If the global temperature keeps rising..?

Question

What are some major side effects of the global temperature continuing to rise?

Answer 1

well some of the MAJOR side effects are dirving cars and burnig fossil fuels, but some pollution is'nt all humans sometimes it can be natural disaters like hurrican katrina and it can also be fire.

Answer 2

One simple prediction is that the weather will become more unpredictable.  The extra energy will create more variable conditions, usually in the direction of increasing intensity such as in the energy of storms.

Answer 3

this what i've got in Inconvenient truth:

Since around 1860 until 2007, the average air temperature near the earth’s surface has risen about 1.3 degrees Farenheit. If the temperature continues to rise at the current rate, some scientists (and politicians!) are predicting that the average air temperature near the earth’s surface could be as much as 6 to 11 degrees higher than now by the year 2100 A.D.

Answer 4

Actually during 2007 we saw a decrease in the average temperature of the Earth's surface of .75C, the biggest change in the history of records.

To answer your question now.  Polar ice caps and glaciers will continue to melt.  The Polar ice caps melting will cause the water levels to rise.  The glaciers as well as the ice caps melting will cause the water to lose its salinity (salt water will start to become more in the way of fresh water).  This could affect ocean currents and eventually shut down the Gulf Stream which will in turn cause most of the Northern Hemisphere to go into an ice age.  

Water temperatures may also increase and storms could become more powerful.

Answer 5

fineDayguy, the thickness of the Greenland ice sheet averages 1.5 km.  Since the area of Greenland that is ice covered is around 1.7 million km^2, the total volume of ice is around 2.5 million km^3.  The numbers I can find for the Gulf of Mexico indicate that it contains 2.434 million km^3.  If the ice does have a density of .91 g/cm^3, then the Greenland ice sheet would contain 2.3 million km^3 of water.  

Some scientific journal articles that I've found indicate that satellite radar measurements indicate that the volume of the Greenland ice sheet is around 2.9 million km^3.  Evidently, the volume of water seems comparable.

Answer 6

we are all going to fry!!!

Answer 7

The side effect people seem to most worried about is the ocean level rising.  Now this one is really misunderstood.  If the ice on the polar caps keeps melting, many are saying that coastal cities all around the world will be under water.  As much as 30 to 50 feet rise in the Sea level.

Only a fairly simple understanding of science and mathmatics is needed to realize that the alarmists are greatly overstating the problem.

Think about it.  

Point 1

The North Pole is not a land mass so much of the ice on the North Pole is submerged below sea level.  so if the North Pole Ice melted completely we would see very little rise in sea level because much of the ice is already displacing water and keeping the sea level higher.

Point 2

Water expands when it freezes.  Snow especially is much less dense than water.  Ice is closer but it is still less dense as we all know ice floats.  So when it melts it takes up less space than when it was frozen.  This makes the N. Pole ice even less of a problem.

So what we really need to consider is mainly the frozen H2O that is on land masses.  This would be the ice cap on Antarctica, Greenland, Siberia, Alaska, Canada and the glaciers in the high mountains. in various places around the globe.

Point 3.  The surface of the earth is over 2/3 rds covered in Water.  There is a whole lot of surface area there.  It takes a massive amount of water to just raise the ocean level 1 inch.

I have heard it said that the amount of water in the ice on Greenland for example is aprox. = to the volume of water in the Gulf of Mexico.  I do not know if this is true, but it seems to me a bit exaturated.  Geenland is smaller in surface area than the Gulf of Mexico and I seriously doubt the ice is thicker than the Gulf is deep.  remembering point 2 above tells me even if it was the same in volume if the Greenland ice melted it would take up less space than it does frozen, so no way can it be the same volume of water.

There is quite a bit more to this explanation but I will save that for another answer as it gets boring reading so many words.