On May 26, 2:59 am, jdannan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >> The ice
> >> melting and coldness of the meltwater itself are unimportant.
>
> > Is that because slow melting is always assumed?
>
> > Or because my back of the envelope is wrong? (and 1 W/m2 over fifty
> > years I suppose is only 0.17 W/m2 over 300 years)
>
> > Or because the cold is rapidly spread across the world / deep into the
> > ocean?
>
> Well in the case of the 50y collapse, I think we have bigger things to
> worry about. Also, note that when the surface of the ice sheet gets wet,
> this changes its albedo substantially for the worse, so a chunk of that
> 1W will come for free (from the POV of the rest of the climate system).
Yes,once the Artic sea ice has gone then the Greenland ice will melt
much faster. The condensing water vapour from the evaporation off a an
ice free Arctic Ocean will soon mean the end of the Greenland ice
sheet. The latent heat of condensing water vapour is three times
greater than the latent heat of melting ice.
But then James may know better :-0
Cheers, Alastair.
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