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Global Warming, please explain.
So since I know from the "What's your career" thread that there are plenty of scientist/smart people on AE, I thought I might try to get someone to explain why I am wrong with the following theory:
My friends and I were having one of those way too late drunken discussions one night when we realized that none of us truly understood global warming, in fact while we were aware of the basic premise: warming leads to melting leads to wet death and destruction, we didn't even understand how that might physically happen. So one of us began jokingly to elaborate a theory and leave it to me to get all excited, I've named it and brought it up every drunken opportunity I've had since them(I live in Spain, so thats almost ona daily basis).
I know it's probably ridiculous, and someone with my lack of education in the matter should not be throwing around words like "volume" and "density" as if I remembered my 10th grade chemistry/physics classes, so I've drawn a visual aid(I'm on my gf laptop, with no other graphics program but Paintbrush which I haven't used since the third grade).
The "No ice" theory goes like this: As you can see, the first glass of water(yes,thats what they are) is a quarter of the way filled with water, the second glass however has ice, in the third glass the ice has melted. The red lines indicate the water level within the glass in all three. So the second glass is the one with the highest water level, because of the ice, but once it has melted, the level goes down. The weird person-like drawing is me trying to look smart in a lab coat ,glasses and a stethoscope.
[img_assist|nid=17619|title=ice|desc=|link=none|align=middle|width=475|height=269]
Question: If this is true, wouldn't´t the worldwide water level go down if the poles melt?
Sorry if this is insanely absurd, I have insomnia.
My friends and I were having one of those way too late drunken discussions one night when we realized that none of us truly understood global warming, in fact while we were aware of the basic premise: warming leads to melting leads to wet death and destruction, we didn't even understand how that might physically happen. So one of us began jokingly to elaborate a theory and leave it to me to get all excited, I've named it and brought it up every drunken opportunity I've had since them(I live in Spain, so thats almost ona daily basis).
I know it's probably ridiculous, and someone with my lack of education in the matter should not be throwing around words like "volume" and "density" as if I remembered my 10th grade chemistry/physics classes, so I've drawn a visual aid(I'm on my gf laptop, with no other graphics program but Paintbrush which I haven't used since the third grade).
The "No ice" theory goes like this: As you can see, the first glass of water(yes,thats what they are) is a quarter of the way filled with water, the second glass however has ice, in the third glass the ice has melted. The red lines indicate the water level within the glass in all three. So the second glass is the one with the highest water level, because of the ice, but once it has melted, the level goes down. The weird person-like drawing is me trying to look smart in a lab coat ,glasses and a stethoscope.
[img_assist|nid=17619|title=ice|desc=|link=none|align=middle|width=475|height=269]
Question: If this is true, wouldn't´t the worldwide water level go down if the poles melt?
Sorry if this is insanely absurd, I have insomnia.
Mon, 2007-07-02 20:12 —
