NASA Study Finds Earth's Lakes Are Warming

[tthor]

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_10-308_Global_Lakes.html
(I recommend reading the link rather than just assuming what it has to say

They reported an average warming rate of 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, with some lakes warming as much as 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. The warming trend was global, and the greatest increases were in the mid- to high-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

I wish to stress that this is to be an intelligent discussion. If you wish to debate anything on the subject, please speak intelligently, quote facts, and supply sources.

 

[emeraldrafael]

The server was down, but I'm going to assume this is about global warming and how things will turn out bad.

is this really a bad thing? i get that all of hte earth is delicate, but its just a global period. Earth goes through one every so often. When you've had (at least) 5 major mass extinctions, you just start to think maybe this is the earth thinning the heard for better and stronger creatures? I mean, the earth will always bounce back, its just what will rule when it does.

 

[Talshere]

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_10-308_Global_Lakes.html

They reported an average warming rate of 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, with some lakes warming as much as 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. The warming trend was global, and the greatest increases were in the mid- to high-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

I wish to stress that this is to be an intelligent discussion. If you wish to debate anything on the subject, please speak intelligently, quote facts, and supply sources.

Im just guna point out that if the Earth as a whole is warming as is postulated, its only common-sense that lakes, isolated bodies of for the most part static and shallow water would warm first and relatively quickly.

As a student of Oceanography I find this to be a rather nonsensical comment.

If youd told me the OCEANS had warmed 0.81 degrees, you might actually have something. As it is, lake temperatures could vary fairly easily with only small changes in the suns activity, or a minor change in the source water. Even increase biological activity could account for a very small increase in such cases. Should eutrophication occur, the resultant algae would act as an insulator which would not significantly change the waters albedo, resulting in a noticeably warmer lake.

 

[tthor]

The server was down, but I'm going to assume this is about global warming and how things will turn out bad.

is this really a bad thing? i get that all of hte earth is delicate, but its just a global period. Earth goes through one every so often. When you've had (at least) 5 major mass extinctions, you just start to think maybe this is the earth thinning the heard for better and stronger creatures? I mean, the earth will always bounce back, its just what will rule when it does.

It can still be up for debate whether the cause is human-based or based on Earth's natural cycle, but either way, this looks bad for us. Even if it is just a natural cycle, it still means shit is slowly hitting the fan

 

[tthor]

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_10-308_Global_Lakes.html

They reported an average warming rate of 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, with some lakes warming as much as 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. The warming trend was global, and the greatest increases were in the mid- to high-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

I wish to stress that this is to be an intelligent discussion. If you wish to debate anything on the subject, please speak intelligently, quote facts, and supply sources.

Im just guna point out that if the Earth as a whole is warming as is postulated, its only common-sense that lakes, isolated bodies of for the most part static and shallow water would warm first and relatively quickly.

As a student of Oceanography I find this to be a rather nonsensical comment.

If youd told me the OCEANS had warmed 0.81 degrees, you might actually have something. As it is, lake temperatures could vary fairly easily with only small changes in the suns activity, or a minor change in the source water. Even increase biological activity could account for a very small increase in such cases. Should eutrophication occur, the resultant algae would act as an insulator which would not significantly change the waters albedo, resulting in a noticeably warmer lake.

that is why i made a specific point of not saying any opinions in the first post. I am not in a position to postulate the ramifications of this data, instead I just merely wanted to provide the facts gathered.

 

[Talshere]

The server was down, but I'm going to assume this is about global warming and how things will turn out bad.

is this really a bad thing? i get that all of hte earth is delicate, but its just a global period. Earth goes through one every so often. When you've had (at least) 5 major mass extinctions, you just start to think maybe this is the earth thinning the heard for better and stronger creatures? I mean, the earth will always bounce back, its just what will rule when it does.

While you are correct that the earth would bounce back, as it did during the Paleocene?Eocene Thermal Maximum thermal maximum, saying "is this a bad thing" is the worst form of ignorance. Should, worst case scenario, the ice caps melt. Pretty much every coastal city in the WORLD would be under water. Just the loss of the Greenland ice sheet would feasibly see a global rise of eustatic sea level by some 8 metres. The Antarctic ice sheet is some 7 times that size. Don't quote these numbers Im taking them off the top of my head.

And this isnt even taking into account the havoc that dumping that much fresh water into the ocean would cause.

 

[Atmos Duality]

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/nov/HQ_10-308_Global_Lakes.html

They reported an average warming rate of 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, with some lakes warming as much as 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. The warming trend was global, and the greatest increases were in the mid- to high-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

I wish to stress that this is to be an intelligent discussion. If you wish to debate anything on the subject, please speak intelligently, quote facts, and supply sources.

Im just guna point out that if the Earth as a whole is warming as is postulated, its only common-sense that lakes, isolated bodies of for the most part static and shallow water would warm first and relatively quickly.

As a student of Oceanography I find this to be a rather nonsensical comment.

If youd told me the OCEANS had warmed 0.81 degrees, you might actually have something. As it is, lake temperatures could vary fairly easily with only small changes in the suns activity, or a minor change in the source water. Even increase biological activity could account for a very small increase in such cases. Should eutrophication occur, the resultant algae would act as an insulator which would not significantly change the waters albedo, resulting in a noticeably warmer lake.

Yeah...the temperature variation in isolated or stagnant bodies of water should be much greater than that of the ocean. At least there you have the thermal belts to keep everything nice and mixed, with the AVERAGE temperature remaining fairly steady.

I'll leave it to the oceanographers out there. Though I'm into the Earth Sciences (Meteorology Major), this is not exactly in my field of expertise.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

OK, I want to stress that I am not encouraging this behavior, I am simply stating a fact:

If they haven't already, someone WILL make a stupid, tired, and predictable Cthulu joke, probably before the 10th post.

 

[Warbandit]

OK, I want to stress that I am not encouraging this behavior, I am simply stating a fact:

If they haven't already, someone WILL make a stupid, tired, and predictable Cthulu joke, probably before the 10th post.

Cthulu did it.

/cthulujoke

Figured I'd get it outta the way.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

OK, I want to stress that I am not encouraging this behavior, I am simply stating a fact:

If they haven't already, someone WILL make a stupid, tired, and predictable Cthulu joke, probably before the 10th post.

Cthulu did it.

/cthulujoke

Figured I'd get it outta the way.

You know, that's the second time today that my amazing powers have been proven. The first was the stupidity of the NASA press conference, but I'll stop derailing this thread.

Um....It's probably global warming.

 

[tthor]

The server was down, but I'm going to assume this is about global warming and how things will turn out bad.

is this really a bad thing? i get that all of hte earth is delicate, but its just a global period. Earth goes through one every so often. When you've had (at least) 5 major mass extinctions, you just start to think maybe this is the earth thinning the heard for better and stronger creatures? I mean, the earth will always bounce back, its just what will rule when it does.

While you are correct that the earth would bounce back, as it did during the Paleocene?Eocene Thermal Maximum thermal maximum, saying "is this a bad thing" is the worst form of ignorance. Should, worst case scenario, the ice caps melt. Pretty much every coastal city in the WORLD would be under water. Just the loss of the Greenland ice sheet would feasibly see a global rise of eustatic sea level by some 8 metres. The Antarctic ice sheet is some 7 times that size. Don't quote these numbers Im taking them off the top of my head.

And this isn't even taking into account the havoc that dumping that much fresh water into the ocean would cause.

From what I have learned(primarily from an episode NOVA on pbs), scientists believe that, if in fact the ice caps do melt, the resulting fresh water added to the world's oceans would cause the oceans' currents to almost completely stop. The oceans' currents are very important to the distribution of heat throughout the world; if the currents were to stop, it would likely send Earth into another ice age.

(here, i found a link on the general idea, though I haven't read through all of it just yet)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070507113401.htm

 

[emeraldrafael]

The server was down, but I'm going to assume this is about global warming and how things will turn out bad.

is this really a bad thing? i get that all of hte earth is delicate, but its just a global period. Earth goes through one every so often. When you've had (at least) 5 major mass extinctions, you just start to think maybe this is the earth thinning the heard for better and stronger creatures? I mean, the earth will always bounce back, its just what will rule when it does.

While you are correct that the earth would bounce back, as it did during the Paleocene?Eocene Thermal Maximum thermal maximum, saying "is this a bad thing" is the worst form of ignorance. Should, worst case scenario, the ice caps melt. Pretty much every coastal city in the WORLD would be under water. Just the loss of the Greenland ice sheet would feasibly see a global rise of eustatic sea level by some 8 metres. The Antarctic ice sheet is some 7 times that size. Don't quote these numbers Im taking them off the top of my head.

And this isnt even taking into account the havoc that dumping that much fresh water into the ocean would cause.

you're assuming that humans won the right to keep existing.

 

[tthor]

The server was down, but I'm going to assume this is about global warming and how things will turn out bad.

is this really a bad thing? i get that all of hte earth is delicate, but its just a global period. Earth goes through one every so often. When you've had (at least) 5 major mass extinctions, you just start to think maybe this is the earth thinning the heard for better and stronger creatures? I mean, the earth will always bounce back, its just what will rule when it does.

While you are correct that the earth would bounce back, as it did during the Paleocene?Eocene Thermal Maximum thermal maximum, saying "is this a bad thing" is the worst form of ignorance. Should, worst case scenario, the ice caps melt. Pretty much every coastal city in the WORLD would be under water. Just the loss of the Greenland ice sheet would feasibly see a global rise of eustatic sea level by some 8 metres. The Antarctic ice sheet is some 7 times that size. Don't quote these numbers Im taking them off the top of my head.

And this isnt even taking into account the havoc that dumping that much fresh water into the ocean would cause.

you're assuming that humans won the right to keep existing.

we have not won the right, but it is our most basic primal urge, built into our genetics and our success of surviving thus far, that we humans seek to live and to survive. its not because of a right to live that we fight to survive, but because surviving is what our bodies demand we seek.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Snip

I'm just saying, if we're going to die, we're going to die. As much as wed like to think so, we do not rule the earth. just like at things like the '04 tsunami.

 

[Terminate421]

Thats it, I seriously need to go down to antarctica to visit those penguins BEFORE they die of global warming. (I need to save money)

 

[theriddlen]

Friggin finally. Goddamned lakes are bloody cold. Maybe now they'll get better.

 

[Geekosaurus]

Was this NASA's "big news" that they said they were going to reveal? Or is that still to come? If this is their "big news" then we've all been majorly let down.

 

[Talshere]

The server was down, but I'm going to assume this is about global warming and how things will turn out bad.

is this really a bad thing? i get that all of hte earth is delicate, but its just a global period. Earth goes through one every so often. When you've had (at least) 5 major mass extinctions, you just start to think maybe this is the earth thinning the heard for better and stronger creatures? I mean, the earth will always bounce back, its just what will rule when it does.

While you are correct that the earth would bounce back, as it did during the Paleocene?Eocene Thermal Maximum thermal maximum, saying "is this a bad thing" is the worst form of ignorance. Should, worst case scenario, the ice caps melt. Pretty much every coastal city in the WORLD would be under water. Just the loss of the Greenland ice sheet would feasibly see a global rise of eustatic sea level by some 8 metres. The Antarctic ice sheet is some 7 times that size. Don't quote these numbers Im taking them off the top of my head.

And this isn't even taking into account the havoc that dumping that much fresh water into the ocean would cause.

From what I have learned(primarily from an episode NOVA on pbs), scientists believe that, if in fact the ice caps do melt, the resulting fresh water added to the world's oceans would cause the oceans' currents to almost completely stop. The oceans' currents are very important to the distribution of heat throughout the world; if the currents were to stop, it would likely send Earth into another ice age.

(here, i found a link on the general idea, though I haven't read through all of it just yet)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070507113401.htm

Feel safe in the knowledge that NOVA has not lead you wrong A small amount of cold fresh water at the surface promotes the development of pack ice. And I do mean very small. However that much water would reduce the salinity sufficiently that in all likelihood, the very cold highly saline and therefore very dense water that forms in Arctic regions due to the precipitation of minerals out of freezing ice and it being bloody cold, would simply stop. If you do this it stops the feed of this water to the lower latitudes which usually heats the water and sends it back north through density currents. This current accounts for some...er...god this was in lecture like a week ago : / ....I should really remember this...Something like 60% of the world heat transfer. Ask Atmos Duality up ^there how much the trade winds account for, the ocean is basically everything else. The last time we have on record that something like this happened was 11k years ago, when Lake Agassiz on the Laurentide ice sheet on N.America burst, flooding millions of gallons of fresh water into the....Arctic ocean.. Via the Mackenzie river valley, plunging much of northern latitudes back into glacial conditions and allowing decaying ice sheets to once again advance. This period was known as the Younger Dryas and lasted apx 1k years.

 

[tthor]

Was this NASA's "big news" that they said they were going to reveal? Or is that still to come? If this is their "big news" then we've all been majorly let down.

lol don't worry, NASA's big news is much more interesting than this.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105811-NASA-Discovers-New-Life

 

[loremazd]

The server was down, but I'm going to assume this is about global warming and how things will turn out bad.

is this really a bad thing? i get that all of hte earth is delicate, but its just a global period. Earth goes through one every so often. When you've had (at least) 5 major mass extinctions, you just start to think maybe this is the earth thinning the heard for better and stronger creatures? I mean, the earth will always bounce back, its just what will rule when it does.

While you are correct that the earth would bounce back, as it did during the Paleocene?Eocene Thermal Maximum thermal maximum, saying "is this a bad thing" is the worst form of ignorance. Should, worst case scenario, the ice caps melt. Pretty much every coastal city in the WORLD would be under water. Just the loss of the Greenland ice sheet would feasibly see a global rise of eustatic sea level by some 8 metres. The Antarctic ice sheet is some 7 times that size. Don't quote these numbers Im taking them off the top of my head.

And this isnt even taking into account the havoc that dumping that much fresh water into the ocean would cause.

you're assuming that humans won the right to keep existing.

Actually it's very unlikely that humans would go extinct from a Ice Age scenario. In general human are some of the more adaptable species. Human extinction would be more likely in a global epidemic, or something fast acting, like a meteor hit. Epidemic is far more likely, though. That being said, it's very unlikely that the entirety of the ice cap would melt before equilibrium shifted to colder temperatures. Yes, humans have possibly caused global warming, but not in the degree of the Massive volcanic or meteoric gasses that triggered the previous one.

Essentially my point is that humans are a little more than your average cynical young person believes they are after getting angry watching the news.