If global warming exists..... and we are causing it.... why hasn't antartica fully melted yet?

Question

right now at this very moment thousands of factories cars smokes and stuff like that is happening ........ why isn't that melting anartica fully at this very moment?

Answer 1

I think you are getting global warming and climate change mixed up.  The global warming phenomenon is expected to change the temperatures at the north and south pole by 1 degree.

Climate change is a naturally occuring event that has happened before and will happen again.  It is causing the north pole to experience warmer than normal temperatures that are causing some of the frozen areas thaw.  There are many that believe humans are making this happen at an alarming rate. (I'm not one of them.)  Glaciers advance and retreat, polar ice caps thaw and refreeze.  There was a little ice age during the Renaissance.  A single volcano can spew more green house emitions in one day that humans can release in decades or longer.  I believe the global warming hysteria is simply a shield for a political agenda.

The next time someone tells you that the ice caps are going to melt and we are all going to die try this experiment.  Take a glass and fill it with ice.  Then pour in water to the top.  Continue your conversation with your friend until the ice melts.  Did it overflow the glass?

Answer 2

you're talking about icebergs not ice cubes....they don't just melt it takes time but it's happening rather rapidly! your science teacher should know that!

Answer 3

Don't be a fool, man made global warming is a scam.  There is an entire industry based around this latest climate scare (there is one every 30 years or so, either warming or cooling). The global warming religion likes to use the National Academy of Science report as their bible, but this is bias and funded by special interest groups. Look carefully at the facts. For example, it states that temperatures have risen 1.4 degrees since the beginning of the 20th century. This is true. However, temps have NOT increased in the last 10 years. You'll notice that, in the 2008 report, none of the graphs contain data past 2000... sketchy, huh? It's because this defies the rising temp theory.

Even though the polar bears have now been put on the endangered species list, it is because environmentalists petitioned to change the rules. The population has actually tripled in the last 30 years. It's the reason that the governor of Alaska is now suing the federal government.

Furthermore, the ice shelfs are the among the highest seen in 30 years. Carbon dioxide is actually a good thing for the planet. The list goes on and on for evidence to the contrary of man made global warming, but there is no irrefutable evidence that it does exist.

No matter what environmentalists say (or how they say it), there is no evidence that man is causing global warming. They will use sleight of hand to try and get you, but don't be a sucker. For example, notice how NO commercials say anything about "global warming" anymore? The use the words "climate change" now. That's because environmentalists realize that time is becoming limited on this scare, but they can use the words "climate change" and keep us afraid that we're going to die, whether it be from warming, cooling, etc.

A link that'll get you started on your education (not funded by any special interest groups): http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_...

For your own good, the good of the nation, and yes, the planet, you should be VERY skeptical. Look carefully at the facts and the language. Environmentalists are not always keeping the green of nature in mind. There is a lot of money to be made in this hugely expanding industry.

Even if you are someone who will never believe that global warming doesn't exist, think about this... it will cost 29 trillion dollars to fight this threat of sketchy (and special interest funded) "science" along with ruin our economy. Know how much it will take to feed the entire human population for the next 100 yrs? 7 trillion.

Still think we should be making public policies and spend all that money? Then do one thing for me before you call your local congressman: Name one thing that the government hasn't screwed up.

And feel free to collect the half a million dollar reward with your "proof":

http://ultimateglobalwarmingchallenge.co...

Answer 4

i see your point.

apparently global warming is caused by any sort of c02

if that is the case than why hasn't antartica already melted?

but. there is so much ice to melt over a large area

Answer 5

give it a few more years. you'll get your wish.

Answer 6

Well, global warming is a rather slow process.  It's been happening for many years.  It just so happens that humans (and many other different happenings) are speeding up the process.  Anartica, when fully melted, assuming it will fully melt, will cause us many many proplems.  An extimated half of our landmasses will be covered in water, useless salt water, and the entire ecosystem will begin to fail (we've already noticed effects to this extent accuring in places like the ever dimishing rain forest).

In short, as with most things, Antartica will take some time to melt completly.  Believe me when I  say you wish you wouldn't have to ask this question in a few decades.

Answer 7

Good question!  The reason is a) we are not causing it because b) GLOBAL WARMING IS A SCAM!  

Al Gore couldn't get elected (thankfully) so now he's using "global warming" as way to get on television.  His so called "documentary" (more like suckumentary) was full of lies and made up stats!  He doesn't even do his own part (if it were necessary) to be "green".  So, anarctica is not melting and even if it did, why freak out?  it's ice, silly, and what does ice do?  MELT

Answer 8

1) What's Antarctica's average temperature?  If the yearly average is -10, and that region warms up 10 degrees to 0, how would it melt?  It'll melt on the warmer days, particularly the parts in contact with a warmer sea (ice shelves), but overall you won't see much change.  Melting is slow at first, but over time as temperatures keep climbing the melting days and the melt volume increase, and the symptoms get more obvious.

2) When you have an ice chest full of beer with a big block of ice in it, and air temperature reaches 33 degrees in the cooler, does the block suddenly collapse into a pool of water?  It's very slow, starting at the edges exposed to heat.  What if that ice block is 2 miles thick in places and covers thousands of square miles on a cold continent?  The ice block istself cools the adjacent air and slows the process.  Again, a slow process at first.

3) How much energy is required to melt billions of cubic feet of ice, and how will that energy be transferred deep into the ice?  In the more solid parts, melt will be slow.  Where meltwater can penetrate cracks, such as in glaciers that move and form crevasses, the heat can be transferred into the ice much more rapidly.

4) Antarctica has a slight complication that at the moment there seem to be winds that may direct some of the warmnig air away from much of the main continent of Antarctica.  There is no such protection for ice shelves on the peninsula, so overall there is still ice loss.  Those wind patterns may not remain in place and they may not have enough of an effect as climate continues to change, so no one is suggesting that we're off the hook there.

The Antarctic ice mass loss, the ice shelf collapses (greater than refreezing) and the breakup and acceleration of glaciers do all indicate that warming is occuring, but accurately modelling the various processes that will deliver that heat into the ice is a very active area of study.  In the past scientists assumed that ice sheets acted like giant ice cubes with a melt rate that could stretch over 1000 years, but albedo changes, moulins (meltwater rivers) penetrating into the ice, and melt water lubrication under glaciers accelerating both melt and movement are revealing a more complex process that can progress at a fster, if not instantaneous, rate.

Here are some examples:

Ice mass is being lost, and the loss is accelerating:

The Antarctic has recently been measured to be losing total ice mass as well.  

"Over the 10 year time period of the survey, the ice sheet as a whole was certainly losing mass, and the mass loss increased by 75% during this time. Most of the mass loss is from the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica and the northern tip of the Peninsula where it is driven by ongoing, pronounced glacier acceleration. In East Antarctica, the mass balance is near zero, but the thinning of its potentially vulnerable marine sectors suggests this may change in the near future."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...

The warming in some parts of Antarctica is much faster than elsewhere in the world, and it even extends deep into the nearby oceans:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20...

"A new report from WWF, published at the UN conference on climate change in Bali, has found that global warming is occurring five times faster in the Antarctic peninsula than the rest of the world, and threatening the survival of the emperor, gentoo, chinstrap and Adélie penguins that breed on the continent.

The Antarctic peninsula is warming five times faster that the average rate of global warming and the waters of Southern Ocean have become warmer as far down as 3,000m, the report found.

Sea ice is now covering 40% less area that it did 26 years ago off the west Antarctic peninsula. "

We can even see that the melt rate is unprecedented for the last several thousand years:

New Research Confirms Antarctic Thaw Fears - Spiegel Online

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk...

"...the Pine Island Glacier has shrunk by an average of 3.8 centimeters annually over the past 4,700 years. But the Smith and Pope glaciers have only lost 2.3 centimeters of their thickness annually during the past 14,500 years. Satellite measurements taken between 1992 and 1996, though, show a loss of 1.6 meters in thickness per year on the Pine Island Glacier -- a figure that represents 42 times the average melt of the past 4,700 years."

Most global ice is above sea level, so the "ice floating in a glass" test is not relevant, and is only suggested by dishonest sources (and it is often recounted by completely innocent people who fail to recognize the trick).  Try a more accurate test with your biggest pot filled to the top with water.  Simulate a calving glacier  by placing a 5 lb. block of ice in it.  Did it overflow?  As it continues to melt and the ice above water joins the total, does water continue to run out all over your floor?  Could you perhaps have prevented that damage by not transferring that volume of water into your "sea"?  Would it be less expensive to leave the block of ice in the freezer, or to resurface a wood floor that suffered water damage buckling and rot?  What if we performed the experiment on a larger scale and the damage was to global coastal cities?

Answer 9

You're talking about alot of ice. Just give it a little more time.

Answer 10

Global Warming happens over time ... not over night

Answer 11

partly because it is very very cold (-40 suit you?)

and also because the seasonal hole in the ozone layer that still opens up every year is keeping it cool.

http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0424-agu.h...

Answer 12

I don't believe in global warning, but I think the idea is that all that polution stays more North and the real problems the penguins have are just oil spills.

Answer 13

Easy- Global Warming doesn't exist. We have no clear cut evidence that this made man. It is probably Natural and possibly cyclic. We don't have any records from millions of years ago about how warm the temperatures were. As an added note, this trend of the melting of glaciers has been occurring before man appeared. How do you think that the glaciers have been retreating for millions of years, and humans have not been causing it. It's natural, and there not much we can do to prevent its course. I'm not too sure about this detail, but there as been maybe 2 or 3 different ice ages, so at one point, all the ice melted, but then they returned.

Answer 14

because the Antarctica has like 20 billion ice caps

it'll melt in about 10 years or something (unless we do something those cute cuddly polar bears will die). ( or come and kill us) HA HA HA HA

Answer 15

When you pull an ice cube out of your freezer and put it into a glass, does it instantly turn into water?  No. It requires a certain amount of energy to transform ice into it's liquid form.  

Antarctica and the other massive ice reservoirs of the world (e.g. Greenland) are like huge ice cubes, and it takes an enormous amount of energy to melt them all.  The effect of the increased CO2 in our atmosphere is only warming our planet (on average) about 0.15 C/decade. It will take a long, long time at that rate before Antarctica would fully melt.

But we known without any doubt (from numerous scientific studies) that the amount of ice mass in the world is declining as we get warmer.

World Glacier Monitoring Service:

http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms/mbb/mbb9/su...

Measurements of Time-Variable Gravity Show Mass Loss in Antarctica

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ab...

Global Glacier Recession:

http://nsidc.org/glims/glaciermelt/

Greenland Ice Mas Trend:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/13984...

Answer 16

It IS rapidly melting.  I took 100,000s of years to accumulate, but will only take decades to melt (a lest the stuff exposed to the warming ocean waters)!  It is going fast.  That is one reason for all of the concern.  Sea ice in the Arctic is already 40% lower than the average. And both poles are the "canary in the coal mine." Read up at the following link:

http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/clim...

I think most people can see the implicit silliness of your question.  If I drop an ice cube into a glass of tea,  why doesn't it melt instantly?  It takes a couple of hours.  It is not magic.  It has to follow the laws of nature.  Even a couple of centuries is probably less than a couple of hours relative to the amount of ice were talking about and the length of time it has been accumulating.

Answer 17

Not only has the ice at Antarctica not melted, but the ice has increased every year since measurements were started in the 1970's.

How could this happen while co2 levels continue to increase?  There's only one way, "Global warming" theory is wrong.