/sci/ - Science & Math

>Mountains
>Terrorized

Their just rocks bro

>>15855686
Shiieeeeet

The average size of an avalanche is around 1,000,000 tons of snow/ice.
That is a HUGE quantity of snow/ice that is sent to lower elevations, where it is much easier to melt. The temperature difference between a few thousand feet at that elevation is extensive.
Furthermore, we’ve only been engaged in this for the past 30-40 years, and the number of snow packs hit with grenade launchers has increased annually.
That is an insane impact to what would otherwise be a normally functioning ecosystem.
This study found that EACH tourist to Antarctica is responsible for 83-TONS of snow melt.
https://theconversation.com/each-antarctic-tourist-effectively-melts-83-tonnes-of-snow-new-research-177597

>>15855686
>>15855687
Get the fuck out losers.

>>15855683
There's no "ecosystem" in an avalanche zone, the snow picks the mountain clean. The actual impact of course is minuscule, vast vast majority of snowpack is not touched by humans in anyway.
More over the central premise is just wrong, people don't clear snowpack for fun, it's done to reduce avalanches, if you let an avalanche form naturally it will carry the snow further than triggering it manually while there's less snow with less mass ready to move. By your own logic this increases the snowpack and is good for the mountain ecosystem

The point is to make them slide sooner than they would already. Also the vast majority of mountains do not have avalanche control. OP I think you need to take a break, maybe read a book or go to a beach.

>>15855902
>>15855987
Came here to post this. OP is a retard.

>>15855902
>>15855987
Then there's no reason for avalanche control at all. Because snow-shelves don't ALWAYS collapse, and the avalanches that do stay up (1,000,000+ tons) contribute to the growth of glaciers, which could lead to more snowfall in future years.
>>15855993
Fuck off I'm asking a question here.

If scientists investigate 80-tons of snow-melt/tourist, then they sure as shit should be investigating the long-term (multi-year compounded effects) of using avalanche control,

>>15856067
>Then there's no reason for avalanche control at all
But avalanche control... controls avalances. Hello? Is anyone home? Earth to retard - Earth to retard come in retard PLEASE RESPOND

>and the avalanches that do stay up (1,000,000+ tons) contribute to the growth of glaciers
Do they now, can you point out a single glacier that starts from an avalanche control zone?

>>15856079
> controls avalances
That’s not an answer.
There is no scientific reason/benefit for park rangers to blast snow packs with grenades.

> Do they now, can you point out a single glacier that starts from an avalanche control zone?
Good question, I will look into that!

>>15855683
If you go skiing and die in an avalanche bad luck, you don’t need to remove the snow. If you go surfing and get eaten by a shark bad luck, you don’t get to go and kill a whole bunch of sharks. If you go racing formula 1 cars and die in a crash bad luck, you don’t ban racing. These people know the risk and take it

>>15855683
>Caring more about barren, lifeless mountains and stupid animals than people

>>15856087
>There is no scientific reason/benefit for park rangers to blast snow packs with grenades
To protect people and property, retard.

>lets remove all the snow from the mountains using explosives
>oh no, why are the glaciers shrinking
>clearly cars are responsible for this

>>15856355
>>15856381
Finally, people who understand the point I’m trying to make.
Either way, it’s a topic that’s worth researching. I bet it makes a huge difference on the amount of ice/snow that could be left to accumulate each season.

>>15856367
>>15856370
Kek, you don’t understand shit do you?

>>15856409
Again I cannot stress how few mountains receive avalanche control. It only happens for ski hills and mountain passes with active highways.

OP another point you should consider is that slopes that receive avalanche control will avalanche anyway, knocking snow down into valleys where often there are things like glaciers. By your logic avalanche control should slow melting for a valley glacier below an avalanche controlled slope.

A glacier resting above or on the kind of angle that will avalanche will have seracs, and is hardly a target for avalanche control. I understand your hypothesis I just think you are focussing on your idea without pausing to consider how specific it is to a very limited number of cases.

>>15856842
>how few mountains receive avalanche control
Every peak on the USA west coast over 10,000' including ones with no ski areas. Mt St. Helens has it and its not even over 10,000'

>>15856881
I dont believe that, youre welcome to prove me wrong though

>>15856940
You do believe it, you're clearly lying about your disbelief.

>>15856881
>>15856940
In Colorado, they detonate around 900 avalanches per year.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/explosive-charges-protect-roads-and-ski-areas/

It’s probably the same in California, Utah, Washington, and the Canadian Rockies.
So that could be 10,000 additional avalanches every year.

>>15856842
That is not true, there are snow packs that stay up and don’t fall down as avalanches. Not every snowpack will cause an avalanche, but they may still be hit with grenades anyways as a “mitigation measure.”

>>15856409
>I bet it makes a huge difference on the amount of ice/snow that could be left to accumulate each season.
The snow wouldn't be able to cling to the steep sides of the mountains
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plucking_%28glaciation%29

>>15856842
>It only happens for ski hills and mountain passes with active highways.
so pretty much every mountain except for a few in the most remote parts of Alaska. lmao when a flatlander presumes itself an expert about life in mountainous terrain

>>15855683
>lets move the snowpack down to lower elevations as quickly as possible
>oh no, why is the snow melting faster? must be global warming an sheeeiiiittt

>>15855683
Comparatively few slopes receive avalanche control.
Also there's no guarantee that slopes that didn't get avalanche control wouldn't avalanche on their own.
With avalanche control, we're talking about converting fewer large avalanches (potentially) into many small ones.

>>15856370
Fucktard normies like you like nothing more than when they can mask their hatred (in this case for mountains and animals) with a thin veneer of virtue signalling.

>>15855902
Another retarded fuckwit chiming in... (this board is absolutely infested with them) Avalanche slopes create natural grasslands that all kinds of animals from bees to herbivorous grazers, to berry eating bears depend on. Without them the mountains would have far less wildlife.

>>15860014 meant for this idiot>>15856367
Fucktard normies like you like nothing more than when they can mask their hatred (in this case for mountains and animals) with a thin veneer of virtue signalling.

>>15860014
>their hatred (in this case for mountains and animals
What animals lmao? Snow worms?

>>15860025
Yetis, snow wassets, wendigos and barbegazis

>>15860140
No way these are real animals. Are they Pokémon with four-digit IDs?

>>15858839
>lmao when a flatlander presumes itself an expert about life in mountainous terrain
/sci/ is the board for urbanite know-it-all atheists with severe personality disorders, i doubt more than a small handful of the posters here have ever gone skiing or snowboarding. Regardless that, they will all proclaim themselves experts on the topic.

This board keeps getting dumber and it makes me sad.

>>15855683
There aren't enough manicured ski resorts to have any real impact on the climate.

>lets use explosives to move all the snow down to low elevation as quickly as possible
>hmmm, why is there less snow and ice at high elevations?

>>15861358
name a single mountain in the lower 48 or in the alps that doesn't have a ski area or a mountain pass road that gets avalanche protection

>>15863122
Mt. Baker in Washington. The (misnamed) Mt. Baker Ski Area is actually on the nearby Mt. Shuksan 9 miles away. The actual Mt. Baker has frequent dangerous avalanches during wintertime because it isn't controlled.

>>15863130
Thats the only one

If glaciers are so important how come the government is using explosives to destroy them?

>>15864947
>government: the glaciers are disappearing, we need to raise taxes
>also government: we need raise taxes to fund our plan use explosives to destroy the glaciers

>>15866411
lol
its funny because its true

>>15855987
>Also the vast majority of mountains do not have avalanche control
what percentage do?

>>15864947
good question

>>15864947
That way they can justify increasing taxes and government spending and inflation

>>15856842
>Again I cannot stress how few mountains receive avalanche control.
why are you so desperate to try to minimize this environmental problem? everyone knows you're lying

>>15856367
He doesn't care about the animals, he's just pointing out an interesting idea that the climate fags haven't thought of. But I expect the impact on removing snow from a few mountains isn't much.

>>15876900
lol, good meme.

>>15861344
>t. urbanite know-it-all atheists with a severe personality disorder

>>15855714
>The temperature difference between a few thousand feet at that elevation is extensive.
500' of elevation change is 1ºC of temperature change

>>15877530
Its not "a few mountains" they do this practice on pretty much every mountain in the contiguous US, since pretty much all of them have some sort of skiing or recreational use.

>>15880925
Orbital cycles control warming both directly and indirectly through gravitational pull -> volcanoes. CO2 levels follow.

>>15877530
Cultists get the rope no matter how "interesting" their little AGW theory is.

>>15880954
>Orbital cycles control warming both directly and indirectly through gravitational pull -> volcanoes. CO2 levels follow.
This.

>>15880954
cyclical changes in earth's orbital eccentricity is largely what drives interglacial cycles, but most climate hysterics are too poorly educated to have learned 1600s science, so they believe in their end of the world religious fairy tales instead

>>15882839
>THE SKY IS FALLING!!!

>>15877530
>he's just pointing out an interesting idea that the climate fags haven't thought of.
They haven't thought of it because it's fucking retarded you 13 year old

>>15855714
oh.

>gee, I wonder why the glaciers are disappearing?
>is it because the government is intentionally destroying them using explosives?

>>15876900
>government: theres too much greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere

>also government: we're gonna blow up the world's largest methane pipeline and release all the gas in to the atmosphere

>>15876900
lol
is that OC

Someone should go glue themselves to the side of a mountain to stop the destruction

>>15887566
It just proves they don't believe anything they say.

Removing mass from high elevations and bringing that mass to low elevations also changes the Earth's rotational velocity, making days shorter

>>15890768
thats mostly true, but the effect changes with latitude

>>15855714
>The average size of an avalanche is around 1,000,000 tons of snow/ice.
thats a lot, why are they destroying it with explosives when the glaciers are dying?

>>15893036
Same reason global warming activists start forest fires, to create the false pretense of a natural problem so they can justify a predetermined solution which they will benefit from

>>15893494
Right, develop a selfish political goal that you know will be unpopular and then make up a bunch of lies to justify getting what you want at the expense of others because you have no conscience or morals

>>15890768
Counterpoint: damming rivers to keep large masses of water at artificially high elevations slows the Earth's rotational velocity, making days longer

>>15891437
thats because the distance from the rotational axis changes with latitude

>>15896753

>>15897575
good webm

using explosives to blow up glaciers in order to prove global warming is real is no different that starting forest fires to prove global warming is real.
if global warming were actually happening there would no need to employ such dishonest and underhanded tactic to prove it was real

>>15858839
>so pretty much every mountain except for a few in the most remote parts of Alaska
Are you retarded?

>>15863122
>lower 48
Almost all of them.
>the alps
Yeah that's a completely different question. Euros have a fuckton of ski acreage, but the fact you conflate them makes me think you don't know what you're talking about. The US has very little ski acreage compared to potential ski acreage. Vast swaths of our mountain terrain is protected Wilderness, because it's easy to do so compared to other ecosystems. If anything the US should be looking to 2-10X its ski acreage, because we currently have a brutal shortage.

>>15899435
They do avalanche control in """wilderness""" because of cross country skiers.
LMAO that we really unironically have a thing called "wilderness management"

>>15900921
>wilderness management
they're right next to the chaos control department and across the street from randomness scheduling

>>15901746
lol

>>15857187
Every time we get heavy snow, first thing the next morning you can hear the artillery echoing all over the place.

for every 1000' in elevation loss for snow, that means it melts off a month earlier in the spring.
>why are all the glaciers disappearing
>is it because we're dynamiting them?
>no, it couldn't be that, must be global warming

>>15893494

>>15905811
Thats most of what science is these days, just a bunch of lies designed to shill policy agendas

>>15906874
pretty much

>>15894470
you have just described feminism

>>15907648
I heard they still have ice in arctic, is that true?

>>15855683
Triggering avalanches early makes them smaller than they otherwise would be, retard.

>>15858839
>>15860635
Are you fucking retarded? You think the majority of mountains in the WORLD are covered by avalanche control? And you're accusing scifags of never having skied?

>>15856067
I should point out the majority of snow's cooling comes from the reflection of solar rays back into space, not specifically the snowpack. Avalanches don't remove all the snow anyways, the remainder doesn't change the reflective cooling ability of the glacier. Also yeah, few mountains receive avalanche control and it's just snow that would have fallen later anyways.

>>15907648
It's just a sensationalist headline. The researcher themselves said the methane would be released over 50 years (i.e. the arctic would not be ice free in 2 years). Also consider that year round permafrost is fundamentally different from seasonal ice.

>>15910953
its not 10 years later and arctic ice has only increased during that period

>>15911287
long term weather patterns are cyclical, the warming trend of the 20th century which concluded the little ice age has itself concluded and now the greenland and antarctic ice sheets are once again growing

>>15910953
>it's just sensationalism, it's not 'real' science
But it is driving policy. Nobody gives a shit whether or not it is peer reviewed, constant repetition of "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE, CLIMATE CATASTROPHE, WITHIN TEN YEARS, BY 2020" drives policy.

You might as well have the Inquisition burning people at the stake and some guy in the crowd saying "don't worry, the Bible says love your neighbor, this isn't really happening".

>>15912757
>it's just sensationalism, it's not 'real' science
its brainwashing, brainwashing isn't done via sneaky subliminal messaging or hypnosis like in some sci fi movie, brainwashing isn't that sly or clever, its done by incessant repetition and shutting out conflicting opinions, its more of a brute force method

>>15910915
lol
its funny because its true