Monday 14 January 2008

Lies, damn lies and big numbers

According to this, Antarctic ice is melting at 192 billion tonnes a year.

One tonne of water is one cubic metre. There are 1,000 metres in a kilometre, so one cubic kilometre of water is one billion tonnes. So that's 192 cubic kilometres extra sea water. The surface area of all the oceans is 361,000,000 square kilometres.

Divide 192 cubic kilometres by 361,000,000 square kilometres and you end up with half a millimetre extra sea water*.

Half a bloody millimetre? At this rate, sea levels will rise by two inches over the next century!? Ooh! I'm really scared now! Not.

* That's assuming that 'global warming' doesn't cause more sea water to evaporate, which would reduce sea levels, of course, which may more than offset this effect. Furthermore, evaporated sea water turns into clouds, some of which trap warmth at the earth's surface, and some of which reflect sunlight back into space.

2 comments:

Simon Fawthrop said...

Excellent analysis.

I'll bet nobody in the MSM picks it up though.

flashgordonnz said...

I bet they do...and ignore it.