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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 460829" data-attributes="member: 2020">I am not going to take sides on the Greenhouse Effect issue - that issue, which had been strictly scientific, has become intensely political.  And political discussions, aren't allowed here on the ENBoards.  I will stay strictly on the scientific aspect of the issue.  I cannot say, of course, whether this particular dataset is accurate, more than any other person can.  There are other datasets - I have another at hand, which pretty much correlates with the dataset I gave above.  I have a third dataset, but it dates only from 1980 and I need datasets that start from the same time (1880.)  Anyways ...  According to current scientific thinking, a warming of 1 degree over all the oceans in a mere century is considered an astounding rate of warming.  Sorta the equivalent of a major geographic event, as it were (such as the quick plunge back into ice age conditions after Lake Agazzis broke through the ice dam and flowed down into the Atlantic, ten thousand years ago.)  The arctic icecap is thought to have thinned (during the summer) by 40 percent compared to what it was in the 1950s (data prior to that is not available.)  This represents, however, a more intense summer melt.  What is more interesting, perhaps, is that the subsurface water below the ice has warmed, mostly eliminating the cold (28 degree Fahrenheit) layer of water that insulated the icecap from the warmth further down.  This phonomenon has occurred arctic-wide.  Scientific projections show the Northwest Passage will be usable for 2 months out of the year, starting in 10 years.  The Northeast Passage will be usable for 3 months out of the year, in 10 years.  Somewhere between 30 and 100 years from now, the Arctic Ocean will be free of ice in the summer.  Scientific projections show a warming of about 8 degrees Fahrenheit worldwide over the next 100 years.  Since nearly all of the heat stored on Earth is stored in the oceans, this means the oceans must warm that 8 degrees Fahrenheit.  Thus, the oceans are projected to warm at nearly the rate of 1 degree per decade, from now on.  This, is a colossally fast rate of warming, by geological time frames.  Assuming this is a natural event, it is akin to the world coming suddenly out of the ice age in terms of magnitude (and, the Earth did suddenly come out of the ice age, did suddenly warm up.)  The big thing about water is that, as it warms up, it warms up the air above it.  As air warms, the amount of moisture it can hold increases exponentially.  Thus, if a large area of the equatorial Atlantic goes from 84 degrees on average to 87 degrees, the result will be far greater humidity.  If the equatorial Atlantic goes from 84 degrees to 92 degrees on average ... I think I will let someone else describe just what will happen, as a result of such a warming ...  Heh.  When I am elderly, I will be able to swim in the cool waters of Hudson Bay, during the summer.  I would not advise anyone to try that stunt today (except for the Polar Bear club people)</blockquote>

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