Dumb Environmental Science Questions

[Demolition Squid]

I'm fairly sure that the answers to these questions are... obvious, but an hour or so of inept googling last night has left me none the wiser so I thought I'd throw them out there.

1) Ice Caps = Ocean Level Rising: On an old episode of Mock the Week, Dara O'Brien made the claim that ocean levels won't rise as the ice caps melt for the same reason that a melting ice cube won't raise the level of a glass of water. Archimedes principle says that there should be no effect. Now, I'm guessing that the reason this isn't true is because the oceans do not flow underneath the ice caps as such (so the mass of the ice caps is not currently influencing the oceans one way or another) but... I don't know. Is that right?

2) If the problem with global warming is that more energy is being released than before, does it matter how that energy is generated? My dad was talking about his concern that bringing in energy from space - although a potential alternative to fossil fuels - would still be disrupting the Earth's 'closed system'. I tried to explain that the earth isn't actually a closed system at all (which I am pretty sure is true?) But the fundamental problem seems to be that energy that was locked up in oil, rocks and so on is now being used, with various by-products inevitably including heat. Even if we switch to wind, solar, nuclear and similar forms of alternative energy... surely we'll still be producing more heat than there was previously, and that will still raise the temperature (and lead to the problems we're seeing?)

I'm sure there'll be more some time but... these are the two that come to mind right now.

[Doktor Howl]

1.  If the ice is in the water, such as at the North pole, there will be no increase.  If the ice is above the water, such as the South pole, there will in fact be an increase.   And desalinization, which is its own bag of fun.

2.  It's not the heat of combustion that's causing the problem.  It's the gasses from combustion that are causing the problem.

[Demolition Squid]

1.  If the ice is in the water, such as at the North pole, there will be no increase.  If the ice is above the water, such as the South pole, there will in fact be an increase.   And desalinization, which is its own bag of fun.

2.  It's not the heat of combustion that's causing the problem.  It's the gasses from combustion that are causing the problem.

Thanks!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I had a good site that did a fantastic job of explaining both the general and the more technical aspects of climate change, I'll try to find it for you.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This isn't the one I was looking for, but it's pretty good at covering basics: http://www.epa.gov/climatestudents/impacts/signs/acidity.html

[Demolition Squid]

Awesome, thanks Nigel - interesting site! Increased heat making water expand makes sense... I'd have thought glaciers would fall into the archimedes principle, but perhaps its a chicken and egg thing - by the time glaciers are melting, the average temperature of the water has risen to such a point it causes very slight expansion anyway.

That site in general is pretty good though. The acidity link it points to at first is great for making the gas issue clearer.

I just realized the other day that, although I feel strongly that we ought to be working to mitigate climate change, that's mostly from a vague understanding of the predicted effects. I don't know much about the mechanics behind those effects, and it is never good to be parroting 'well scientists claim that...' when you're talking about anything.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's true, the more you know about it the easier it is to back up your viewpoint.

[Reginald Ret]

More details for Howl's answer to 2:

The energy we release by combustion is negligible compared to the energy delivered by sunlight.
The amount of sunlight captured by the earth is primarily determined by 2 factors: reflection/absorption ratio of sunlight by the surface, and capture of reflected solar energy by gasses in the atmposphere.
Dark stuff catches more light than light stuff, stuff gets darker if it gets wetter. Deserts (both the sand and the ice kind) reflect very well. This is a limiting factor for heating planets. Until the ice-deserts melt, that is.
Greenhouse gasses are aptly named: they capture reflected energy better than other gasses.
All this means: Heat melts ice-deserts, water in the presence of heat creates clouds, clouds create rain, rain makes the other deserts wetter and thus less reflective. Also, permafrost melts releasing more bad gasses, ocean water stops mixing well (I'm not entirely clear on why that happens) causing the underwater-water to lose access to oxygen. This will do bad things to our interplanetary biodiversity ratings. Alien tourism will come to a screeching halt and our cows, crops, and rednecks will have to go through life relatively unmolested. Area 51 memorabilia will become collectors items and all the Men In Black will undergo retraining to torture smudgy people instead of green people.

[Doktor Howl]

More details for Howl's answer to 2:

The energy we release by combustion is negligible compared to the energy delivered by sunlight.
The amount of sunlight captured by the earth is primarily determined by 2 factors: reflection/absorption ratio of sunlight by the surface, and capture of reflected solar energy by gasses in the atmposphere.
Dark stuff catches more light than light stuff, stuff gets darker if it gets wetter. Deserts (both the sand and the ice kind) reflect very well. This is a limiting factor for heating planets. Until the ice-deserts melt, that is.
Greenhouse gasses are aptly named: they capture reflected energy better than other gasses.
All this means: Heat melts ice-deserts, water in the presence of heat creates clouds, clouds create rain, rain makes the other deserts wetter and thus less reflective. Also, permafrost melts releasing more bad gasses, ocean water stops mixing well (I'm not entirely clear on why that happens) causing the underwater-water to lose access to oxygen. This will do bad things to our interplanetary biodiversity ratings. Alien tourism will come to a screeching halt and our cows, crops, and rednecks will have to go through life relatively unmolested. Area 51 memorabilia will become collectors items and all the Men In Black will undergo retraining to torture smudgy people instead of green people.

So you're agreeing with me?  I don't get it.

[Telarus]

 

[Reginald Ret]

More details for Howl's answer to 2:

The energy we release by combustion is negligible compared to the energy delivered by sunlight.
The amount of sunlight captured by the earth is primarily determined by 2 factors: reflection/absorption ratio of sunlight by the surface, and capture of reflected solar energy by gasses in the atmposphere.
Dark stuff catches more light than light stuff, stuff gets darker if it gets wetter. Deserts (both the sand and the ice kind) reflect very well. This is a limiting factor for heating planets. Until the ice-deserts melt, that is.
Greenhouse gasses are aptly named: they capture reflected energy better than other gasses.
All this means: Heat melts ice-deserts, water in the presence of heat creates clouds, clouds create rain, rain makes the other deserts wetter and thus less reflective. Also, permafrost melts releasing more bad gasses, ocean water stops mixing well (I'm not entirely clear on why that happens) causing the underwater-water to lose access to oxygen. This will do bad things to our interplanetary biodiversity ratings. Alien tourism will come to a screeching halt and our cows, crops, and rednecks will have to go through life relatively unmolested. Area 51 memorabilia will become collectors items and all the Men In Black will undergo retraining to torture smudgy people instead of green people.

So you're agreeing with me?  I don't get it.

Yep, you stated the truth very succinctly. So I tried to give more details to further understanding but then I got distracted by my imagination.