James-Speaks
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
A Simple Experiment
Put a toy truck onto a wedge of cheese. At least it always looked like that to me.
DANGER - TOY TRUCK ON WEDGE OF CHEESE
DEAD AHEAD
GBR - Okay, it's not a truck on a wedge of cheese, it means steep downhill grade ahead. Put on the brakes. Shift to a lower gear. Go slower or go all kaputsky.
Now, imagine that the wedge of cheese has been replaced with a wedge of ice.
Help for the metaphorically challenged
Does it matter of you put on the brakes? No, it does not matter
BECAUSE IT'S ICE.
Now think about Greenland. Greenland is basically a very big truckload of ice on a very big wedge of cheese. Friction between the ice and the bedrock prevent the glaciers from sliding off the mountain very fast. Friction because there is no lubricating layer of meltwater. The glaciers slide off the mountain at a glacial pace.
Envision now, if you will, that someone replace the cheese in Greenland with melting ice. Do you think the glaciers will move at a glacial pace or do ytou think they will move faster, as in slip sliding off the mountain into the ocean and flooding 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
Think the latter, please, the resale value of my condo on the Isle of Palms depends on it.
If the glaciers were to move at the rate of, say, one foot per hour, slower than the little hand on your wall clock, you would see them slide off the mountain in:
(500 miles x 5,280 feet/mile) / (1 feet/hour * 24 hours/day) = 301 days.
And this means the ocean level would rise 21 feet in that time.
In other words, by Labor Day, there would be an extra four feet of water at high tide.
By Christmas there would be more than twelve feet of water. It would be like the tsunami everywhere.
Dude? Are you listening?
Global Warming is immediate. We do not know how close we are to this meltwater scenario because you cut off funding!
Clue: You will be the one remembered as the idiot, not your Poppy, not Dick, not Condi. You.
Suggestion: Restore funding to people who believe Global Warming is real and man-made.
Cheerio!
Help For The Metaphorically Challenged: It's not really a wedge of cheese, it just looks that way.
Put a toy truck onto a wedge of cheese. At least it always looked like that to me.
DANGER - TOY TRUCK ON WEDGE OF CHEESE
DEAD AHEAD
GBR - Okay, it's not a truck on a wedge of cheese, it means steep downhill grade ahead. Put on the brakes. Shift to a lower gear. Go slower or go all kaputsky.
Now, imagine that the wedge of cheese has been replaced with a wedge of ice.
Help for the metaphorically challenged
Does it matter of you put on the brakes? No, it does not matter
BECAUSE IT'S ICE.
Now think about Greenland. Greenland is basically a very big truckload of ice on a very big wedge of cheese. Friction between the ice and the bedrock prevent the glaciers from sliding off the mountain very fast. Friction because there is no lubricating layer of meltwater. The glaciers slide off the mountain at a glacial pace.
Envision now, if you will, that someone replace the cheese in Greenland with melting ice. Do you think the glaciers will move at a glacial pace or do ytou think they will move faster, as in slip sliding off the mountain into the ocean and flooding 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
Think the latter, please, the resale value of my condo on the Isle of Palms depends on it.
If the glaciers were to move at the rate of, say, one foot per hour, slower than the little hand on your wall clock, you would see them slide off the mountain in:
(500 miles x 5,280 feet/mile) / (1 feet/hour * 24 hours/day) = 301 days.
And this means the ocean level would rise 21 feet in that time.
In other words, by Labor Day, there would be an extra four feet of water at high tide.
By Christmas there would be more than twelve feet of water. It would be like the tsunami everywhere.
Dude? Are you listening?
Global Warming is immediate. We do not know how close we are to this meltwater scenario because you cut off funding!
Clue: You will be the one remembered as the idiot, not your Poppy, not Dick, not Condi. You.
Suggestion: Restore funding to people who believe Global Warming is real and man-made.
Cheerio!
Help For The Metaphorically Challenged: It's not really a wedge of cheese, it just looks that way.
posted by James-Speaks # 12:37 PM 
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