Re: Creationists Don't Like Other Sciences, Either

Luminoso wrote:

>    With the ice coming
>    out of the equation there would be a (relatively) rapid
>    temperature increase until the new equilibrium point
>    is reached.

The then is: what is that point, and can we survive it ?

> >Only if they actually have adequate soil and water.
>
>    They both have adequate water.

One of the features of climate changes in the past has been the
****fting of the rain belts.  The temperate belt leaves the sahara and
the other deserts with little water and puts the rain down, as you say,
across europe, northern USA/Canada, and such.  However in a changed
climate this may become the new Gobi desert as the rain belt move
further north and falls in the artctic sea.

>    Soil quality varies however.
>    What you've got are peat bogs and swampland. Not all kinds
>    of crops will grow on such a diet.

Exactly.

>    Note how I phrased the sentence, saying "DIRECT sunlight".

It is quite DIRECT. It does not get it INDIRECTLY (such as by
reflection).

>    Even in the summer, antarctic sunlight comes in at a very
>    oblique angle.

At the South Pole it may be that it only gets to 23 degrees above the
horizon, but it is there for 24 hours at the solstice.

At the equator it may rise to 90 degrees but is above 23 degrees only
for 9 hours a day and gone completely for 12.

>    This will not warm the land as effectively
>    as overhead sunlight. The longer path through the atmosphere
>    may warm the AIR a bit more than at the equator, but that's
>    a small warm mass -vs- a vast warm surface and all the air
>    that can heat.

There is no doubt that the equator will be become unbearably hotter,
but the issue is not how much energy is input, but how much is lost.
If the air becomes warmer and the distribution of heat from the
equator, transferred via air, rain and water, puts more heat into
antarctica then it will reach a different equilibrium temperature.

>    Since you passed geometry, you should have understood the
>    angle-of-incidence issue too.

Well I certainly do understand the difference between direct and
indirect. It may be low angle but it is all direct.

> >There is enough ice on the antarctic and greenland to raise sea level
> >200 feet if it all melts.
>
>    But it won't. The continental glaciers in antarctica are
>    fairly well protected, both by the insulating effect of
>    the rock base and by the shallow angle of illumination.

But, as you say, the air will be warmer.  The ice shelf is currently a
buffer, both to the ocean currents and to the flow rate of the
glaciers, and that could break away quite quickly.

>    CNN does polls every so often. It really does appear that
>    a greater percentage are drifting towards supernaturalism
>    of late. My guess is that their faith in evolution was
>    never very strong and the propaganda job the 'ID' folks
>    have been doing is enough to get them to jump the fence.

So we are moving into a new 'dark ages' too.