Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Ice Sheet Durability

... may be higher than we projected.  It turns out that ice sheets have some self-protecting features.  While this is not a license to pour more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, it is a useful reminder that 1) the Earth is an intricate system with many checks and balances to keep it relatively steady, and 2) we still do not know everything about it and don't even always connect the stuff we DO know.
Tags: nature, news, science
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  • 2 comments
hafoc

hafoc

November 22 2010, 20:13:00 UTC 10 years ago

Well, it stands to reason that the Earth's climate (and other such things) would be stable rather than metastable. If the climate were, figuratively speaking, a pebble perched at the top of a steep cliff, it is very likely something would have pushed it over the edge by now.

What worries me is that there might be some control mechanism that will kick in with a vengeance. Such as, for example, we warm up the Earth and it responds by shutting down the oceanic current heat exchange system and triggering a new ice age.

Of course there's no way to tell if that will happen until it does, or doesn't...
ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

November 22 2010, 20:56:30 UTC 10 years ago

>>Well, it stands to reason that the Earth's climate (and other such things) would be stable rather than metastable. If the climate were, figuratively speaking, a pebble perched at the top of a steep cliff, it is very likely something would have pushed it over the edge by now.<<

In order to behave as it does, it must have various buffers, checks and balances, that make things tend towards a moderate range. Sadly we have been destroying some of these wholesale -- frex, the forests are a prime carbon sump and air filter, and we've been clearcutting them for centuries. Taking out the safeties makes a serious failure more probable.

>>What worries me is that there might be some control mechanism that will kick in with a vengeance. Such as, for example, we warm up the Earth and it responds by shutting down the oceanic current heat exchange system and triggering a new ice age.<<

Based on my knowledge of complex system theory, that is likely. We can only perceive the premises and patterns which are active now. Beyond that, we're reduced to clues and guesses. There will always be some large-scale stuff that is hidden simply because it only kicks in after thresholds not previously crossed within our awareness.