On 7/3/2012 9:34 AM, Han wrote:
Doug Miller wrote in
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Han wrote in
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Doug Miller wrote in
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Han wrote in news:XnsA0847BD6DC6C5ikkezelf@
207.246.207.124:
One of the scary reasons to pay attention to ocean warming is
that much is really cold (like in the 30's and low 40's in
Fahrenheit). If all that ocean water warms just a few degrees, it
will expand, and thus the level will go up. Somebody ought to have
the calculated data how much up that up is.
Not scary at all to anyone who's had an education in the physical
sciences.
Water has its maximum density of 1.00000 g/ml at 3.98 degrees C. At
5 deg C (41 deg F) its density is 0.99999 g/ml, and at 10 deg C (50
deg F) the density is 0.99973 g/ml -- IOW, warming from 4 deg C to
10 deg C, water will expand by a factor of (1.00000 / 0.99973) =
1.00027, or about one-fortieth of one per cent.
Water is actually more dense at 5 deg C than at 0.
[Source for the above data is the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics]
My Handbook is upstairs. One of the very few books I took when I
retired. It is really old, though still the larger format.
OK, let's do the calculations.
First let's assume that the ocean basins don't change in volume as
the ocean warms up.
From http://ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/etopo1_ocean_volumes.html
total volume: 1,335,000,000 km^3
Total surface area 361,900,000 km^2
Average depth thus about 4000 meters.
Using your expansion factor as a very large approximation:
Total volume becomes 1,335,000,000 * 1.00027 = 1,335,360,450
Hold it right there. You're assuming that the entire volume of water
on the planet will increase in temperature, and hence volume, by the
same amount.
That ain't gonna happen.
Only a very small portion of it near the surface is going to warm up
at all. The depths will remain quite cold.
or
360,450 km^3 more, which is divided over an area of 361,900,000 km^2.
That is a height of 0.000995993368 km, i.e. 99.59 cm or over 3 feet.
Again, assuming that it *all* warms up. Which won't happen.
Not right away, but eventually it will. Someone said in 1600 years, but
that assumes ocean circualtions remain constant. There are already
variations (up and down) in El Niņo currents with enormous short duration
effects. The real doomsayers are afraid of what might happen if the
Arctic Ocean really becomes icefree and the Atlantic circulation might
get disrupted.
I suppose that if the dinosaurs were still alive and dying off now instead of
eons ago, we would somehow think that it was our fault and our responsibility
to save them. What is this huge concern with maintaining (or returning to the
"original") status quo? We could spend ourselves broke doing all the "right
things" to completely put the Earth back the way we found it, and I guarantee
you that the planet would simply **** on our boots and continue changing in any
way it damn well pleased. Of course, any change for the better and we would be
patting ourselves on the back for "fixing it", and any change for the worse and
it would have been our fault. Poppycock.
--
Any given amount of traffic flow, no matter how
sparse, will expand to fill all available lanes.
To reply, eat the taco.
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