what is expected to happen to Antartica if global temperatures increase by 2-3 degrees celcius?
405378
Warmer temperatures would result in more precipitation, so I would say that the snow in Antarctica would get deeper.
769386
Read the real science - there are 3 metastable states of earths climate, all others are unstable. \n(1) lukewarm: like it is now\n(2) Ice-age: usually kicked off by over-heating the lukewarm\n(3) Ice-cube: Requires most land mass to be located along the equator\n\nWhat happens is it gets hot, really stormy, the clouds reflect off the light, underneath it snows, builds up ice pack, by the time the clouds dissipate the snow & ice can reflect just as well, and the energy balance equation for the earth adjusts so much less energy is retained.\n\nAbout 70,000 BC there was a super-volcano eruption.  It made sulfuric acid clouds, put dust from madagascar to greenland, made it rain very acid rain worldwide, increased the temperature of the entire oceans by 10 degrees Celsius, and kick-started the last ice-age.  In comparison the entire effect of man is less than 2 degrees celsius in the oceans.  My point: its going to take a lot more than the last 200 years of man to give a disturbance larger than what has happened in recent geologic history according to scientists.  NOVA had a great special on it.\n\nSo what if the Arctic melts?  The carbon that made the oil had to come from a very high density of living things, something that is made by dense jungles, not tundra.  According to geologists the Arctic being melted isnt a bad thing.  Nature is fine with it, isnt it?\n\nSo what if the Ocean temperatures rise by a few degrees?  They have been 5 times higher due to a single event according to geologists, and life got through it fine.  \n\nSome people say the end of fish is near, but they radically abused the math.  The power law is the worst fit possible for the data, and a exponential-polynomial fit is much much better, supporting a metastable transition.  \n\nGlobal warming or global freezing sells papers, but the people selling the idea are usually more interested in your money than in anything resembling long-term sustainability.  Their idea of sustainability is to treat humanity as something between cattle and a plague of locusts.  My personal opinion is that dehumanizing humanity and managing reproduction is a bigger sin that bad math and bad science.  Its evil.  Find a value system that treats humans like humans, and not animals.
186059
Climate would change dramatically due to the shift in solar energy focus from a loss of seasonal influence. The much more interesting point is the loss of magnetism, because the rotation center of the earth cannot parallel that of the magnetoshere and maintain magnetism. \n\nAtmospheric mixing would be different, global winds may change to more closely represent those observed on Jupiter, with banding rather than Rosby waves. Ocean currents begin to shift with wind pattern changes, species change migration routes, continental climates become more severe, and icing more prominent in the polar regions, shifting the balance of water storage and available energy absorption in lower latitudes. \n\nThink of an Antarctica on both poles with summer temps all the time within the lower 30 N and S. The reemergence of glaciers observed. Populations move to the equatorial regions. Economies change, agricultural production would be reduced, and fresh water supplies dwindle.
443894
an ice age increases the coverage of ice on the planet which obviously makes it colder.. but also means that radiation from the sun is reflected back into the atmosphere making it cooler again and perpetuating the ice age. precipitation also decreases, ie it rains and snows less (antartica is the driest continent in the world). wind is produced by air currents which are created by warm air rising in various patterns around the globe, so wind patterns would alter which would also affect the climate. additionally ocean currents would be altered by the increase of ice and colder waters, which would again alter the climates in maritime areas
308015
Short answer: nothing would happen.\n\nLonger answer:  Think of it like this.  The oceans make up 2/3rds of the surface area of the planet, approximately.  They are much, much deeper than tall buildings, trees, or even mountains.  Also think about water displacement- the volume of water that something displaces is equal to its own volume.\n\nRising sea levels are caused, mostly, by melting polar ice caps.  So how big are these ice caps and how much is melting?  The ice caps cover the Arctic (the size of a major continent) and most of Antarctica, which together is probably the size of two major continents.  Worst case scenario- most of it melts.  Let's be optimistic- 10%.  Can you really imagine the boats that we have adding up to 10% the volume of an entire continent, let alone two?  No, it's ridiculous.  A mountain or two, sure, plausible, but something the size of Texas?  No.  Absolutely not.
736647
Well the sun is getting hotter and will continue to do so until most of  the hydrogen is converted to helium it will then expand to become a red giant. \n\nHowever the effects of this will be minute compared to processes on the earth, IE its tilt, orbit, and mankind's carbon emissions and of cause the deforestation. It must be remembered that we are in an interglacial period and the earth has been a lot warmer than it currently is. The problem is that the increase in temperature is the largest in thousands of years. BUT, when the last ice age finished the temperature rise in approx 50 years was much higher than our rise in 200 years so it is all relative.\n\nThe "freak" weather conditions on other planets may well be perfectly normal for them, remember at best we have only had probes in regular orbits around the other planets for at best 20 years with the resolution capacity to take images that show them.\n\nThe biggest problem is that although in UK we have large taxes on fuel much bigger than any proposed tax by most over governments, there is no unified effort to get us off fossil fuels, if there was someway of getting me out of my 1.2 litre small car than fine, But whats the point when someone in an other country with a 4 litre car still pays less than me to go the same distance?
782130
Yes.\n\nUnder the North Pole is just water- the americans and Russians have been sending submarines under there for years.\n\nAntartica was first recorded as being mapped centuries ago- some guy called Peri Reis (something like that) got credited for it but the map was around too long ago for them to have had the technology to see under the ice. The suggestion being that Antartica used to be warmer. Then Antartica disappeared from maps for several hundred years and only started reappearing fairly recently.\nEven then it has only been in the last 50 years or so that we've managed to be able to establish the shape of the rock below the ice and yes, it matches the Peri Reece (or whatever his name was lol) guys map!
185484
Antartica!!! Believe it or not - a dream to escape the heat!
192654
We won't know for sure for a while, but we can speculate.\n\nGlobal warming primarily affects stom cycles, sea level and salinity, average temperature, etc. So think about how all those things could affect some animals.\n\nAlso note that not all animals will be affected, since some are more adaptive than others.
1031939
temperature decreases with increase in altitude
260369
No but it would affect existence on the planet! There is a delicate balance to be maintained and if polar ice caps melted, this balance would be tipped over.  You can certainly expect weird weather.
445761
It has already shown by increasing the temperature by 3 degrees centigrade.
535923
um...There wouldn't be anything, there would be no earth, the sun will increase in diameter causing the temp. on earth to rise VERY high, and people will finally build a powerful rocket to go to another planet that's similar to earth or mars...
267704
You take all the temperatures across the globe and average them out and compare to the same day and time every year and when the average is steadily getting higher, like it is, its called global warming.\n\nThe ice caps start to melt, sea level rises, climate changes.  Just a whole lot of fun stuff like that.
114441
Well, the temperature is going to increase by one degree every three days.  You will need to do the math from there.
249380
definitely. it's practically the one part of global warming scientists agree on.\nover the next century, we will see the oceans warming and thus expanding (sadly flooding places like Venice), also the polar ice caps melting (once again, not good. they keep the earth cool...see a vicious cycle?), not to mention serious climate change and animals migrating to the north to keep cool. it's already happening...yikes!
787502
That's a lot of questions...\n\nThe land wouldn't be completely covered but the sea level would rise about 200ft so just about all coastal areas would be completely flooded. Obviously everything above that altitude would still be ok but the population would be squeezed into a much smaller area.\n\nMillions of years ago the climate was much warmer and warm ocean currents circled Antarctica which meant that it was totally ice-free and inhabited by rich plant and animal life. At this time the sea level was generally much higher than it is today. At other times, during Ice Ages, much more water was locked up as ice at the Poles and the sea level was much lower than at present.\n\nNo-one knows what is under every part of the Antarctic ice but people have drilled down to the rock in a number of places. Any remains of lost civilisations or other such surface features are likely to have been crushed and ground to dust by the weight of millions of tons of ice. It is known that there are large coal deposits left over from the compacted remains of the plants that once thrived there and there are other mineral deposits as well. At least one prehistoric lake has also been found - frozen solid, of course beneath hundreds of feet of ice and snow.\n\nThe magnetic poles are gradually shifting all the time and many maps such as UK Ordnance Survey maps indicate the rate of variation... on the most recent map I have it states that Magnetic North is moving by 09' East each year. Historically a number of "polar reversals" have been recorded where basically the magnetic north and south poles swap places (282 times in the last 10 million years).  This seems to happen quite suddenly and probably when the gradual shift reaches a critical balance point.\n\nThe main evidence comes from rocks produced from mid-ocean ridges which erupt as liquid magma and rapidly solidify retaining the magnetic field that they were subjected to as they hardened. From this it is possible to see that the North and South Poles have "flipped" and quite regular intervals for millions of years - and in fact in geological terms we seem about due for another such an event.\n\nIt appears that when the poles swap in this way there are often several rapid exchanges before the new arrangement is reached so that the North Pole may go N-S-N-S-N-S in a short space of time before sticking at the new reversed state. This would probably cause all sorts of temporary problems such as disruption to navigation and possibly interference with radio signals and so forth. As some of the rocks of the Earth contain a certain amount of iron which is susceptible to magnetic influences there may also be earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.