian to suggest people will be cursed and comparing anything with the Nazis was crass

    And please note, he has apologised so why defend him
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    HYUFD said:

    DavidL said:

    Biden is just incomprehensible. He cannot even read a tv prompt. It is sad and pathetic.

    Biden's average net disapproval in the US now up to 50.7%, just 42.9% approve of his presidency

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/?ex_cid=rrpromo
    Weren't we occasionally down in the thirties when your boy was President?
    The thing I fear most is that Trump wins again

    It would be a disaster for the whole world

    Everyone of sound mind must hope and pray it does not come about
    I'd throw the ****** in jail. There is quite a lot to go at even if one were to foolishly discount any direct influence on the events of the 6th January.

    I like HY, but his approval of Trump is troublesome
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Erm if sea ice is floating on water then melting it will cause no change in sea level whatsoever. A gent by the name of Archimedes worked that one out about 2000 years ago. It is already displacing the sea just by floating on it. (This does not quite apply if it is anchored to nearby land)
    A common fallacy which ignores the fact that Archimedes is about mass, not volume. Icebergs melting raise sea level by about 2.6%

    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/345381/does-the-sea-level-increase-if-an-iceberg-melts

    https://wobbly.earth/post/archimedes/

    https://phys.org/news/2010-04-icebergs-sea.html
    Its not a fallacy at all. There will be tiny changes due to all sorts of factors but they are insignificant in the grand scheme of things and the idea I was trying to get across is that the melting of all that sea ice does not cause a huge change in sea level. Indeed your links accept that and even provide the maths for it.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897
    edited November 2021

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    There was nothing remotely offensive about it to Jews.

    If anything by comparing the failure of world leaders to combat Nazism in the 1930s (thus enabling the Holocaust) to the risk of world leaders today failing to do enough to combat climate change he was saying not enough was done to protect Jews then.

    As far as I can see he had no need to apologise whatsoever
    It was wholly unnecessary and he is right to apologise

    He is head of the Anglican Church and his language was ill judged, but then who listens to the clergy these days anyway
    I repeat, what was actually offensive about it to Jews?

    He is also primus inter pares of the Anglican communion, representing 92 million Anglicans worldwide, as well as head of the Church of England. Plenty listen to him, including me
    Your blind love is the least surprising

    And for a Christian to suggest people will be cursed and comparing anything with the Nazis was crass

    And please note, he has apologised so why defend him
    Nor is the jump on the latest bandwagon from you.

    He also did not compare anyone to the Nazis, he compared potential inaction over climate change to inaction in the 1930s in failing to tackle the Nazis. Not the same thing at all. Some scientists will also tell you that potentially millions could die from flooding, drought, starvation etc caused by climate change.

    If he wished to apologise to shut up the thought police like you that is up to him, in my view he still had nothing to apologise for
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,129

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    Are you counting the polar ice caps?
    I was not.

    But let's have a little play there too, shall we?

    Firstly, we're going to assume that every single bit of ice is going to melt there. (Which would be an astonishing warming of the earth, given that the South Pole still only gets to around 28 degrees below in summer.

    But let's start with the North Pole. According to Wikipedia: "Earth's North Pole is covered by floating pack ice (sea ice) over the Arctic Ocean. Portions of the ice that do not melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about 1 meter thick. The area covered by sea ice ranges between 9 and 12 million km2." Let's go with 5 meters over the whole lot.

    Let's just play with numbers. 10 million km at 5m depth compared to 150 million km of oceans. Now, I'm rounding here, but that means that if the whole North Pole was to melt, that would add about 30cm to world sea levels.

    Hmmm... Not getting to a 70 meter increase there.

    Let's add the South Pole shall we.

    That's 14.6 million square miles. Let's round up to 15 million miles. And let's assume an average depth of 100 meters. That means that Antarctica could add 10 meters to sea levels. But again those seem like pretty chunky top of the head calculations, even ignoring the fact that there's been no diminution of ice levels at the South Pole and that it remains pretty damn cold there.
    Let's not assume an average depth of 100 metres, let's go with the well established average depth of two kilometres, maxing out at 5 kilometres. this makes a difference.
    The highest point in Antarctica is below 5km - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinson_Massif - and that definitely contains quite a lot of rock. From the picture there's clearly rock at the actual surface.

    And remember you can't count the ice below sea level. Because that will actually, as it melts, lower sea levels.
    Vinson is a fairly isolated volcano.

    Here is a map of the rock underneath Antarctica...
    https://cpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.uci.edu/dist/8/1765/files/2018/10/products_bed.jpg

    Note how much of it is below sea level (although there's no sea there at the moment because it is sealed out by the ice).

    Ice thickness...
    https://cpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.uci.edu/dist/8/1765/files/2018/10/products_thickness.jpg

    You'll notice it is quite thin on the mountain ranges, but these are actually holding back the vast mass of ice sheet in the interior.
    That is a fascinating image, thank you. It suggests that lots of the ice in Antarctica is actually below sea level. So you can't just work out how much ice there is and add it to the sea level.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Erm if sea ice is floating on water then melting it will cause no change in sea level whatsoever. A gent by the name of Archimedes worked that one out about 2000 years ago. It is already displacing the sea just by floating on it. (This does not quite apply if it is anchored to nearby land)
    A common fallacy which ignores the fact that Archimedes is about mass, not volume. Icebergs melting raise sea level by about 2.6%

    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/345381/does-the-sea-level-increase-if-an-iceberg-melts

    https://wobbly.earth/post/archimedes/

    https://phys.org/news/2010-04-icebergs-sea.html
    But doesn't a glass of frozen water go down in volume when it melts?
    Yes, but it's all fresh water, and it doesn't have 10% sticking out above the surface
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    There was nothing remotely offensive about it to Jews.

    If anything by comparing the failure of world leaders to combat Nazism in the 1930s (thus enabling the Holocaust) to the risk of world leaders today failing to do enough to combat climate change he was saying not enough was done to protect Jews then.

    As far as I can see he had no need to apologise whatsoever
    It was wholly unnecessary and he is right to apologise

    He is head of the Anglican Church and his language was ill judged, but then who listens to the clergy these days anyway
    I repeat, what was actually offensive about it to Jews?

    He is also primus inter pares of the Anglican communion, representing 92 million Anglicans worldwide, as well as head of the Church of England. Plenty listen to him, including me
    Your blind love is the least surprising

    And for a Christian to suggest people will be cursed and comparing anything with the Nazis was crass

    And please note, he has apologised so why defend him
    Nor is the jump on the latest bandwagon from you.

    He also did not compare anyone to the Nazis, he compared potential inaction over climate change to inaction in the 1930s in failing to tackle the Nazis. Not the same thing at all.

    If he wished to apologies to shut up the thought police like you that is up to him, in my view he still had nothing to apologise for
    You really are making a fool of yourself now suggesting his apology is disingenuous

    I actually give him credit for recognising his misspeak and apologising

    I doubt you know the meaning of an apology when you are wrong
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,871
    pigeon said:

    On the general topic of sea level rises caused by melting glaciers: the 70m estimate assumes the collapse of the entire East Antarctic ice sheet, which is very stable and seems unlikely to go except under very extreme circumstances.

    If both the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt completely then I think that gets us to somewhere around 15m, but even that would take several centuries. It's really only people living in very low lying areas or those vulnerable to flooding caused by swollen rivers or stormwater run-off that have much to worry about within the lifetime of anybody posting here.

    That's about as complacent as it gets - tens of millions of people live in coastal lowlands or in desert areas which would become inhabitable.

    Plenty of British people would be vulnerable to a 2 metre sea level rise let alone those affected by increased and more severe extremer weather events.
  • pigeon said:

    On the general topic of sea level rises caused by melting glaciers: the 70m estimate assumes the collapse of the entire East Antarctic ice sheet, which is very stable and seems unlikely to go except under very extreme circumstances.

    If both the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt completely then I think that gets us to somewhere around 15m, but even that would take several centuries. It's really only people living in very low lying areas or those vulnerable to flooding caused by swollen rivers or stormwater run-off that have much to worry about within the lifetime of anybody posting here.

    If sea level guaranteed flooding of everything below sea level then how much of the Netherlands would be gone?

    If the sea level rises, I expect we'd swiftly adapt to prevent it from flooding our land.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,897
    The right of centre LDP have retained their majority in yesterday's Japanese general election under their new leader and PM Fumio Kishida with 261 seats, down 23. The centre left Constitutional Democratic party was second with 96 up 41

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Japanese_general_election
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,213
    stodge said:

    pigeon said:

    On the general topic of sea level rises caused by melting glaciers: the 70m estimate assumes the collapse of the entire East Antarctic ice sheet, which is very stable and seems unlikely to go except under very extreme circumstances.

    If both the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt completely then I think that gets us to somewhere around 15m, but even that would take several centuries. It's really only people living in very low lying areas or those vulnerable to flooding caused by swollen rivers or stormwater run-off that have much to worry about within the lifetime of anybody posting here.

    That's about as complacent as it gets - tens of millions of people live in coastal lowlands or in desert areas which would become inhabitable.

    Plenty of British people would be vulnerable to a 2 metre sea level rise let alone those affected by increased and more severe extremer weather events.
    I'm as green as they come but are you suggesting that there could be a two metre rise in sea level within the lifetime of any human alive today? I assume you were meaning in future centuries, in which case are you really disagreeing with pigeon?
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Erm if sea ice is floating on water then melting it will cause no change in sea level whatsoever. A gent by the name of Archimedes worked that one out about 2000 years ago. It is already displacing the sea just by floating on it. (This does not quite apply if it is anchored to nearby land)
    A common fallacy which ignores the fact that Archimedes is about mass, not volume. Icebergs melting raise sea level by about 2.6%

    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/345381/does-the-sea-level-increase-if-an-iceberg-melts

    https://wobbly.earth/post/archimedes/

    https://phys.org/news/2010-04-icebergs-sea.html
    But doesn't a glass of frozen water go down in volume when it melts?
    Yes, but it's all fresh water, and it doesn't have 10% sticking out above the surface
    In this case that really does not make any difference. The 10% above the surface would make no difference to the level in the glass if it melts as it is already displacing the water it is floating in.
  • HYUFD said:

    The right of centre LDP have retained their majority in yesterday's Japanese general election under their new leader and PM Fumio Kishida with 261 seats, down 23. The centre left Constitutional Democratic party was second with 96 up 41

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Japanese_general_election

    Kishida seems very leftwing. Left of Ed Miliband in some of his proposals, he's really spooked the markets.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664
    edited November 2021
    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Erm if sea ice is floating on water then melting it will cause no change in sea level whatsoever. A gent by the name of Archimedes worked that one out about 2000 years ago. It is already displacing the sea just by floating on it. (This does not quite apply if it is anchored to nearby land)
    A common fallacy which ignores the fact that Archimedes is about mass, not volume. Icebergs melting raise sea level by about 2.6%

    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/345381/does-the-sea-level-increase-if-an-iceberg-melts

    https://wobbly.earth/post/archimedes/

    https://phys.org/news/2010-04-icebergs-sea.html
    The icebergs are only transitory. This effect only applies to fresh water icebergs calved from a glacier, and not sea ice. What you need to think about is where the iceberg came from originally (the land).

    Sea ice (frozen sea water) melting won't make a jot of difference. It is just recycling.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    pigeon said:

    On the general topic of sea level rises caused by melting glaciers: the 70m estimate assumes the collapse of the entire East Antarctic ice sheet, which is very stable and seems unlikely to go except under very extreme circumstances.

    If both the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt completely then I think that gets us to somewhere around 15m, but even that would take several centuries. It's really only people living in very low lying areas or those vulnerable to flooding caused by swollen rivers or stormwater run-off that have much to worry about within the lifetime of anybody posting here.

    If sea level guaranteed flooding of everything below sea level then how much of the Netherlands would be gone?

    If the sea level rises, I expect we'd swiftly adapt to prevent it from flooding our land.
    If you fired a shotgun straight at me, I expect I'd swiftly adapt to prevent it from harming me.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,213
    Schools back today, see the uptick in tests conducted.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,837
    stodge said:

    pigeon said:

    On the general topic of sea level rises caused by melting glaciers: the 70m estimate assumes the collapse of the entire East Antarctic ice sheet, which is very stable and seems unlikely to go except under very extreme circumstances.

    If both the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt completely then I think that gets us to somewhere around 15m, but even that would take several centuries. It's really only people living in very low lying areas or those vulnerable to flooding caused by swollen rivers or stormwater run-off that have much to worry about within the lifetime of anybody posting here.

    That's about as complacent as it gets - tens of millions of people live in coastal lowlands or in desert areas which would become inhabitable.

    Plenty of British people would be vulnerable to a 2 metre sea level rise let alone those affected by increased and more severe extremer weather events.
    Complacency, no - sea level rises have already caused serious problems for some communities, and will play havoc with many more lives in decades to come - but, rather, a statement of fact. Sea level change is not a threat to most people alive today, and nothing close to a 2m rise will happen even by the end of the century.

    This is not an argument for inaction, merely some reassurance for those who appear to believe that Waterworld was a serious attempt to depict likely events in the latter decades of the current century.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,871
    Stocky said:

    stodge said:

    pigeon said:

    On the general topic of sea level rises caused by melting glaciers: the 70m estimate assumes the collapse of the entire East Antarctic ice sheet, which is very stable and seems unlikely to go except under very extreme circumstances.

    If both the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt completely then I think that gets us to somewhere around 15m, but even that would take several centuries. It's really only people living in very low lying areas or those vulnerable to flooding caused by swollen rivers or stormwater run-off that have much to worry about within the lifetime of anybody posting here.

    That's about as complacent as it gets - tens of millions of people live in coastal lowlands or in desert areas which would become inhabitable.

    Plenty of British people would be vulnerable to a 2 metre sea level rise let alone those affected by increased and more severe extremer weather events.
    I'm as green as they come but are you suggesting that there could be a two metre rise in sea level within the lifetime of any human alive today? I assume you were meaning in future centuries, in which case are you really disagreeing with pigeon?
    I don't know how quick sea levels can and will rise - the point about the vulnerability of large populations in coastal cities and the impact of more severe and frequent extreme weather events stands.
  • rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    Are you counting the polar ice caps?
    I was not.

    But let's have a little play there too, shall we?

    Firstly, we're going to assume that every single bit of ice is going to melt there. (Which would be an astonishing warming of the earth, given that the South Pole still only gets to around 28 degrees below in summer.

    But let's start with the North Pole. According to Wikipedia: "Earth's North Pole is covered by floating pack ice (sea ice) over the Arctic Ocean. Portions of the ice that do not melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about 1 meter thick. The area covered by sea ice ranges between 9 and 12 million km2." Let's go with 5 meters over the whole lot.

    Let's just play with numbers. 10 million km at 5m depth compared to 150 million km of oceans. Now, I'm rounding here, but that means that if the whole North Pole was to melt, that would add about 30cm to world sea levels.

    Hmmm... Not getting to a 70 meter increase there.

    Let's add the South Pole shall we.

    That's 14.6 million square miles. Let's round up to 15 million miles. And let's assume an average depth of 100 meters. That means that Antarctica could add 10 meters to sea levels. But again those seem like pretty chunky top of the head calculations, even ignoring the fact that there's been no diminution of ice levels at the South Pole and that it remains pretty damn cold there.
    Let's not assume an average depth of 100 metres, let's go with the well established average depth of two kilometres, maxing out at 5 kilometres. this makes a difference.
    The highest point in Antarctica is below 5km - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinson_Massif - and that definitely contains quite a lot of rock. From the picture there's clearly rock at the actual surface.

    And remember you can't count the ice below sea level. Because that will actually, as it melts, lower sea levels.
    Vinson is a fairly isolated volcano.

    Here is a map of the rock underneath Antarctica...
    https://cpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.uci.edu/dist/8/1765/files/2018/10/products_bed.jpg

    Note how much of it is below sea level (although there's no sea there at the moment because it is sealed out by the ice).

    Ice thickness...
    https://cpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.uci.edu/dist/8/1765/files/2018/10/products_thickness.jpg

    You'll notice it is quite thin on the mountain ranges, but these are actually holding back the vast mass of ice sheet in the interior.
    That is a fascinating image, thank you. It suggests that lots of the ice in Antarctica is actually below sea level. So you can't just work out how much ice there is and add it to the sea level.
    I think it gets horribly complicated at this point.

    The only reason that so much of Antartica is below sea level is because of the weight of ice on top of it which is pushing it down - the isostatic effect I was talking about on the last thread. If you melt all that ice then the land will rebound in isostatic readjustment and if that happens then most of that water is going to end up in the seas.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Erm if sea ice is floating on water then melting it will cause no change in sea level whatsoever. A gent by the name of Archimedes worked that one out about 2000 years ago. It is already displacing the sea just by floating on it. (This does not quite apply if it is anchored to nearby land)
    A common fallacy which ignores the fact that Archimedes is about mass, not volume. Icebergs melting raise sea level by about 2.6%

    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/345381/does-the-sea-level-increase-if-an-iceberg-melts

    https://wobbly.earth/post/archimedes/

    https://phys.org/news/2010-04-icebergs-sea.html
    The icebergs are only transitory. This effect only applies to fresh water icebergs calved from a glacier, and not sea ice. What you need to think about is where the iceberg came from originally (the land).

    Sea ice (frozen sea water) melting won't make a jot of difference. It is just recycling.
    Not correct. Even new sea ice isn't frozen sea water, because the solution doesn't crystallise, it's frozen water with pockets of salt in it. As it becomes multi-year sea ice the pockets disappear to the extent that it becomes drinkable.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664
    edited November 2021

    pigeon said:

    On the general topic of sea level rises caused by melting glaciers: the 70m estimate assumes the collapse of the entire East Antarctic ice sheet, which is very stable and seems unlikely to go except under very extreme circumstances.

    If both the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt completely then I think that gets us to somewhere around 15m, but even that would take several centuries. It's really only people living in very low lying areas or those vulnerable to flooding caused by swollen rivers or stormwater run-off that have much to worry about within the lifetime of anybody posting here.

    If sea level guaranteed flooding of everything below sea level then how much of the Netherlands would be gone?

    If the sea level rises, I expect we'd swiftly adapt to prevent it from flooding our land.
    And yet we already have tidal flooding incidents.

    There was a big one fairly recently that affected thousands of people but got buried under the news of the death of Nelson Mandela.

    I don't believe any of the more catastrophic predictions are likely in the short term either, but even 0.5m would be a challenge in some parts (particularly Hull, if anyone cares, and London).
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071
    edited November 2021

    Brenda dropping another hint that London Bridge will soon fall.

    The Queen has called on world leaders to look beyond their own lifetimes and “answer the call of future generations” with an ambitious agreement to tackle climate change.

    In a speech delivered by video to more than 120 leaders gathered in Glasgow for the Cop26 climate change conference she said that “none of us will live for ever” and urged them to rise above “the politics of the moment”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cop26-queen-tells-delegates-in-glasgow-it-is-time-for-action-lxpqmbdwr

    Turns out the only reason HMQ has suspended official duties is because she is moonlighting as an Uber driver.

    The Queen spotted driving car near Windsor estate
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59123349
    With the description of her outfit, the opening sounds like it thinks she boosted someone else's car amd was trying to be ignognito.

    The Queen has been pictured driving near Windsor Castle, three days after being advised by her doctors to rest and only carry out light duties.

    The monarch, 95, was photographed in a headscarf and sunglasses behind the wheel of a green Jaguar estate car.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,071

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    There was nothing remotely offensive about it to Jews.

    If anything by comparing the failure of world leaders to combat Nazism in the 1930s (thus enabling the Holocaust) to the risk of world leaders today failing to do enough to combat climate change he was saying not enough was done to protect Jews then.

    As far as I can see he had no need to apologise whatsoever
    It was wholly unnecessary and he is right to apologise

    He is head of the Anglican Church and his language was ill judged, but then who listens to the clergy these days anyway
    I repeat, what was actually offensive about it to Jews?

    He is also primus inter pares of the Anglican communion, representing 92 million Anglicans worldwide, as well as head of the Church of England. Plenty listen to him, including me
    Your blind love is the least surprising

    And for a Christian to suggest people will be cursed and comparing anything with the Nazis was crass

    And please note, he has apologised so why defend him
    Nor is the jump on the latest bandwagon from you.

    He also did not compare anyone to the Nazis, he compared potential inaction over climate change to inaction in the 1930s in failing to tackle the Nazis. Not the same thing at all.

    If he wished to apologies to shut up the thought police like you that is up to him, in my view he still had nothing to apologise for
    You really are making a fool of yourself now suggesting his apology is disingenuous
    I love it when people defend someone else by suggesting that person is a liar. Happens surprisingly often.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    pigeon said:

    On the general topic of sea level rises caused by melting glaciers: the 70m estimate assumes the collapse of the entire East Antarctic ice sheet, which is very stable and seems unlikely to go except under very extreme circumstances.

    If both the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt completely then I think that gets us to somewhere around 15m, but even that would take several centuries. It's really only people living in very low lying areas or those vulnerable to flooding caused by swollen rivers or stormwater run-off that have much to worry about within the lifetime of anybody posting here.

    If sea level guaranteed flooding of everything below sea level then how much of the Netherlands would be gone?

    If the sea level rises, I expect we'd swiftly adapt to prevent it from flooding our land.
    If you fired a shotgun straight at me, I expect I'd swiftly adapt to prevent it from harming me.
    That's a stupid analogy.

    These changes aren't going to happen without warning and at the speed of gunfire.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,132

    MattW said:

    MattW said:

    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    MattW said:

    On topic.

    Why is this not a good sign?

    Because no matter what is agreed to, it;s not good enough in the eyes of Greta.
    The only problem with the Indian announcement is how to blame the UK government. Blaming the India government won't happen.
    That does rather tie into how much flak Boris will get if the whole event is a bit lacklustre. Nations used to take months or even years to thrash out agreements sometimes - though granted we can communicate a lot faster - and presumably that's still the case behind the scenes, so unexpected breakthroughs at summits and the like must be pretty rare. How much is any host expected to personally 'achieve'.
    I'd say (with my ingrowing cynicism) that Boris will get flak regardless, as there are plenty out there who regard going for BJ as equally as high a priority as anything else - as a Tory Govt is EVIL and has to be destroyed.
    That's certainly true, but the opposite is true too - whatever resolution the conference comes up with, the Government will claim it was a resounding success. One has to look beyond the rhetoric at what is actually promised before, during and directtly after the event.

    A one-minute PPB that my lot are showing at our stand there, in case anyone is curious:

    https://youtu.be/OEY64a4TsUI
    Fair comment !

    I think my immediate comments on the 'PPB' (!) would be:

    1 - The definition of "factory farming" is not clear, so there is an issue with not setting a goal - rather doing the "MOAR! MOAR! MOAR!" thing that the Green Party do; IMO it is destroying them. I have a problem with "do what we say" where no destination is specified.

    2 - I need to see a reconciliation of the aims of more extensive farming (ie lower productivity), more food security (ie local), and lots more land for forests. I have yet to see a credible analysis of that. Does such exist?
    Re 1 - there's a limit to what one can say in 1 minute (our estimate of the time a delegate will linger at our stand)!
    Re 2 - we're releasing a detailed "solutions" report on Friday. Essentially the proposed deal is
    * substantially less meat consumption in the developed world (but perhaps more in the poorest countries)
    * less intensive farming, which becomes a viable solution if we don't have to produce as much meat
    * less deforestation, because much of the Latin American clearances are entirely due to growing soya to feed the intensive farms.

    The basic issue which this tries to get around is that feeding masses of soya and grain to animals, rearing the animals, and then eating them, is a very inefficient use of grain. We don't deny that if the future is more and more meat consumption, then factory farming is what will meet the demand. But we argue that eventually we will simply run out of land to feed the system.
    Thanks for that.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    pigeon said:

    On the general topic of sea level rises caused by melting glaciers: the 70m estimate assumes the collapse of the entire East Antarctic ice sheet, which is very stable and seems unlikely to go except under very extreme circumstances.

    If both the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt completely then I think that gets us to somewhere around 15m, but even that would take several centuries. It's really only people living in very low lying areas or those vulnerable to flooding caused by swollen rivers or stormwater run-off that have much to worry about within the lifetime of anybody posting here.

    If sea level guaranteed flooding of everything below sea level then how much of the Netherlands would be gone?

    If the sea level rises, I expect we'd swiftly adapt to prevent it from flooding our land.
    And yet we already have tidal flooding incidents.

    There was a big one fairly recently that affected thousands of people but got buried under the news of the death of Nelson Mandela.

    I don't believe any of the more catastrophic predictions are likely in the short term either, but even 0.5m would be a challenge in some parts (particularly Hull, if anyone cares, and London).

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IanB2 said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    TOPPING said:

    So we've done all the developing and then we are upset when developing countries want to do their own developing.

    If all the developing countries develop in the same way that we developed, we'll look like this in a few thousand years' time. Birmingham for the win!

    image
    I don't believe that.

    Let's start with the fact that 70 meters of sea level rise is an awful lot, given that 71% of the earth is covered by water. (And it would presumably be more like 75% in the event of a 70 meter rise in sea levels.)

    I think about it like this. What proportion of the earth is covered by glaciers today? Let's go wildly high and say 5%. That's saying almost a fifth of the the land on earth is covered by a glaciers. Now, let's assume that those glaciers are an average depth of 100 meters (which seems awfully high, but we'll go with it).

    That means an increase of around 7 meters in sea level. And that's based on some pretty enormous assumptions about amount of earth covered by glaciers, and for their average thickness.
    A quick google says you’re wrong.
    http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/

    (average depth of Greenland ice sheet is c.1500m)
    RCS’s top of the head calcs do sometimes contain a gross error he’s overlooked. In this case it’s that a chunk of that “covered by water” percentage is sea ice, including much of the Arctic and Antarctica, which is where a lot of the extra water would come from.
    How's that an error?

    If the ice in those areas gets turned into water rising the sea level then the sea level will rise there every bit as much as it rises anywhere else.
    Erm if sea ice is floating on water then melting it will cause no change in sea level whatsoever. A gent by the name of Archimedes worked that one out about 2000 years ago. It is already displacing the sea just by floating on it. (This does not quite apply if it is anchored to nearby land)
    A common fallacy which ignores the fact that Archimedes is about mass, not volume. Icebergs melting raise sea level by about 2.6%

    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/345381/does-the-sea-level-increase-if-an-iceberg-melts

    https://wobbly.earth/post/archimedes/

    https://phys.org/news/2010-04-icebergs-sea.html
    But doesn't a glass of frozen water go down in volume when it melts?
    Yes, but it's all fresh water, and it doesn't have 10% sticking out above the surface
    In this case that really does not make any difference. The 10% above the surface would make no difference to the level in the glass if it melts as it is already displacing the water it is floating in.
    The question was "a glass of frozen water." Nothing to float in.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:
    Because he was up for the annual Godwin Grand Prize otherwise. How did he expect the Jewish community to react to a comparison with their genocide?
    There was nothing remotely offensive about it to Jews.

    If anything by comparing the failure of world leaders to combat Nazism in the 1930s (thus enabling the Holocaust) to the risk of world leaders today failing to do enough to combat climate change he was saying not enough was done to protect Jews then.

    As far as I can see he had no need to apologise whatsoever
    It was wholly unnecessary and he is right to apologise

    He is head of the Anglican Church and his language was ill judged, but then who listens to the clergy these days anyway
    I repeat, what was actually offensive about it to Jews?

    He is also primus inter pares of the Anglican communion, representing 92 million Anglicans worldwide, as well as head of the Church of England. Plenty listen to him, including me
    Your blind love is the least surprising

    And for a Christian to suggest people will be cursed and comparing anything with the Nazis was crass

    And please note, he has apologised so why defend him
    Nor is the jump on the latest bandwagon from you.

    He also did not compare anyone to the Nazis, he compared potential inaction over climate change to inaction in the 1930s in failing to tackle the Nazis. Not the same thing at all. Some scientists will also tell you that potentially millions could die from flooding, drought, starvation etc caused by climate change.

    If he wished to apologise to shut up the thought police like you that is up to him, in my view he still had nothing to apologise for
    I’m with you on this, but it really was a bit foolish to make that analogy given the sensitivities, and he’s had to apologise just to move things on. It’s a pity because I like Justin Welby. Like Pope Francis he’s a genuinely good and compassionate man, but he does have an unfortunate tendency to put his foot in it.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,103

    Brenda dropping another hint that London Bridge will soon fall.

    The Queen has called on world leaders to look beyond their own lifetimes and “answer the call of future generations” with an ambitious agreement to tackle climate change.

    In a speech delivered by video to more than 120 leaders gathered in Glasgow for the Cop26 climate change conference she said that “none of us will live for ever” and urged them to rise above “the politics of the moment”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cop26-queen-tells-delegates-in-glasgow-it-is-time-for-action-lxpqmbdwr

    Turns out the only reason HMQ has suspended official duties is because she is moonlighting as an Uber driver.

    The Queen spotted driving car near Windsor estate
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59123349
    Told you, she didn't want to go to Glasgow because of the rubbish food experience.
    Yes, appears she's on the skive.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,871
    pigeon said:


    Complacency, no - sea level rises have already caused serious problems for some communities, and will play havoc with many more lives in decades to come - but, rather, a statement of fact. Sea level change is not a threat to most people alive today, and nothing close to a 2m rise will happen even by the end of the century.

    This is not an argument for inaction, merely some reassurance for those who appear to believe that Waterworld was a serious attempt to depict likely events in the latter decades of the current century.

    You're quite correct the kind of sea level rises some are suggesting are implausible but the problem is if you rule out the extremes, the temptation is to forget the impact even a small sea level rise will cause.

    I'm also more concerned about severe weather events and their increased frequency - call them typhoons, cyclones or hurricanes, it doesn't much matter. We've seen terrible storms in the Caribbean, the Philippines and the South Pacific and we are now seeing more instances of "Medicanes" - hurricane-like storms in the Mediterranean.

    Rising sea water temperatures increase the areas liable or at risk from these storms quite apart from providing the fuel to make these storms more intense and deadly.

  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    pigeon said:

    On the general topic of sea level rises caused by melting glaciers: the 70m estimate assumes the collapse of the entire East Antarctic ice sheet, which is very stable and seems unlikely to go except under very extreme circumstances.

    If both the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melt completely then I think that gets us to somewhere around 15m, but even that would take several centuries. It's really only people living in very low lying areas or those vulnerable to flooding caused by swollen rivers or stormwater run-off that have much to worry about within the lifetime of anybody posting here.

    That's hundreds of millions of people. Are they going to think Silly me for choosing to live in such a low lying area, excuse me while i drown, or are they going to get on the move in a way which gives the rest of the world plenty to worry about? Is the number of rubber dinghies trying to cross the channel likely to rise, fall, or stay about the same?
This discussion has been closed.