Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Neil earlier you posted the chart showing that the volume of ice in september has been halved since the 1980s. From all that ice melt we have effectivly gained 0 sea level rise.
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The Arctic ice is almost entirely pack ice, floating on the ocean surface, so that melting it doesn't change sea level at all. Honestly, I thought stuff like this was supposed to be covered in grade-school science classes.
You are right that sea level rise has been over-hyped, though you're right for the wrong reason. It may, like the recent hurricane Sandy, be a personal & economic disaster for those humans who built close to the sea, but the biosphere would adjust quite easily. (Just as it did to the Pleistocene changes in sea level.)
No, the real problem is that photosynthesis is dependent on temperature
Photosynthesis C3 shuts down at about 105F, C4 at about 130F. Once tropical land & ocean temperature reach these levels, there goes a lot of the food supply. And of course, since tropical vegetation will no longer be participating in the carbon cycle, but instead will be rotting or burning, there's another big CO2 feedback spike.