The north pole is melting

laiman · 15 Oct 2009 at 11:36

What confuses me is where did all the salt go when the ice froze in the first place? Surely it was seawater initially and so was salty? Did it just increase the saltiness (sp) of the oceans to the current levels that we are used to? Obviously all the snow that has fallen on it since was fresh water but that presumably evaporated from the sea somewhere and so doesn't really effect the balance?

I'm assuming that the total salt mass/volume of seawater is a constant over a long enough period of time and the problem is just that we have only been around during the "lots of frozen water" stage and won't really like the "not as salty as it could be" stage?

Participant · 15 Oct 2009 at 11:59

Wow kewel we can all swim around like Kevin Costner in Waterworld!

'I'm so....hot'
'Yes me too, it's the first stages of hypothermia'

Classic.

Tefal · 15 Oct 2009 at 12:08

Robbie G said:
'I'm so....hot'
'Yes me too, it's the first stages of hypothermia'

Classic.

it's actually one of the later stages.

Chimerical · 15 Oct 2009 at 12:21

Tefal said:
it's actually one of the later stages.

Everyone one of your posts now looks like a sarcastic dig thanks to the ever present rolleyes in your sig.

You make me sick.

Tefal · 15 Oct 2009 at 12:23

Chimerical said:
Everyone one of your posts now looks like a sarcastic dig thanks to the ever present rolleyes in your sig.

You make me sick.

Chimerical · 15 Oct 2009 at 12:25

Participant · 15 Oct 2009 at 12:27

Tefal said:
it's actually one of the later stages.

Are you serious?

Tefal · 15 Oct 2009 at 12:27

Chimerical said:

Tefal · 15 Oct 2009 at 12:30

Robbie G said:
Are you serious?

yes, look up paradoxical undressing.

20-50% of hypothermia victims are found in various states of undress as they remove their own clothes.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426002.600-the-word-paradoxical-undressing.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_hypothermia

jas72 · 15 Oct 2009 at 12:33

I was watching scooby doo recently and the had this topic mind you it was made in 1970 but it had a frozen caveman that thawed out and attacked scooby and his friends shaggy, thelma, Daphne and that guy that no one remembers his name.

Anyway it turns out it wasn't global warming that melted the caveman but the caretaker who would have got away with it if it wasn't for those pesky meddling kids.

Kutter · 15 Oct 2009 at 12:34

The gulf steam could be affected. But we are still coming out of the last ice age, in terms of the earths history. If its gonna happen, its gonna happen. Taxing us to death wont stop it.

gord · 15 Oct 2009 at 12:40

Abraham said:
I can see where your logic is coming from, but remember all the ice is in once place, where if it were all melted it would be more evenly spread around the world.

snigger

lokkers · 15 Oct 2009 at 14:10

Messiah Khan said:
One of the main potential problems of the north polar cap melting is that the fresh water locked up in the ice will melt, desalinating the north Atlantic. As salt water is denser than fresh water, the gulf stream will drop and return south at a much more southerly latitude. This in turn will mean that we will get colder weather.

I seem to remember reading that a lack of (or severely weakened) Gulf Stream could be a major factor in causing the ice sheets that covered most of Northern Europe in the last major ice age. It provides a tremendous amount of heat and means we have a much milder winter than any other country at this latitude.

Maximum Triceratops · 15 Oct 2009 at 14:39

Messiah Khan said:
One of the main potential problems of the north polar cap melting is that the fresh water locked up in the ice will melt, desalinating the north Atlantic. As salt water is denser than fresh water, the gulf stream will drop and return south at a much more southerly latitude. This in turn will mean that we will get colder weather.

Great theres the global warming problem sorted then.

Le_Petit_Lapin · 15 Oct 2009 at 14:44

Why is everyone saying that the icebergs are freshwater? Surely they'd be salt water, being formed in seawater?

Glaucus · 15 Oct 2009 at 14:46

Messiah Khan said:
One of the main potential problems of the north polar cap melting is that the fresh water locked up in the ice will melt, desalinating the north Atlantic. As salt water is denser than fresh water, the gulf stream will drop and return south at a much more southerly latitude. This in turn will mean that we will get colder weather.

Thought that had been widely accepted as being false and extremely unlikely.

Cosimo · 15 Oct 2009 at 14:54

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
Why is everyone saying that the icebergs are freshwater? Surely they'd be salt water, being formed in seawater?

Snow and ice are freshwater, they accumulate to form glaciers, icebergs are large pieces of ice that have broken off from a glacier, therefore an iceberg is made from freshwater.

BriT · 15 Oct 2009 at 14:59

No one really knows whats going to happen in terms of global warming, heck they can barely forecast 5 days ahead.

Mr Jack · 15 Oct 2009 at 15:32

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
Why is everyone saying that the icebergs are freshwater? Surely they'd be salt water, being formed in seawater?

No. If you take a bucket of sal****er and freeze it, the first layer to freeze at the top will be freshwater (or at least it will contain much less salt than the original sal****er), the water which remains will be more salty as a result. As you leave it longer you will get saltier and saltier ice as you move down the bucket but nearly all the salt will be in the very lowest layers. You can use this process to seperate out various substances, it's called freeze distillation.

Now, in the real ocean, the saltier water produced as the initial section freezes off mixes with the surrounding waters and equalises the salt distribution so you never get extreme brines from it, and the ice on top is almost all freshwater.

(Plus a potion of it is formed from snowfall anyway)

Mr Jack · 15 Oct 2009 at 15:35

... apparently the filtering objects to s a l t w a t e r