Why sea ice can increase when the world warms up

[swansont]

Just ran a cross this. Interesting

 

Climate change skeptics may be about to lose one of their favorite arguments

 

The thinking goes like this: As ice shelves melt, and more inland ice slides towards the sea, a gigantic volume of cold, fresh water enters the ocean. This freshwater pulse, the researchers continue, promotes ocean “stratification,” in which a cold surface layer lies atop a subsurface warmer layer. The cold surface layer promotes more sea ice growth atop open water, while the warm lower layer sneaks beneath that ice and continues to melt submerged ice shelves, which plunge deep into the water at the fringes of the continent.

The fundamental physical reason for the expansion of sea ice in this scenario is that cold, fresh water is less dense than warmer, salty water

The other thing to remember is that salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water, so the ocean can be at some temperature <0º so frozen fresh(er) water can be warmer than liquid salt water. The amount of ice increasing is still consistent with the temperature rising.

[studiot]

 

The other thing to remember is that salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water, so the ocean can be at some temperature <0º so frozen fresh(er) water can be warmer than liquid salt water. The amount of ice increasing is still consistent with the temperature rising.

 

 

Yes, as I understand it, icebergs are made of frozen drinkably fresh water.

You can actually purify salt water by freezing.

 

Care should be taken with the final sentence of swansont's quote because saline water does not exhibit the 4^oC maximumdensity anomily like fresh.

 

See fig 3.1 here

 

http://www-pord.ucsd.edu/~ltalley/sio210/DPO/TALLEY_9780750645522_chapter3.pdf

 

Edited July 27, 2015 by studiot

[swansont]

 

Yes, as I understand it, icebergs are made of frozen drinkably fresh water.

 

 

But

 

 

Care should be taken with the final sentence of swansont's quote because saline water does not exhibit the 4^oC maximumdensity anomily like fresh.

 

See fig 3.1 here

 

http://www-pord.ucsd.edu/~ltalley/sio210/DPO/TALLEY_9780750645522_chapter3.pdf

 

 

It doesn't matter, though. The density of pure water must be less than that of seawater for almost that entire graph. Only the upper left corner has a possibility of going the other way. Fresh water has a maximum density of 999.9720 kg/m^3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Properties_of_water#Density_of_water_and_ice

[Willie71]

I have presented this info to deniers on a conservative forum I frequent, but they used it as evidence that scientists can't be right because they have to change their minds all the time.

[Essay]

I have presented this info to deniers on a conservative forum I frequent, but they used it as evidence that scientists can't be right because they have to change their minds all the time.

 

But that is wrong, since the scientists didn't "change their minds" on this point.

 

These observations of increasing ice are confirming "climate" predictions from more than 25 years ago.

Here is what the scientists predicted in 1991, when the latest or best consensus view was published in Oxford Monographs on Geology and Geophysics, no.16; Paleoclimatology; Crowley & North; 1991.

 

14.2.1 Regional Responses to a Greenhouse Warming

 

"Although the East Antarctic Ice Sheet could grow during the initial stages of a greenhouse warming, it is possible that melting could occur if CO2 values reached very high levels." -p.258

===

 

I think that this entire coming century will qualify as "the initial stages of a greenhouse warming," so we should expect continuing "regional responses" to the extra heating as the century unfolds.

~

[Willie71]

But that is wrong, since the scientists didn't "change their minds" on this point.

 

These observations of increasing ice are confirming "climate" predictions from more than 25 years ago.

Here is what the scientists predicted in 1991, when the latest or best consensus view was published in Oxford Monographs on Geology and Geophysics, no.16; Paleoclimatology; Crowley & North; 1991.

 

14.2.1 Regional Responses to a Greenhouse Warming

 

"Although the East Antarctic Ice Sheet could grow during the initial stages of a greenhouse warming, it is possible that melting could occur if CO2 values reached very high levels." -p.258

===

 

I think that this entire coming century will qualify as "the initial stages of a greenhouse warming," so we should expect continuing "regional responses" to the extra heating as the century unfolds.

~

Yes, I know that is wrong. I also pointed out the predictions from 1991. It's interesting discussing things with extreme conservatives. It seems a polarization is all they can understand, either scientists are only publishing laboratory confirmed results, or they are just another religion. Anything in between might as well be fairy dust. The defence against linking the articles is that the liberal education system indoctrinated them, and the peer review system is a way of controlling the funding. Tow the line in the conspiracy or go broke. It's odd, to say the least.

[dimreepr]

Greed is a powerful motivator.