OMFG

[Romana]

The as we know it might already be here. I have a certain feeling in my gut that tells me its coming.
here are some reasons-

1: Diseases killing people all over the world.
2: Angry A$$ storms destroying are society in some places.
3: war amongst our selfs. (THE WORLD)
4: curupt society's
5: Greed and fighting for power insdead of sharing. (taught from our mommy's)
6: this guy came to my doorstep last week and gave my a newz thing that saying stuff about the revalations, (wacko )

thats some of the weird reasons. I can go on for a long time.

1. Always been happening.
2. Always been happening.
3. Always been happening.
4. Always been happening.
5. Always been happening.
6. Always been happening.

My point is, all these bad events have been happening forever, and they're always going to get worse. Simply put, the world isn't ending, but its certainly going down the crappers.

Hope none of this happens, CAUSE I'M TOO  YOUNG TO DIE!!!!!!!!!!!

No you're not.

[Mavix]

according to my age and the way I'm planning for a succesful futer. The age 17 is too damn young to die. when a life span is averedgelly 80 (i think?) thats pretty young. Unless a persondies of a disease or get into some type of accident. (car crash).

[Exodus]

I'm just worried because I've heard about Antarctica melting and raising sea level. Plus the recent spur of tornadoes in Alabama. I've never heard of four or more tornadoes consecutively spawning in Alabama. Though we are close to the Gulf of Mexico, there has never been weather this bad unless we were in a hurricane. Katrina wasn't nearly as bad as the weather we had this week.

A ridiculous notion. You still have the same amount of mass. If the ice melts, the water level remains the same.

That only applies to sea-based ice. Land-based ice does not displace any water--until it melts into the oceans.

This just further raises the point that the water will both evaporate and collect down below as ground water. You're forgetting how thick that ice is and how much heat you'd need to melt it so rapidly.

[Daniel Krispin]

The as we know it might already be here. I have a certain feeling in my gut that tells me its coming.
here are some reasons-

1: Diseases killing people all over the world.

The great plague in Athens; The Black Death (which, ironically, led to an increase in the use of linen underwear, thus an increase in linen writing materials, thus an increase in printing and literacy); the toll upon native peoples by foreign diseases; the great flu epidemic at the end of WWI which killed more people than the war had.

Those are just major occurrances. There is no great epidemic right now, and surely no apocalyptic sign.

2: Angry A$$ storms destroying are society in some places.

As I said in the other thread... natural disasters, too, have always taken their toll. Look at the destruction of Thera, for one. Or here's wacky weather: 100 years ago the Thames froze.

3: war amongst our selfs. (THE WORLD)

THAT'S something new, eh? Want me to start rattling off names? Narmer's conquest of Egypt; the wars amongst the Mesopotamian city states; Egypt's rivalry with the Hittites, at the battle of Kadesh, for example; Canae, where 80,000 men died. How is that any indication of any 'end', when they've been there since the beginning? Again I say, and since you're talking religiously about the apocalypse I'll paraphrase the Bible: when you hear rumour of wars, do not be alarmed. That's Jesus talking, not some obscure book rightfully placed at the end of the Bible.

4: curupt society's

In Rome the topic of societal corruption was commonly enough addressed in rhetoric that it was considered one of the major points to practice arguing. 'Oh, how have the youth fallen.' Then great Cicero stands before the Senate, denouncing Cataline and crying 'O tempora! O mores!' - 'Oh the times! Oh the customs!' There exists no corruption that has not always been there. If you think so, I suggest you pick up a copy of Hesiod's Works and Days, written in about 700BC, where Hesiod complains about how the regional governers showed undue favouritism to his brother Perses in the inheritance. He declaims the corruption of the barons of his time.

5: Greed and fighting for power insdead of sharing. (taught from our mommy's)

No, inborn within us. The desire for power and mastery is a natural one, innate and not learned. I am certain if you examine your own life you will see enough evidence of this, proving how difficult it is to exorcise. But is it a sign of the end? Heck, no! Otherwise you'd have prophesied that when Sargon was vying for the power of the Mesopotamian states.

6: this guy came to my doorstep last week and gave my a newz thing that saying stuff about the revalations, (wacko )

thats some of the weird reasons. I can go on for a long time.

Yes, but they don't follow. People were saying it is near the end already in a thousand BC. Likely even earlier. Read Ecclesiastes - there is nothing new under the sun. It's a tired and old world it presents. One that feels as though at the end of its life. Humans, it seems, are naturally doom-sayers. We always think the worst of fortune, and that the end must be coming.

Hope none of this happens, CAUSE I'M TOO  YOUNG TO DIE!!!!!!!!!!!

according to my age and the way I'm planning for a succesful futer. The age 17 is too damn young to die. when a life span is averedgelly 80 (i think?) thats pretty young. Unless a persondies of a disease or get into some type of accident. (car crash).

No one is too young to die, if they live well. If you're saying 'I can't die yet', you're not living as you ought. Death can come for any of us at any time. Instead of worrying about death, worry about living life, because death will come when it will, in despite of all you can do.

[Lord J Esq]

A ridiculous notion. You still have the same amount of mass. If the ice melts, the water level remains the same.

That only applies to sea-based ice. Land-based ice does not displace any water--until it melts into the oceans.

This just further raises the point that the water will both evaporate and collect down below as ground water. You're forgetting how thick that ice is and how much heat you'd need to melt it so rapidly.

I'm not "forgetting" anything. I took a 400-level class in quaternary glaciology in college. Best class I ever took, by the way. The short of it is that sea-based ice melts do not contribute to global sea level increases because they are already displacing their own weight in the collective global ocean. Land-based ice melts, however, do contribute to global sea level rises, because their weight was not displacing any water previously. That's pretty simple to understand.

I'm not quite sure what you're gunning for--feel free to elaborate if you like--but whatever point you ultimately are trying to make is independent of the above.

[Exodus]

A ridiculous notion. You still have the same amount of mass. If the ice melts, the water level remains the same.

That only applies to sea-based ice. Land-based ice does not displace any water--until it melts into the oceans.

This just further raises the point that the water will both evaporate and collect down below as ground water. You're forgetting how thick that ice is and how much heat you'd need to melt it so rapidly.

I'm not "forgetting" anything. I took a 400-level class in quaternary glaciology in college. Best class I ever took, by the way. The short of it is that sea-based ice melts do not contribute to global sea level increases because they are already displacing their own weight in the collective global ocean. Land-based ice melts, however, do contribute to global sea level rises, because their weight was not displacing any water previously. That's pretty simple to understand.

I'm not quite sure what you're gunning for--feel free to elaborate if you like--but whatever point you ultimately are trying to make is independent of the above.

You're trying to imply that this entire mass of water is going to rush straight to the ocean. Like I've already said, the ice is too thick for it to melt in such a casual fashion that we would hardly notice it, considering water displacement in, as I've already stated, evaporation and the ground soaking up water. Not to mention the likelihood of water finding its way to valleys and crevices before it finds its way to the ocean (see: inland ice).

Either way, not all of this runoff is finding its way to the ocean, and considering the size of the oceans versus the size of the ice block, I personally feel that the effects would be a lot less devastating that people try to claim.

[Lord J Esq]

You're trying to imply that this entire mass of water is going to rush straight to the ocean. Like I've already said, the ice is too thick for it to melt in such a casual fashion that we would hardly notice it, considering water displacement in, as I've already stated, evaporation and the ground soaking up water. Not to mention the likelihood of water finding its way to valleys and crevices before it finds its way to the ocean (see: inland ice).

Either way, not all of this runoff is finding its way to the ocean, and considering the size of the oceans versus the size of the ice block, I personally feel that the effects would be a lot less devastating that people try to claim.

What makes Western Antarctica (and the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet) so unstable is that the bedrock upon which this ice sheet rests is below sea level. What secures the WAIS from obvious disaster is a number of adjacent ice shelves that are sea-based; these are much more susceptible to global warming and are already breaking up. Once deprived of its shield, the deglaciation of the WAIS will be highly accelerated. Whereas another ice sheet of comparable dimensions and location might take centuries or even millennia to deglaciate, this one will be lost on the order of decades to centuries--probably decades--because, to put it simply, the ocean will slip right under it. Yet this is a land-based ice sheet.

The WAIS comprises an enormous amount of ice; enough to raise global sea levels by many feet. This ice is not going to be soaked up into the ground; the volumes that could be diverted via that mechanism are of a completely inferior order of magnitude than the vast volumes of the entire ice sheet. Evaporation, likewise, cannot touch the quantities of pure frozen water we are talking about unleashing into the ocean. Only a tiny fraction of the Earth's free water is tied up at any given time in our atmosphere, as surely as a tiny amount of liquid water can humidify a large room.

I understand now what you are saying, and I offer in good spirit that your facts are not wrong but that the magnitudes are--and therefore so are your conclusions. Land-based ice sheets and glacier systems are the biggest players in the world, by far, when it comes to affecting global sea levels. It would even be fair for you to think of land ice as ocean water with imperialistic leanings. In Earth's history, lower sea levels have always gone hand-in-hand with more land-based ice. That cannot change; there is nowhere else for so much water to go.

Don't take my word for it. The resources of your university's geology department are far better equipped to convince you of this than I am. But, convinced or not though you may be, the science of this is not in doubt. At the end of the day is a very simple conclusion: The Western Antarctic Ice Sheet contains enough land-based ice to significantly raise sea levels, and that ice sheet is doomed so long as the planet continues to warm. That ice will not be diverted, either underground or into the air. It will go into the ocean, because only the ocean can handle such a vast quantity of ice. These bottom lines are simple to understand. And while it isn't the end of the world that Corey and other mentally insipid doomsayers are attesting, it promises to be a major challenge for humanity and for life all over the planet in the age to come.

[Exodus]

I'm glad you could spell this out for me-- and indeed, this is not in jest-- I was clearly not aware of the problems the western ice sheet presented, and in ignorance failed to include them in my judgement.

My apologies, Josh.

[Lord J Esq]

I'm glad you could spell this out for me-- and indeed, this is not in jest-- I was clearly not aware of the problems the western ice sheet presented, and in ignorance failed to include them in my judgement.

My apologies, Josh.

No apologies necessary. =)

If anything, I would repeat my earlier call: Look into this for yourself. That college class I mentioned really was the best course I ever took. The marvels of this Earth's natural processes are on full display when studying what the surface of this planet has looked like over the past ages. In Chrono Trigger, 12,000 B.C. depicted a planet enthralled by a long ice age from which it was only beginning to emerge. That date, more or less, is correct with regard to the real Earth. Ice Ages don't "end" in the course of a lifetime, but at that point in history we can say that the Earth was thawing out and warming up. My own Seattle used to sit underneath something like a kilometer of ice--and not all that long ago, either. The hills here, the lakes...much of this is the result of glacial erosion.

The topography of today, which we take for granted as permanent, is as changing as we are. The only difference is that change comes more slowly. But the trade-off is that it also comes on a much grander scale. None of this is so strongly apparent--at least, that's how it turned out for me--as looking at a drilled out ice core that records in the language of geology the history of our planet. To see for the first time that our planet is really just a lump of Pla Doh, where no sculpture is permanent, we can put to rest so many modern political controversies, from evolution to global warming. More importantly, we can better understand our world--and, from there, explore the formations of humanity itself over these periods in time.

There was a time when the Mediterranean Sea never exited, and possibly a time when the Strait of Gibraltar was sealed off. Some

[Daniel Krispin]

There was a time when the Mediterranean Sea never exited, and possibly a time when the Strait of Gibraltar was sealed off. Some

That one threw me for a bloody loop when I heard it first. You know why? Because I was playing a soccer game on my PS2 with my brother, with the late-night radio on - the sort of show where they discuss alien sightings and other paranormal things. Coast to Coast AM. It's good for a laugh. This one guy was talking about how he's found this wall in the Mediterranean, and how he figures it for Atlantis (I wish people would finally realise that even SHOULD they find an ancient civilization like this, it won't be Atlantis. That was just Plato's own thing), citing that once the Mediterranean was dry. Right. I didn't think anything of it.

Then one day, I was talking to my father about that sort of misguided reasearch, and he said that actually, that whole dry Mediterranean thing was actually a realistic theory. He showed me a book of his written by David Attenborough which mentions that. Heh. I'd thought it was just the ravings of a misguided sensationalist (after all, the guy WAS saying the typical 'the scientific community doesn't want to admit this' yadda yadda. Right. After all, when they found the 'Hobbits', did the scientists marginalise that? No! Bloody National Geographic wrote about it, and called them Hobbits.)

[Burning Zeppelin]

AIDS is a pretty big epidemic now, Krispy.

[Lord J Esq]

It would seem I posted my last message without actually finishing it.

...

[Exodus]

Yes, it seems you have. I'm curious, though: as one of the few on the Compendium who enjoy reading your WALLSOFTEXTOMFG, what did you intend to say?

[Lord J Esq]

Yes, it seems you have. I'm curious, though: as one of the few on the Compendium who enjoy reading your WALLSOFTEXTOMFG, what did you intend to say?

I was simply going to go on about the wonders of the world as evidenced through glaciology. That part about the Mediterranean was supposed to have either been cut or refined, and I simply failed to notice it altogether. I probably would have cut it, because I don't know enough about it to speak with much confidence.