The Enlightening Science Thread

Thanks from me too Derek. I thought John had embedded a uStream video when that guy free fell from the balloon.

May 12, 2014: Over the years, as temperatures around the world have ratcheted upward, climate change researchers have kept a wary eye on one place perhaps more than any other: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and particularly the fastest melting part of it, the glaciers that flow into the Amundsen Sea. In that region, six glaciers hang in a precarious balance, partially supported by land, and partially floating in waters just offshore. There's enough water frozen in the ice sheet that feeds these icy giants to raise global sea levels by 4 feet—if they were to melt. That's troubling because the glaciers are melting. Moreover, a new study finds that their decline appears to be unstoppable.....

Source: West Antarctic Glaciers in Irreversible Decline - NASA Science

It's always been puzzling to me how all the ice there managed to "suck up" the oceans from around the world. A possibility I guess could be if in the last Ice Age all the water on Earth was frozen and what we see at the poles are what remains.

In an Ice Age, Earth becomes colder for various reasons, from geological to astronomical. During these particular epoch's the Earth's weather cycles do not stop and water from the Earth's oceans is evaporated or "sucked" up into the atmosphere and is returned to Earth as snow or other frozen types of precipitation where it accumulates in the normally colder areas of the planet; Thus lowering the Sea Levels.

This is called Eustatic change, eustatic change is global:

During and after an ice age, eustatic change takes place. At the beginning of an ice age, the temperature falls and water is frozen and stored in glaciers inland, suspending the hydrological cycle. This results in water being taken out of the sea but not being put back in leading to an overall fall in sea level. Conversely, as an ice age ends, the temperature begins to rise and so the water stored in the glaciers will reenter the hydrological cycle and the sea will be replenished, increasing the sea levels.

Source: Sea Level Change

There is also an opposite term called Isostatic Change at this link that describes local changes to Earth.

What we now see at the poles is what remains from the five largest, and the Little Ice Age.

Ice Ages Blamed on Tilted Earth | LiveScience

Pleistocene Epoch: Facts About the Last Ice Age | LiveScience

Thanks Steve, that was helpful and enlightening.

Your welcome Gary.

There is a side effect to this that affects the oceans in a different way, salinity. When the sea water evaporates it does it as pure water, and when it re-enters the oceans it is still fresh water, if too large of an amount re-enters, it can affect The Thermohaline Circulation and that can really screw up the Earth's climate.

Spaceship Earth is one large cause and effect experiment.

Yup, see the movie The day After Tomorrow, it has several weather actions going on.

Just remember its entertainment.

How realistic is this movie?

It has a kernel of truth, although it has been "Hollywoodized." There is evidence that abrupt climate change has happened a couple of times in the last 13,000 years, but it's never happened in a few days, as it does in the movie. That's completely impossible.

Source: "Day After Tomorrow" Ice Age "Impossible," Researcher Says

Sure, I realize that, but it does demonstrate a real phenomenon, they speeded it up 1000's of times.