Monday, May 24, 2004

LAND FLOATS TOO

An inconvenient application of plate tectonics

In my post of 19th about arctic ice, I pointed out that most of the arctic is covered by the sea, so most of the ice in the arctic is floating on water -- and it is basic physics that melting ice does NOT raise the water level. So even if all the sea-ice in the world melted, the sea level would stay exactly where it is now. It would not cause ANY flooding of places that are at present above water. I pointed out that only the melting of land-based ice could raise the level of the oceans and that land-based arctic ice does NOT appear to be melting -- thus throwing a major Greenie scare into a cocked hat. In response, a reader sent in this succinct comment: "Since lands are floating on magma, the rebound of land as ice melts also has to be factored in". So, to oversimplify a little, even if all the earth's ice DID melt (which seems to be unknown throughout the geologic history of the last billion years or thereabouts), there might be no overall "drowning" of the land. The land could rise to cancel out the rise in sea level. Some land would rise and some would fall relative to the sea-level. It's all pretty speculative but no more so than most of what passes for gospel among the Greenies.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else.

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