Madagain, OK, so now I read through that article that supposedly "proves" that the ice can't melt within the time frame climate scientists are predicting.
The guy who wrote the article has a mechanical engineering degree from Yale. My mechanical engineering degree is "only" from the U of Minn. However, he left out a very big thing in his analysis, because he made a fundamentally flawed assumption. The ice in a glacier is not melted by the atmosphere warming up the ice. That is only a small part of the equation. The ice is primarily melted by the solar radiation hitting the ice directly. The secondary cause is the reflection of the solar radiation. Also, ice melts faster when water is touching it than it does by exposure to air. Heat transfer rates vary dramatically depending on exactly HOW the heat is transferred. Ice will melt on a sunny day where the atmospheric temperature is still below freezing, and he has not accounted for any of those factors. I'm a mere mechanical engineering grad with a specialty in thermal analysis. However, I do know that all heat transfer is not created equal. Heat transfer is caused by molecules gaining energy, and moving more quickly. The energy transfer to ice that will make it change state from ice to water is not just in the form of atmospheric temperature. It is an easy mistake for an engineer to make in an admittedly back-of-the-envelope calculation. That's why you need to listen to climate scientists tell you how fast or slow the ice will melt. A mechanical engineer thinks of a smaller, closed system. A climatologist thinks of more factors. Kristyne _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
