The Arctic Sets Yet Another Record Low Maximum Extent (nsidc.org) 245
Layzej writes: Arctic sea ice was at a record low maximum extent for the second straight year, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and NASA. This year's maximum extent is 1.12 million square kilometers below the 1981 to 2010 average of 15.64 million square kilometers. Ice extent increases through autumn and winter, and the maximum typically occurs in mid-March. Sea ice then retreats through spring and summer and shrinks to its smallest or minimum extent typically by mid-September. Ice melt in the region is reducing the transport of warm southern waters brought north by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). "Some studies suggest that decreased heat flux of warm Atlantic waters could lead to a recovery of all Arctic sea ice in the near future," said NSIDC senior research scientist Julienne Stroeve. "I think it will have more of a winter impact and could lead to a temporary recovery of winter ice extent in the Barents and Kara seas."
No amount of evidence is enough (Score:4, Interesting)
It really doesn't matter how much compelling evidence continues to pile up that global warming is an imminent threat, deniers will continue to deny. If I believed in an afterlife, I would sincerely hope that those choosing inaction would spend eternity hearing the cries of the billions who will suffer as a consequence. But there will be no such luck.
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It really doesn't matter how much compelling evidence continues to pile up that global warming is an imminent threat, deniers will continue to deny. If I believed in an afterlife, I would sincerely hope that those choosing inaction would spend eternity hearing the cries of the billions who will suffer as a consequence. But there will be no such luck.
"Some studies suggest that decreased heat flux of warm Atlantic waters could lead to a recovery of all Arctic sea ice in the near future," said NSIDC senior research scientist Julienne Stroeve.
Ice very well may come back, and soon. Spare us the hysterics.
Re:No amount of evidence is enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure and Jesus very well may come back, and soon. But that's not exactly a strategy, is it?
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Re:No amount of evidence is enough (Score:4, Insightful)
Kill the ban on breeder reactors in the United States and license French reactor designs. Could be done in 10-15 years and cut our carbon output 50%. Unfortunately there is no political will to do what needs to be done.
Re:No amount of evidence is enough (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't the science behind warming it's the ridiculous solutions that are being proposed.
The problem is that half the people are denying the science, so we can't even start a proper discussion about any proposal.
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Taxing rich nations for the carbon emissions with no restraint on the 3rd world is ridiculous and nowhere near a solution! If this is the solution than the science
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"The problem is that half the people are denying the science, so we can't even start a proper discussion about any proposal"
That other half of the 'deniers' are the ones who won't let us implement any low-carbon solution, even going so far as "Ivanpah kills birds!" No, Ivanpah is making bird species more intelligent by selecting out the individuals who blunder around in foodless desert wasteland.
Re: No amount of evidence is enough (Score:2)
No, Ivanpah is making bird species more intelligent by selecting out the individuals who blunder around in foodless desert wasteland.
By that logic, we'd best watch out for the squirrels; we've killed off so many of the "dumb" ones that the survivors'll be intelligent enough to develop cesium weaponry and take us out... any day now.
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The obtuse fools who keep banging their heads against the wall in this way are just as idiotic as the people burying their heads in the sand and ignoring that there's any kind of problem at all.
It doesn't matter if you have people who normally accept science. Odd
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If you are pro nuclear you should get your head out of your arse and read a bit about the topic.
There are plenty of reactor 'ideas' that are hundred times better than breeders.
Playing pro nuke and anti wind or anti solar and then coming up with breeder reactors as a 'solution' makes you look like a complete moron and an idiot.
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Since when is this not EXACTLY how the scientific process should work?
No, it's now how science should work. Science allows you to actually reach actionable conclusions about the world. That's the point.
Re:No amount of evidence is enough (Score:4)
Sure, by following the scientific method. You know, that thing with testable and falsifiable hypotheses, which climate "science" doesn't bother with?
Re:No amount of evidence is enough (Score:4, Informative)
Correlation is not causation.
Agreed, but that's a pointless remark, since the mechanism behind CO2 induced warming is well understood on a physical basis. It was already understood more than a century ago, and the global warming effect was already predicted then.
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I'm done, you obviously don't have anything scientific to add.
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That is also pointless. We also know that over the extended record, CO2 follows temperature
Wrong:
https://www.skepticalscience.c... [skepticalscience.com]
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+1. It doesn't take long to get beyond the shallow "science is right" arguments when you start digging. On either side of this argument.
If one was to draw a bell curve with one side being deniers and the other side non-deniers, you could bet that the bulk of that big bell would be made of faithful people who don't argue or think further about why they're on one side or the other, they just follow a dogma and consider the other side to be idiots.
Typically a Netflix documentary with charismatic interviewees
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That is also pointless. We also know that over the extended record, CO2 follows temperature, and that temperature variability is such that a 40 year term is completely insufficient to draw any sort of conclusion.
I'm done, you obviously don't have anything scientific to add.
You really should take the time to listen to this lecture at the annual AGU meeting in 2009 by Richard Alley:
"The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Climate History" [youtube.com]
It's nearly an hour long but it covers over 4 billion years of how carbon dioxide relates to the climate.
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Verify as much as you want. That's called science. But when the evidence points in a clear direction and your refuse the conclusion, that's called denial.
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Verify as much as you want. That's called science. But when the evidence points in a clear direction and your refuse the conclusion, that's called denial.
This is an empty statement, and that's the core of the problem. It's not enough to say "evidence points in a clear direction" because that's what BOTH sides are saying. Explain the data clearly instead of saying that data is on your side, or you're just more noise with zero signal.
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Since when is this not EXACTLY how the scientific process should work?
Well, as the evidence piles up, it becomes more and more difficult to rationally accept opposing views. Yes, the exact models and magnitude of various changes are still under discussion, but denying climate change entirely is pretty hard to maintain given the evidence.
I'll verify a hundred times before blind acceptance any day.
Indeed. It takes me a long time to get going every morning. Since I don't believe in settled science, I don't trust mirrors. That whole "law of reflection" thing could turn out to be bogus. So I spend an hour calibrating the mirror in my
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Kill the ban on breeder reactors in the United States and license French reactor designs. Could be done in 10-15 years and cut our carbon output 50%. Unfortunately there is no political will to do what needs to be done.
Agreed. This is the discussion we should be having. We need the republicans to come to the table to bring some balance to the conversation.
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Kill the ban on breeder reactors in the United States and license French reactor designs. Could be done in 10-15 years and cut our carbon output 50%. Unfortunately there is no political will to do what needs to be done.
Agree completely.
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True that.
Another example is people complaining about urban sprawling. What about a place like Arizona or Nevada where temperature stays in the oven spectrum half or more of the year? It gets exponentially more expensive (and resource-consuming) to cool down upper floors when you stack people on top of each other, that's why if you drive around Phoenix or even Las Vegas you won't see a lot of duplex or affordable condo towers.
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Let's assume, for whatever purpose, that I believe you.
What, precisely, would you like to do about that?
What's the impact of your suggested actions?
Are they more or less dire than the proposed scenario if we a) do nothing at all, b) just don't give a shit and do more of what we're doing?
Because NOBODY, really NOBODY, actually has a solution.
You're right. Okay? Let's accept that. Now what?
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Denial or ignoring the problem is _not_ a solution.
Neither is sitting on our ass and hoping for the best.
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Agreed. So your suggestion is....?
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How about we listen to those who have studied the problems and have solutions to offer instead of sticking our head up our collective asses. I'm sure there's plenty you can do at your end.
We know that buying gas-guzzling SUV is bad for the environment. Before you start blaming the government for imposing legislations, please consider that the problem has been known for a while, but people feel that a status symbol is more important that the sustainability of our planet. We only have ourselves to blame.
Re:No amount of evidence is enough (Score:4, Insightful)
And quite what are those people saying, for instance? Because there's shockingly little air-time ever given to that.
Let's say we tax all cars over a certain engine size, applicable to the US. Will that reduce emissions by any noticeable amount? Will that amount recede the ice-caps by anything significantly measurable? Because, pretty much, as far as I can tell the answer is no.
I'm playing devil's advocate here, but I'm also quite serious. As someone of scientific mind, "What's happening?" is a good question, but not one millionth as interesting as "What does that mean?" and "What are the alternatives?"
What, precisely, are the listed actions that - if we impose them immediately, world-wide, without anyone trying to find a way around them, would reduce the danger and NOT introduce more problems (e.g. if we taxed ALL cars, would that push people into poverty and/or would it mean that people instead started overcrowding the train systems?). And how feasible is that of ever happening?
Stop using oil?
Start taxing it heavily?
Start rolling, scheduled power-cuts to reduce usage (like the UK did in the 1970's?)?
Stop the sale of cars, appliances, etc. that are less than super-efficient?
And how long, if we do all that, do we have to do it for? Centuries? Permanently? Until we spot a difference?
And, playing absolute devil's advocate, what if we notice NO difference? What if we ban oil-use and nothing changes and we continue to flood the world? What did we gain by doing so? Could we have predicted that? What other mechanisms could be responsible.
Sorry, but it's really not as simple as "stop buying SUV's". The engine sizes in Europe are tiny compared to the US, so we're already effectively doing what a ban on SUV's in America would do. And it's always been that way. So do we spot differences in emissions? Not really, our scientists are still saying the same as the US scientists. And while China is just burning coal like there's no tomorrow, would/could anything we do actually make a difference if they don't also co-operate?
I'm being serious here, and have had this conversation many dozens of times online.
I believe you. NOW WHAT?
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Change coal to nuclear and renewable (China's on it already), switch ICE cars to EVs. Those two will help immensely. Taxing oil heavily may be helpful at some point in that transition. We've already stopped the sale of appliances that aren't super-efficient, and switching to EVs will do the same to cars, since EVs are 95%+ efficient and ICE cars are around 30%. Further in the future, carbon sequestration will be necessary.
If nothing changes then some new phenomena must've taken effect, because we knew well
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It's going to take decades, even in China:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And the numbers aren't anywhere near as good as you might think:
https://gailtheactuary.files.w... [wordpress.com]
Electric cars are a harder sell:
http://www.bls.gov/green/elect... [bls.gov]
And are contributing to much higher peak energy usage (some rapid chargers are 45KW or more).
However, their impact is limited. To get people to ditch ICE and go all EV, what would that take? We're talking replacing 75 million annual car sales into EV that are currently sel
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We know that buying gas-guzzling SUV is bad for the environment. Before you start blaming the government for imposing legislations, please consider that the problem has been known for a while, but people feel that a status symbol is more important that the sustainability of our planet. We only have ourselves to blame.
No, we don't know that. In some uses it may be bad for the environment; when it's used to haul food, deliver medicine, or provide goods and services to many people that cuts down their net effect on the environment, it's a good thing. Blanket statements are why there is a debate in the first place.
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Do you need an SUV to haul food, deliver medicine or provide goods and services or are there more efficient method?
Please enlighten me. Where is a SUV really better for the environment than say a minivan or small car? Even a cargo van for large haul?
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We know that buying gas-guzzling SUV is bad for the environment. Before you start blaming the government for imposing legislations, please consider that the problem has been known for a while, but people feel that a status symbol is more important that the sustainability of our planet. We only have ourselves to blame.
Yeah, it's a known fact that diesel or electric car batteries are much better solutions and by no way a status symbol.
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What, precisely, would you like to do about that?
I suggest that 30 years ago we accelerated the building of nuclear power plants and expand the grid.
So the first step is to start working on time travel?
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The arctic has a well-known liberal bias.
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Tired of hearing about climate change/warming what ever, I accept we have screwed the pooch.
I bought a house 400ft above sea level in a location that rarely gets storms or temperature extremes .
I avoid carbon emitting activities where its practical to do so - I leave the car at home and ride the bus and train to work, have made effort to get my house energy efficient with a heatpump waterheater, and a heatpump for heating the house, next I'm replacing windows, at that point I've done as much as I can with o
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However I do wonder what a mess of a planet my kids are going to inherit, and the kids of the morons that run the evil carbon spewing activities, do these guys not worry about that?
No they don't worry about it, their kids can afford to move to wherever is safe and has a nice climate, even if it's some luxury arcology on the ocean or in space.
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On the other hand, th
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Folks have a hard time taking serious action based on this especially when we've been hearing "end of humanity within five years" for over a decade.
You accuse people of hyperbole, and yet you give the worst demonstration I've heard in a million years.
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And your hyperbole is the worst I have heard in a billion years!
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On the other hand, there's legitimate issues. There's a very vocal component of climate change that are constant Apocalypse callers. You would be a good example. "Cries of the billions who will suffer."
If the number of people who will suffer (or are suffering) is not in the billions, how many is it? How did you reach that conclusion - by studying the evidence, or just on a feeling?
Folks have a hard time taking serious action based on this especially when we've been hearing "end of humanity within five years" for over a decade.
I've never heard statements of that kind coming from the scientific community. Plenty coming from the other side though: like this: Humans will simply not voluntarily remove 90% of earth's population or go back to living in yurts.
The other hand is that there's no good supplied solutions. I mean, concrete realistic options that have a full roadmap, reasonably accurate cost projections and acceptably accurate levels of risk and mitigation.
Is there any particular reason why you aren't doing this yourself? Who were you expecting to do
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Humans will simply not voluntarily remove 90% of earth's population or go back to living in yurts.
You nailed it. Of course, we're not speaking of mass murder WWII style, and more in the sense of conservative birth policy. But that is not going to happen voluntarily, because nobody wants to stop multiplying. And we're not even talking about being less careless about energy consumption. It seems at a macroscopic level, our behavior is not very different to that of bugs.
One thing is pretty sure, though. The current earth ecological system is not able to sustain our growth both in number and in consumption.
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Am I the only person who was taught in school that the earth has had multiple ice ages and that regardless iced capped poles isn't the normal state of the planet. Stopping man made global warming isn't going to stop the earth from doing it's thing the only way we are going to stop climate change is by learning to completely control the climate.
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In the very long term we will indeed need to completely control the climate. Today we have to correct man-made climate change, at some point in the far future the earth will begin to enter an ice age and we'll have to prevent it. We may have to move as much power generation capacity from fusion to natural gas as possible. People will even debate bringing back filthy, filthy coal power.
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I know it just bugs me that everyone is freakn' out on climate change when everything they want to change probably should be for much more immediate reasons. The earth is going to warm up and cool down with very little we can do about it and giant portions of what are populated areas now like Canada and the the entire Northern US and Midwest will probably be under a glaciers yet again multiple times before it's all over just not anytime soon compared to the life span of a single human.
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BEWARE! (Score:4, Funny)
Beware, the Tides of March!!!
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The difference being my joke is original, and perfectly within context. Yours is simply overplayed.
Re:No amount of evidence is enough (Score:5, Informative)
Well, there are roughly 7 billion people on the planet, and even if only a relatively small proportion of them are screwed (realistically, MOST people will be screwed...) it's a safe bet that problems will persist for *many* generations.
Sea level rise alone stands to displace over a billion people, and that doesn't account for all of the other problems like violent weather and impacts to food and fresh water supplies.
I don't think "billions" is at all histrionic, or even much of an exaggeration.
=Smidge=
Re:No amount of evidence is enough (Score:5, Insightful)
"Billions who will suffer"? This sort of histrionic exaggeration is why no one takes you seriously.
It seems odd to me that anyone could believe that nobody would suffer if climate changes.
You can argue that climate isn't changing, although you'd be holding the short end of the evidence stick in that one. You could argue that some people will also benefit from climate change, and that'd even be unquestionably true. But you can't argue that rainfall can shift as much as climate models are predicting without billions of people suffering, both directly from bad harvests and indirectly from the destabilization of the countries they live in.
If you want to see what that hypothetical situation would look like, look at Syria. The Assads have been ruthlessly but effectively putting down Islamist uprisings for decades, so what was different in 2011 that allowed Al Qaeda in Iraq to metastasize into ISIL? An internal climate refugee crisis touched off by four years of drought-ravaged harvests and a spike in international commodity prices. Across Syria 160 agricultural villages were depopulated, and in some provinces 85% of the livestock perished. This provided ISIL with an army of angry, hungry, unemployed young men ripe for radicalization.
So really your strongest argument here would be that climate is not changing at all -- that the Syrian was an anomalous weather event and that there won't be more of them in the future (as the models are predicting).
Re:No amount of evidence is enough (Score:5, Insightful)
"Billions who will suffer"? This sort of histrionic exaggeration is why no one takes you seriously.
It seems odd to me that anyone could believe that nobody would suffer if climate changes.
The fact that you jump from "billions" to "nobody" is, essentially, what "histrionic exaggeration" means. There's a huge fucking amount of numbers between 0 and >2,000,000,000.
Just pull out your calculator, for god's sake. There are 7 billions people on the planet at the moment. The odds that at least 25% of them will die (i.e. "billions") because of a projected global increase of 4 Celsius in temperature over a century would require a lot more explanation and hard data than what has been provided so far to be considered anything than ludicrous. Just look at a fucking map and see where the bulk of those 7 billions people live, how the fuck is such a slow change supposed to kill them all?
This is the kind of bullshit number that people make up as a scare tactic, like"1/3 of women will be raped in their lifetime". It doesn't help take the climate change proponents seriously, it actually make them look like liars to those who are not convinced that there's a problem.
This kind of tactic is harmful to the cause. The more you try to scare people with end of the world scenarios, the less they listen because this has been tried many times before (acid rains, ozone layer, GMO, etc.) and the world did not end. Only people who respond well to that FUD approach is people who are already convinced, which means it's totally useless.
Here's the solution:
1) rebuild the credibility of climate scientists by providing clear, simple data that isn't presented in an alarmist way
2) stop saying "ample evidence" or "the science is there" or other generic label that may look like you don't know the fuck what the numbers are, otherwise the other side uses the same and nobody knows what the fuck is going on
3) crunch numbers to show the economical impact of climate change, not just the "billions of death and mayhem and suffering and crying babies" to make the dialogue more inclusive
4) vote for people who have a balanced, pro-environment agenda, as opposed to shallow rockstars, right/left extremists or obvious frauds
5) vote with your dollars when it comes to heavy polluters (computers, cars, etc)
It's not sexy, not cool, not spectacular, it's just fucking common sense, and that's probably why it's not happening. People want drama, so that's what you get.
Re:No amount of evidence is enough (Score:5, Insightful)
World bank projections in agricultural productivity in 2050 show reductions in productivity across the Middle East, Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, Australia and large swaths of North America. This takes into account longer growing seasons and places where rainfall increases. Russia, for example, does extremely well under the warming scenario with longer growing seasons and increased rainfall in currently arid areas.
The US and Australia being rich countries with relatively low birth rates will be able to import food from places like Russia. But Africa, which current sports a population of 1.1 billion, will have a population of two billion and less food production to feed them. Large areas of India are expected to receive much less rainfall and to be less productive. India currently has a population of 1.2 billion, expected to grow to 1.5 billion.
Now everyone in these places won't be suffering. India currently boasts a middle class larger than the US middle class. They'll continue to be able to buy food. But they have an enormous underclass who are already living in conditions that are very precarious.
This is not an alarmist picture. Simple math gets us to the 10^9 benchmark in South Asia alone. That's should be alarming. But it's not hopeless. Even if we can't reduce the rate of the climate change we expect to take place, there are other things we can do, like develop drought-resistant crops, better agricultural technology, etc. The "billions suffering" isn't much of a stretch provided we assume we do nothing to avoid that happening.
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Russia won't have a longer growing season.
The cycle of arctic winter and arctic summer does not change at all due to global warming.
The problem in most parts of Russia is light not temperature.
And to the contrair: Russia is fucking hot in summer. If it gets warmer there, the growing season might start 5 days earlier and die abruptly in the middle of it in a heat bowl.
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PS: Look into a city called Venice (the one in Italy).
You couldn't have picked ironically appropriate example [geology.com].
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* Citations Required.
With as much hyperbole as the media and politics has been pumping out something like this would be pasted on every headline, every day.
It's a *sad* state of affairs when you get all your education from the entertainment industry.
Looks like Chicken little season is ramping up for the summer again.
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That's actually a complete lie. Do some research on how Humanity was pulled out of the Dark Ages - the answer might surprise you.
Nonetheless, many people on this planet miss those dreadful times.
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Stupid hasn't won yet. In fact, after COP21, I'd say stupid is starting to lose.
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Our civilization is already set up for pre-industrial temperatures (our closets & coat racks are just a tiny fragment of this infrastructure), and the ideal temperature for economic productivity is 13C. [sciencemag.org]
Also most places, even if considered in isolation, will not be positively effected by global warming in terms of crop yield.
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s/effected/affected/g
Sea ice evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents (Score:2, Insightful)
The way this is explained isn't entirely clear to your average folk. I suspect folks are going to think that the fact that arctic ice isn't decreasing is a sign that everything is alright and that global warming is not a problem but it is much bigger than that. Each year arctic ice the size of a country melts in a cycle that refreezes in the winter. The cold freshwater melt is heavier than the surrounding seawater and sinks straight to the bottom starting many of the worldwide ocean currents. If this cy
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When you say "Each year arctic ice the size of a country melts," would that country be Vatican City or Russia? "Country" is not a very common measurement of mass in my limited, common experience.
We are talking multiples of Libraries of Congress.
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Thank you for the explanation for us common folk.... When you say "Each year arctic ice the size of a country melts," would that country be Vatican City or Russia? "Country" is not a very common measurement of mass in my limited, common experience.
The variation between the Arctic winter maximum sea ice extent and the summer sea ice extent minimum is around 8 or 9 million km^2 each year which would put it in the size range of the USA, Brazil and Australia.
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The cold freshwater melt is heavier than the surrounding seawater and sinks straight to the bottom starting many of the worldwide ocean currents.
Actually fresh water is less dense than saltwater and it can form a cap over it that disrupts currents. It's cold saline water sinking in the ocean that drives some currents.
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Each year arctic ice the size of a country melts in a cycle that refreezes in the winter.
Would that country be Monaco, or Russia? Lichtenstein or Canada? Vatican City or the United States of America? Has a bit of impact on what you're trying to convey...
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You're thinking of entropy, which must always increase. Sadly, you're elementary level understanding completely misses the complexity of a system of the size of the earth, which can easily allow entropy to increase while allowing the *apparent* contradiction of cold areas getting colder and warm areas getting warmer. The earth functions on a scale which means that low entropy conditions are required for current patterns to continue. By increasing entropy those patterns (ocean currents) may be disrupted. Of
My goodness! (Score:3, Informative)
You mean the planet is still warming up (recovering) from an ice age? Inconceivable!
Fear not gentle denizens, another ice age is coming! Then the faithful climateers will rejoice!
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If you paid any attention to the science you would know that the planet finished warming up after the last ice age about 8,000 years ago and had been slowly dropping toward the next one since then.
Ahhh, what a maroon! - B. Bunny (Score:2, Insightful)
"Billions is hyperbole".
Well, no.
a) where are most metropolitan areas located? On rivers or oceans. NYC's talking huge seawalls, Miami's trying to figure out if it will exist above water in a decade or two, and this is true around the world.
b) It all affects the climate. Note that a) Syria's several years into the worst draught in many, many years. A large part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is over control of water. And then there's Phoenix and LA.... and the California Central Valley, that's drawing
Considerations... (Score:4, Interesting)
Arctic vs Antarctic ice
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/s... [nsidc.org]
http://www.nasa.gov/content/go... [nasa.gov]
http://www.climatechangenews.c... [climatechangenews.com]
***
The truth is, there have been times when the Earth did not even have polar ice caps. But I have a hypothesis regarding this scenario.
The orbital plane of earth is slightly lower. Think about it. The Earth's orbit around the sun is not perfect - no celestial body is. Look at the moon sometimes it's higher in altitude and sometimes lower.
So what if the Earth is slightly lower in altitude of it's planar orbit around the sun? The northern hemisphere would be warmer, ice would melt. The southern hemisphere would experience the opposite, with the antarctic increasing in the accumulation of ice.
Yet I have seen very little research into this possibility that could pose a valid explanation for Earth's present climate changes.
***
None of this means we shouldn't clean up our act, stop pollution, and move to clean renewable energy. Far beyond CO2, look at the damage coal mining has done to the neighboring environments. Streams poisoned until no life is in them. I think we can ALL agree we need to clean up our act.
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This is a joke hypothesis, right? You're not actually suggesting that the Earth no longer orbits the sun, but a point "below" the sun?
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This is a joke hypothesis, right? You're not actually suggesting that the Earth no longer orbits the sun, but a point "below" the sun?
Well, it's already been modded up, so somebody else seems to buy it too.
Just to be clear -- the reason there's no "research" on this hypothesis is because it makes no sense from a basic orbital mechanics standpoint. If the earth for some reason moved below the "normal" orbital plane on one side of the sun, gravity as it continued in orbit would cause it to shoot up above the orbital plan on the other side of the sun. What GP is proposing (i.e., the earth somehow maintaining a stable orbit in a plane bel
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I have a hypothesis of my own. My hypothesis is that the people who modded OP up based on the suggestion that the center of the earth's orbit is far from the sun's center of mass (and, indeed, that it has recently changed) are the same kinds of people who think that climate scientists have no idea what they're talking about.
Re: Considerations... (Score:2)
That sounds almost plausible - but the effect, even if it were significant enough to cause such an effect (which I seriously doubt), and just happened to roughly align with our polar axis (also unlikely) would be noticed immediately.
We would see a clear bias in solar radiation (and temperatures) between the northern & southern hemispheres. This would be picked up by satellites, weather stations, observatories, everything. We would also notice that our planet's orbit wasn't quite centered (the sun's grav
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There's been very little research into this possibility because it violates the laws of physics. You could not consistently
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Sea ice forms at -1.8C, and winter air temperatures in the Southern Ocean range from -15C to -20C. That's plenty cold enough to freeze a much higher area of the ocean than actually it does. The problem is that the sub-freezing air can't instantaneously absorb the heat of the surface water. It takes time. And therein lies a story.
Sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic both represent an equilibrium between ice formation areas and ice destruction areas. Your hypothesis is that if rising air temperatures
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Come on Slashdot, I know things have been going downhill for a while, but this drivel at +5? Have we all turned collectively moronic?
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I think there's a fairly well accepted theory that the Antarctic land ice is melting quicker, reducing the salinity of the surrounding water, which helps to freeze the surface in the winter.
It's not so cut–and–dried. Eric Steig explains: "A basic problem, though, is that the greatest discharge of meltwater is occurring in the Amundsen Sea, exactly where sea ice is declining, so while this probably is part of the story, I doubt it’s very dominant." - http://www.realclimate.org/ind... [realclimate.org]
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Interactive daily diagram of sea ice extent (Score:4, Informative)
Personally, I love this diagram. I bookmarked it a couple of years ago and I like to show it to people. Climate change is pretty obvious if you hide all the series and then reveal them one by one in chronological order.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
(University of Illinois)
Strangely (Score:4, Insightful)
...Antarctic ice has been setting maximums.
Even more curious (to me) are the different responses:
- Arctic ice is shrinking: CLEARLY THIS IS GLOBAL WARMING.
- Antarctic ice is growing: (shrug) we really don't have any idea why this is happening I guess we'll just have to figure it out (shrug, again)
http://www.nasa.gov/content/go... [nasa.gov]
When the "record" is only 35 years, 'record setting' really isn't that big a deal.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... [theregister.co.uk]
The opening of the Northeastern passage? A herald of climatological disaster? Well, not so much:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... [theregister.co.uk]
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- Antarctic ice is growing: (shrug) we really don't have any idea why this is happening I guess we'll just have to figure it out (shrug, again)
If you look at the volume, Antarctic ice is shrinking. There are some good theories about why the sea ice is growing, but scientist like to be careful. In any case, growing Antarctic sea ice area isn't really helping anybody, nor is it conflicting with global warming.
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You may be ignorant of why it's happening, but everybody else knows that melting land ice in Antarctica increases the freezing temperature of sea water resulting in more sea ice. Hardly mysterious.
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Because the Arctic doesn't have an ice-covered continent. Duh. Greenland can only do so much.
Re:Natual cycles (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, it's that scientific conspiracy to suppress ideas not supported by evidence.
It's worth noting that none of the lead authors of the NIPCC reports are climate scientists, except possibly Singer who has a background in remote sensing at least. He's also behind so-called "Leipzig Declaration", which is notorious for (a) misrepresenting the qualifications of many of its signatories (e.g. TV weather presenters) and (b) faking the signatures of actual climate scientists.
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Whenever I hear about the NIPCC report I think of Nipsey Russell. They're both pretty humorous.