Sree said,
Australia’s climate definitely changing? Based on what evidence? One degree Celsius rise in one hundred years. I would like to see the evidence: data gathering locations and protocols, when temperature measurements began, and the math that led to the conclusion.
Think “butterfly effect”. Small changes can have large effects.
Ian Orchard, Explainer.
Answered Jul 12, 2016 · Author has 839 answers and 233.7k answer views
Yes although the answer is much more complex than that. All of the ice caps are showing abnormal melting but the varying extents and for different reasons in different places.
The Arctic is suffering repeated heatwaves, sometimes as much as 30°C above the normals for the localities and season, so the Arctic ocean’s ice covering’s thickness and extent diminishes further each northern summer.
Greenland has shown disturbing trends in the amounts of surface meltwater and the way it percolates under the icecap speeding the rate glaciers move downhill.
The Himalayan and American glaciers are retreat…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2259012/Global-warming-Met-Office-releases-revised-global-temperature-predictions-showing-planet-NOT-rapidly-heating-up.html
That may all sound encouraging, but consider this.
As shown in the past, the ice caps in the poles were fairly stable and and any summer calving was replaced by winter snow. Moreover the cooling effects of melting ice in the oceans was easily absorbed by the warmth of the oceans and the surface temperature remained fairly stable.
With increased calving of massive amounts of ice into the oceans there should be a “cooling” effect of ocean surfaces. But that is not the case, the oceans are still warming in spite of the increased ice being dumped into the oceans
Now consider that;
a) The more earth surface is exposed the greater warmth is radiated back into the atmosphere.
b) When the all the ice has melted and there is no longer a cooling effect of the ocean surface, the temperature will begin to rise at an increased rate.
Think of a glass of water with ice cubes. As long as I keep adding ice to the water, it will remain cool regardless of the temperature of the air. But as soon as I stop adding ice and all the ice has melted and there is no longer a cooling effect, the water in the glass begins to warm up at an increased rate and if it is 100 F outside, the water will warm up very rapidly and begin to evaporate faster…
At the rate of ice melt of the polar caps, the eventual reduction in the calving of polar ice caps will not be able to keep the ocean surfaces cool and a rapid increase of global temperature can be logically expected.
At that point we can expect drastic global warming and increased alteration of weather patterns. Does it matter when this will happen?
20 years, 5o years, 70 years (1 lifetime) ? Do we wish to expose our grand children to an irreversible run-away global climate adjustment.
The earth won’t care, it’s been trough much worse. It’s the people who will suffer.
