Could Collapsing Antarctic Glaciers Raise Sea Levels Sooner Than Expected? (salon.com) 418
"We may be headed for an ice apocalypse which could result in the flooding of coastal cities before the end of this century," writes long-time Slashdot reader whoever57. Grist reports on two of the largest and fastest-melting glaciers in Antarctica which "hold human civilization hostage."
There's no doubt this ice will melt as the world warms. The vital question is when... Together, they act as a plug holding back enough ice to pour 11 feet of sea-level rise into the world's oceans -- an amount that would submerge every coastal city on the planet... Each new iceberg that breaks away exposes taller and taller cliffs... In the past few years, scientists have identified marine ice-cliff instability as a feedback loop that could kickstart the disintegration of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet this century -- much more quickly than previously thought. Minute-by-minute, huge skyscraper-sized shards of ice cliffs would crumble into the sea, as tall as the Statue of Liberty and as deep underwater as the height of the Empire State Building. The result: a global catastrophe the likes of which we've never seen... When [land-based ice] falls into the ocean, it adds to the overall volume of liquid in the seas. Thus, sea-level rise.... All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years -- much too quickly for humanity to adapt...
A lot of this newfound concern is driven by the research of two climatologists: Rob DeConto at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and David Pollard at Penn State University. A study they published last year was the first to incorporate the latest understanding of marine ice-cliff instability into a continent-scale model of Antarctica... Instead of a three-foot increase in ocean levels by the end of the century, six feet was more likely, according to DeConto and Pollard's findings. But if carbon emissions continue to track on something resembling a worst-case scenario, the full 11 feet of ice locked in West Antarctica might be freed up, their study showed.
If sea levels rise by six feet, "around 12 million people in the United States would be displaced, and the world's most vulnerable megacities, like Shanghai, Mumbai, and Ho Chi Minh City, could be wiped off the map."
A lot of this newfound concern is driven by the research of two climatologists: Rob DeConto at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and David Pollard at Penn State University. A study they published last year was the first to incorporate the latest understanding of marine ice-cliff instability into a continent-scale model of Antarctica... Instead of a three-foot increase in ocean levels by the end of the century, six feet was more likely, according to DeConto and Pollard's findings. But if carbon emissions continue to track on something resembling a worst-case scenario, the full 11 feet of ice locked in West Antarctica might be freed up, their study showed.
If sea levels rise by six feet, "around 12 million people in the United States would be displaced, and the world's most vulnerable megacities, like Shanghai, Mumbai, and Ho Chi Minh City, could be wiped off the map."
How Were All of the Last Predictions? (Score:4, Insightful)
The parable of the boy that cried wolf seems very apt for this story.
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The world ended. Didn't you notice?
- All the bees died and there's no food in the stores.
- We all have 5 tropical diseases. My Ebola is really a bummer. Keeps me up at night.
- New York City is underwater and the cast of Cats is anxiously clinging to the top of the Chrysler building, hissing at the rising water.
- Polar bears retreated northward and are now all huddled around Superman's fortress of solitude drinking their last bottles of Coca-Cola.
- Phoenix is so hot they moved their airport underground.
-
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Doctor, don't do time travel if you're drunk, this is 2017, not 2050, you're not supposed to write about current events in the past, you know how this ends. Now step into the fucking Tardis and sleep it off!
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So maybe go easy on the claim that "the other side" somehow understands climate models.
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I was wondering what that noise was.
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About the same, if you had paid any attention, only on a longer timescale.
Re:How Were All of the Last Predictions? (Score:5, Insightful)
The parable of the boy that cried wolf seems very apt for this story.
Yes indeed.
Firstly, the boy cried "It's not warming" - it was.
Then the boy cried "It's the sun!" - it wasn't.
Then the boy cried "It's volcanoes!" - it wasn't.
Then the boy cried "It's a conspiracy!" it wasn't.
By this point, few villagers, if any, were listening to what the boy had to say at all.
The the boy cried "It's stopped warming!" and a lot of people wondered if the boy understood anything at all.
So yes, we are pretty skeptical of what that particular boy (or group of boys) has to say.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny how The Science Is Settled when someone points out an effect that would imply climate change is not as bad as conventional wisdom says. However when someone points out an effect that would imply climate change is worse than conventional wisdom says, it's trumpeted as a sign that Things Are Worse Than Thought.
I.e. a bunch of armchair environmental activists doing the reporting are selective in what they report in order to push their agenda. Any story that makes things look better than they are is den
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And the point of the story was. THERE WAS A WOLF!
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You might want to read the end of the story. He called the wolf, he was ignored, all the sheep were killed.
In other words, if you don't give a fuck about your sheep, why employ a shepherd in the first place?
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The parable of the boy that cried wolf seems very apt for this story.
That TFA of this submission we're discussing goes straight to AGW as the only possible cause to explain the evidence cited is disturbing. Perhaps they should have gotten together with the scientists from the Slashhdot story I linked below and compared notes first before publishing.
"NASA Discovers Mantle Plume That's Melting Antarctica From Below"
https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
And link to the original study from the above article published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth
http://onlinelib [wiley.com]
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That TFA of this submission we're discussing goes straight to AGW as the only possible cause to explain the evidence cited is disturbing. Perhaps they should have gotten together with the scientists from the Slashhdot story I linked below and compared notes first before publishing.
"NASA Discovers Mantle Plume That's Melting Antarctica From Below"
https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
And link to the original study from the above article published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com... [wiley.com]
Strat
Just because they recently discovered the mantle plume under Antarctica doesn't mean it's something new. Given what we know about mantle plumes chances are it's been there for millions of years and it's unlikely that the amount of melting it is doing has changed significantly in the recent pass. But I'm open to evidence for that if you can find it.
A bit sensationalist [Re: How Were All of the...] (Score:5, Informative)
(responding to: how were all of the last predictions?)
Pretty accurate.
Yep. So far the predictions have been matching the measurements pretty well.
This particular article, however, verges on the sensationalist. Do note it's talking about sea level rise by the end of the century, not the next decade or two, and I also notice that, although what the actual scientists quoted talked about was two meters by the end of the century-- and note that this is on the high edge of what other scientists think, the authors of this article immediately jump to "but maybe it will be worse!" and talk about four meters of sea level rise. So, they took the highest estimate from any scientists, and doubled it.
Instead, pay a little more attention to this quote from the article, buried somewhat far from the sensationalist headline:
"Some scientists aren’t fully convinced the alarm is warranted. Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado, says the new research by Wise and his colleagues, which identified ice-cliff instabilities in Pine Island Bay 11,000 years ago, is “tantalizing evidence.” But he says that research doesn’t establish how quickly it happened."
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Yep. So far the predictions have been matching the measurements pretty well.
According to the data Gore projected the first time the boy cried wolf the Glaciers are supposed to be gone already.
Quit projecting so hard.
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Please cite where Gore said the glaciers would be gone by 2017. It could be that they're already as good as gone but it takes time for large blocks of ice to melt so they won't fully disappear for decades or even centuries. Of the estimated 150 glaciers in Glacier National Park that existed in the mid 1800s only 25 remain today and at the current rate they could be essentially gone by the 2030s.
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I will have to install Firefox and use a search engine other than Google. But I will get it tomorrow. Google and Chrome is being ... Interesting.
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A few glaciers have been growing, most have been shrinking. As an example the glacier in the crater of Mount St. Helens has been growing but it didn't even exist after the 1980 eruption.
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it didn't even exist after the 1980 eruption
Lol, I wonder why? :)
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Predictions have mostly been accurate (Score:5, Informative)
A while back, I made a list of various predictions saying that climate change was irreversible, or soon would be irreversible.
Of the seven links you give, five are "404 not found" or "Error 553 Website is offline". That's an amazing record, five of seven links dead. But these were mostly to sites like "examiner.com", which was (it's dead now) a site where people could upload blog posts that, if they got enough readers, would give them pocket change.
Two of your links still worked.
The first was to a NPR story in 2009 quoting a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences saying that if we stop emitting carbon dioxide immediately, the effects due to the carbon dioxide we have emitted will last for "more than a thousand years," basically due to the lag time it takes for carbon dioxide to be desorbed by the ocean. There's no real prediction here- basically, it's an article about the system hysteresis. So, no, this is not a failed prediction.
The second was a link to an article about an editorial by James Lovelock. In a 2006 article in the Sydney Morning Herald: "Professor James Lovelock said billions would die by the end of the century, and civilisation as it is known would be unlikely to survive." I have little respect for Lovelock, but nevertheless, the end of the century is still 83 years away, so this is not an example of a prediction that has failed.
Of the links that were 404 not found, I could dig up one on archive.org, an article on "commondreams.org" about a report from "Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI), a leading environmental think-tank," headlined that "Damage from Warming Becoming 'Irreversible'." That's not actually a prediction. All the way at the end of the article are two things that might be predictions:
The first: "Even if climate change is more gradual, recent studies have argued that as many as one million plant and animal species could be rendered extinct due to the effects of global warming by 2050."
That's a prediction for over thirty years from now, so, no, that is not a prediction that has failed.
The second: "A recent report by the world's largest reinsurance company, Swiss Re, predicted that in 10 years the economic cost of disasters like floods, frosts, and famines caused by global warming could reach $150 billion annually."
An actual prediction! It's hard to say whether any given damage is "caused by" global warming. However, if you consider hurricanes "caused by" global warming, or droughts, or wildfires, that easily adds up to well over 150 billion. So at best I'd call this a prediction that needs some data analysis to say whether it's accurate or not. For what it's worth, here's Forbes-- not exactly a left-wing cheerleader-- saying the same thing: https://www.forbes.com/sites/e... [forbes.com]
So, final summary: NO, this is not a list of predictions that have been turned out to be false.
The actual predictions-- by which I mean, the ones from actual climate scientists-- have mostly been pretty accurate. If you're looking at the sensationalist predictions-- sea level rises of many meters, cities innudated by floods, etc.-- they are for the most part predictions for after the year 2100, not for now.
But the real science predictions aren't sensational enough for the tabloids, and journalists tend to downplay the "in a hundred years" part of predictions in popular articles.
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The investigations weren't checking to see if the scientists were acting in good faith.
Meaning that your bad faith assertion is not a result of evaluating the investigations' results but your own original research? I'm not sure that makes me any more confident about your far-reaching and potentially libelous conclusions.
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Meaning that your bad faith assertion is not a result of evaluating the investigations' results but your own original research?
Have you read the emails? It's pretty clear that they are people with an agenda, and heavily influenced by emotions.
I'm not sure that makes me any more confident about your far-reaching and potentially libelous conclusions.
Um, in no way did I say you should trust my conclusions. I don't wan't you to trust my conclusions, trust is the anti-thesis of science. Feel free to go read the emails and verify them yourself: that is being scientific.
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They were found entirely innocent. Like, entirely. You want to try this again, sparky?
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Bullshit. Trust is required for any human endeavor.
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If you mean accurate by calling out another boy calling wolf yes. Crying wolf is an accurate statement of this headline asking a question. Which by Rule the answer is NO. If they had the evidence they would make the claim, not ask it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
This article seems sensationalist. 100 years from now is a long time to predict much of anything, never mind the fact that the article just doubles the worst case scenario the scientists postulate. Carbon emissions won't continue at their current clip indefinitely, since the green revolution will displace our industrial-revolution based fuel sources. Also, any amount of terrain we lose will be dwarfed by the terrain gained from Antarctica, no longer covered in 3 miles of ice.
Then, theres the need to take wa
Re: How Were All of the Last Predictions? (Score:5, Informative)
Empirical Data Exposes the Truth
Thirty years of Fail [dailycaller.com]
"Prince Charles famously warned in July 2009 that humanity had only 96 months to save the world from “irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse, and all that goes with it.” That deadline has passed, and the prince has not issued an update to when the world needs to be saved."
"World leaders meeting at the Vatican issued a statement saying that 2015 was the “last effective opportunity to negotiate arrangements that keep human-induced warming below 2-degrees [Celsius].”
"When Laurent Fabius met with Secretary of State John Kerry on May 13, 2014 to talk about world issues he said “we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”
"National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center head James Hansen warned in 2009 that Obama only “has four years to save Earth.”
"World leaders met in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009 to potentially hash out another climate treaty. That same year, the head of Canada’s Green Party wrote that there was only “hours” left to stop global warming."
"The year 2009 was a bad time for global warming predictions. That year Brown warned there was only “50 days to save the world from global warming,” the BBC reported. According to Brown there was “no plan B.”
"Environmentalist write George Monbiot wrote in the UK Guardian that within “as little as 10 years, the world will be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world’s animals or it continues to feed the world’s people. It cannot do both.”
About 930 million people around the world were undernourished in 2002, according to U.N. data. By 2014, that number shrank to 805 million. Sorry, Monbiot."
"The U.N. was already claiming in the late 1980s that the world had only a decade to solve global warming or face the consequences.
The San Jose Mercury News reported June 30, 1989 that a “senior environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000.”
That prediction didn’t come true 17 years ago, and the U.N. is sounding the same alarm today."
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There's one thing in common with almost all the predictions you list: they haven't failed. What we have already done will have effects that last and build up for a long, long time. It may well be that it's too late to avert disaster, even if the disaster is still decades or even centuries away, and that therefore those predictions (not usually by scientists, I note) are correct.
Are you for real... (Score:2)
But what about the pollution from the trillions of rocket launches, or were you planning on using a big straw?
Re: Are you for real... (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)m not planning on anything. I just know what our future ambitions mean, and I donâ(TM)t believe we will find all the requisite water we will need when we get there. How we get water? Who knows. Maybe when we become a Type II civilization, we can use a technology not yet developed. 100 years is a lot of time to give society to progress enough to move mountains. Remember, it took less time to go from Kittt Hawk to Apollo 11.
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There is plenty of water and other volatiles in the asteroid belt that is much easier to get at than trying to export it from Earth.
Re: How Were All of the Last Predictions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Carbon emissions won't continue at their current clip indefinitely, since the green revolution will displace our industrial-revolution based fuel sources.
That won't be enough. Reducing carbon emissions is important, but we also have to reduce the CO2 that is already in the atmosphere. [slashdot.org]
Also, any amount of terrain we lose will be dwarfed by the terrain gained from Antarctica, no longer covered in 3 miles of ice.
So, rising sea levels will cause devastation to major coastal cities all over the world, but we don't need to worry because we can move to Antarctica??
Then, theres the need to take water off earth. Are we going to colonize the moon, Mars? Thats going to take terraforming on a planetary scale, and 11 meters of ocean-depth seems like a good start.
Okay, I didn't think you could top your Antarctica scheme for silliness. Boy, was I wrong. Do you have any idea how much energy it would take to move eleven metres of our ocean from Earth to Mars? The Earth's ocean surface is about 360 million square kilometres. Multiply that by 11 metres, and you have about 4 trillion cubic metres of water, or 4 trillion metric tonnes = 4 quadrillion kilograms. It takes about 64 megajoules to get 1 kg of mass up to the Earth's escape velocity. So, you'd need 256 sextillion joules of energy, just to get that much water off the planet. That's more than twice the amount of energy the USA consumes in a year. And that doesn't consider the efficiencies involved in the technology you use to move the water, or the effects on climate that would result from doing it. Possible? Perhaps. Practical? No way. Better to find a way to stay where we are, or find water that is on Mars already.
Re: How Were All of the Last Predictions? (Score:5, Informative)
The Earth's ocean surface is about 360 million square kilometres. Multiply that by 11 metres, and you have about 4 trillion cubic metres of water, or 4 trillion metric tonnes = 4 quadrillion kilograms. It takes about 64 megajoules to get 1 kg of mass up to the Earth's escape velocity. So, you'd need 256 sextillion joules of energy, just to get that much water off the planet. That's more than twice the amount of energy the USA consumes in a year. And that doesn't consider the efficiencies involved in the technology you use to move the water, or the effects on climate that would result from doing it. Possible? Perhaps. Practical? No way. Better to find a way to stay where we are, or find water that is on Mars already.
I made a mistake. 360 million square kilometres is 360 trillion square metres. Multiply that by 11 metres, and you have about 4 quadrillion cubic metres, not 4 trillion. So you would need 256 septillion joules of energy, not 256 sextillion. That's more that two thousand times the energy used by the USA in a year. And again, that doesn't take (in)efficiencies into account, or the effect on the Earth's climate that kind of terra-un-forming would have. So, either we make our stand on Earth, or wait for Superman to show up and help us move to Mars.
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In other words, you need SMOD. [urbandictionary.com]. Of course, SMOD would bring substantial Global Warming all by itself [youtube.com]. . .
Jurassic- higher carbon dioxide & higher sea l (Score:3)
I'm not sure what the point is here. The Jurassic was a period lasting over fifty million years. Yes, during much of the Jurassic, carbon dioxide was much higher than it is now, and temperatures were correspondingly much hotter, the Earth had no ice caps and no glaciers, and the sea levels were much higher.
I'd point at this as showing that higher carbon dioxide levels are correlated to higher temperatures and higher sea levels.
Yes, we could adapt. Over a time span short compared to fifty million years, t
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Bear in mind that the Sun was a bit dimmer fifty million years ago, so with the same carbon dioxide level we'd expect to be hotter.
Bear in mind that some of our food crops have evolved over the last fifty million years, and won't thrive in Jurassic conditions. If it takes another fifty million years to get there, no problem. If it takes a thousand, problem.
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Carbon emissions won't continue at their current clip indefinitely, since the green revolution will displace our industrial-revolution based fuel sources.
What? The Green Revolution [wikipedia.org] was a series of changes to world agriculture from the 1930s-1960s which involved shifting from compost to the use of synthetic (primarily petroleum-derived) fertilizers and pesticides which enable the production of massive monocultures at the expense of the planet's future ability to produce food. The thing we actually call the "Green Revolution" resulted in far more consumption of fossil fuels, with attendant increases in harmful emissions.
Also, what these articles always fail to mention is that the planet is in an unnatural state, with so much carbon sequestered.
We like it that way. It's irrelevant wh
Re: How Were All of the Last Predictions? (Score:2)
Said the AC. And no, Iâ(TM)m not denying anything. Iâ(TM)m simply questioning the 100 year predictions when so many havenâ(TM)t resulted in complete collapse as was predicted. Oh, and learn to have a civil discussion, ass hat.
Re: How Were All of the Last Predictions? (Score:4, Insightful)
Notice it's always the ACs that come busting out of the gate, name-calling and throwing around ad-hominem attacks like children.
Even for climate change supporters, this article is sensationalist. It just hurts their credibility, really.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has a good approach to the whole issue of fossil fuels vs renewable: even if you don't really believe in anthropomorphic climate change, what happened to the once great concern over air pollution? That's a term I haven't heard much since the '70s, but it used to be a big thing, and rightfully so. Not to mention the fact that fossil fuel is a limited resource that will one day run out. The more calm, rational appeal is more likely to find approval and not fall on deaf ears.
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This story about Al Gore buying oceanfront property is getting tiresome. I looked up the address on Google Maps once and the property he bought is right around the 400 foot contour line, well above any possible sea level rise. (If all the ice on Greenland and Antarctica melted sea level would rise around 215 feet.)
Ask the Dutch how worried we should be (Score:3, Insightful)
The article attempts to spread FUD around "megacities" vanishing, but in reality why do you not think any sea level rise would be engineered around just as the Dutch have done for over a hundred years?
One issue I have though is that it seems like the current estimate of three feet rise over the next 100 years has already taken into account additional ice melt. I am pretty suspicious there is some double-booking going on here, which would be the norm for the climate "science" community.
Another form of double accounting is pretending like we are anywhere near on track for the models that actually predict full ice melt; they are models based on the assumption we'd see runaway exponential warming which is not happening. That's how you know it's truly FUD, when they try to make a case not even viable at this point seem likely.
Re:Ask the Dutch how worried we should be (Score:5, Insightful)
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do you not think any sea level rise would be engineered around just as the Dutch have done for over a hundred years?
Building higher seawalls is not a long term strategy. You don't really want megacities sitting in a deep bathtub where a single breach in the barrier would completely inundate it. Also, as the pressure of the seawater increases, it will start to penetrate under the wall. Florida already has that problem.
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No, when the underlying bedrock is full of holes already like the limestone much of Florida sits on you might have to make the foundation your seawall sits on a thousand feet deep in order for it to be effective.
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What do think is going to happen when the permafrosts finish melting and release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere? If not runaway global warming?
I call bullshit on the claims (Score:2)
Statements such as "If sea levels rise by six feet, "around 12 million people in the United States would be displaced, and the world's most vulnerable megacities, like Shanghai, Mumbai, and Ho Chi Minh City, could be wiped off the map." are massive exaggerations. If this was even on the same side of the planet as reality those some places would be screwed every high tide.
Re: I call bullshit on the claims (Score:2)
Re:I call bullshit on the claims (Score:5, Informative)
Florida has an average elevation of 6' above sea level. Google it.
A lot of the rest of the Coastal U.S. is also quite close to sea level.
You can't live in a place that high tide washes across twice a day and that is going to be 20' under water during major storms.
Mumbai doesn't make sense tho. It's much higher above sea level.
But Shanghai would be toast.
It's quite close to sea level now and has 10' tidal variance as it is.
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But Shanghai would be toast.
I hate wet toast.
Re:I call bullshit on the claims (Score:5, Insightful)
Miami already has a water problem. They have been battling it for some time now. All it will take is a direct hit from Hurricane Donald at a high tide and we'll be treated to legions of Conservatives saying how the climate has been changing for millenia and that nothing could have been done to save Miami...while they will claim a share of federal disaster aid for their time shares and condos.
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You can't live in a place that high tide washes across twice a day and that is going to be 20' under water during major storms.
You can if you rebuild your house on 26' high reinforced cement columns and trade your car for a boat. Homes are already on stilts in coastal areas like Florida because you can't really live 6' above high tide either. Ultimately, the southern half of Florida will go fully underwater in 2127, and become New Venice, the 52nd state.
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Sorry, google says the city is 46' above sea level.
I pulled up an elevation map of the city based on your comment tho.
http://www.floodmap.net/Elevat... [floodmap.net]
It looks like Mumbai would be three islands during any major storm.
And 11' + tides will eat a lot of the city.
To be frank, I think it's a question of when- not if.
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Statements such as "If sea levels rise by six feet, "around 12 million people in the United States would be displaced, and the world's most vulnerable megacities, like Shanghai, Mumbai, and Ho Chi Minh City, could be wiped off the map." are massive exaggerations. If this was even on the same side of the planet as reality those some places would be screwed every high tide.
Some years back I heard about a study where they asked very young children to describe the shape of the earth. Some thought sphere, some thought flat, others thought dome, and others just couldn't come up with a coherent answer.
I spent a while reading your comment and trying to figure out how you thought tides and construction worked. My conclusion was that I don't think you have a coherent answer.
Adapt not Evolve (Score:5, Insightful)
All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years -- much too quickly for humanity to adapt.
Humanity can adapt to changes on a far more rapid timescale than this. We don't have to hang around until we evolve gills we just move to higher ground and rebuild. This will involve social and economic upheaval and a reduction in the standard of living on a short timescale but that does not mean we cannot adapt to the change.
Re:Adapt not Evolve (Score:5, Interesting)
All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years -- much too quickly for humanity to adapt.
Humanity can adapt to changes on a far more rapid timescale than this. We don't have to hang around until we evolve gills we just move to higher ground and rebuild. This will involve social and economic upheaval and a reduction in the standard of living on a short timescale but that does not mean we cannot adapt to the change.
Absolutely right. Anyone who tries to claim that global warming is an existential threat is being ridiculous. We will adapt.
The short term adaptations required when sea levels rise in earnest and precipitation shifts between regions will almost certainly include large-scale government intervention to relocate populations, build massive systems of dikes and stormwalls, and engage in large-scale irrigation and fertilization projects to eke agricultural productivity out of newly-poor farmland while trying to turn newly-wet deserts into functional farms, etc. The political unrest that will be created by millions of starving people in less-affluent countries may well require a return to military conscription and militarization of a significant part of the (remaining) economy, to keep the upheaval out. Military force may be needed to disarm the population and suppress rebellions. We'll likely have to nationalize a lot of industries and use eminent domain to take a lot of land from people in the process of relocating and restructuring the population and the agricultural and industrial bases. Expect serious rationing and a major decline in average quality of life -- though you can also expect a massive reduction in inequality as wealth is confiscated for use in attacking the effects of warming.
Yep, if we just let events proceed, we'll find ourselves in a large-scale crisis of the sort that requires organization on a massive scale, which will mandate huge government growth. It will probably even motivate suppressing national sovereignty in favor of a world government. Of course, government being what it is, the power it takes in order to address the problems will be greater than what is actually required. That's what happens in emergencies.
Honestly, although the process will be very painful, the effects on social structure will be a progressive's wet dream. Conservatives and libertarians should be focused now on heading off this disaster, by implementing carbon markets to harness free market entrepreneurialism and innovation to halt and reverse warming before the effects arrive.
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When the ocean is so acidic that ocean life dies, it rots, that releases toxic gases which would kill most land life, this isn't just Idle speculation, mass extinction(s) have happened this way before. CO2 + water = carbonic acid, the ocean is already a lot more acidic because of humans.
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All this could play out in a mere 20 to 50 years -- much too quickly for humanity to adapt.
Humanity can adapt to changes on a far more rapid timescale than this. We don't have to hang around until we evolve gills we just move to higher ground and rebuild. This will involve social and economic upheaval and a reduction in the standard of living on a short timescale but that does not mean we cannot adapt to the change.
What's the value of a modern metropolis, hundreds of billions? trillions? What percentage of those 12 million people go bankrupt when it turns out their city will be uninhabitable in 30 years?
And you're not just talking about population relocation. At the same time this is going on storms have higher intensities, changing rainfall patterns cause harvests to drop, and countries start squabbling about how to use geo-engineering to improve their situation.
North American and Europe can probably manage, though t
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North American and Europe can probably manage, though the debate over who pays for that vanished wealth is going to be ugly. But China, India, and Pakistan?
Europe can't manage, because the people from Pakistan can walk over to Europe. It's already happening today.
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How is this modded insightful?
"We just move to higher ground and rebuild" Tens of millions of people, many of them with no resource whatsoever, moving to higher ground and rebuilding -- this is migration on a vast scale and will cause war. And building infrastructure to look after tens of millions of people is a gigantic undertaking.
We might be able to "adapt to the change" -- what matters is how shitty the process is, and it's shaping up to be pretty fucking awful.
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this is migration on a vast scale and will cause war.
First, how is this different than today? We already have mas migrations and wars. Been that way for centuries, go read a history book.
Second, things will be just fine in the USA. We got nuclear power, oil, and natural gas, more than enough energy for powering the machines to building up the infrastructure we need. This is a change that will take decades to happen. We can build a lot of dams, bridges, and whatever else we need in that time. The rest of the world might be fucked, with their wars and mig
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We might be able to "adapt to the change" -- what matters is how shitty the process is, and it's shaping up to be pretty fucking awful.
This was exactly the point I was making. The reason we want to stop global warming is that adapting to it is going to cause a huge amount of social and economic upheaval. Instead of making dishonest claims that it is impossible for us to adapt to global warming we should be looking at the economic costs of adapting to vs. avoiding global warming. I believe this will show that avoiding is the far better option but, for once, could we please have a debate based on facts rather than the hyperbole that both si
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You COULD adapt NOW and lessen the impact,
Let's assume the worst predictions of global warming will be true (just to give us a baseline hypothesis). Wouldn't it be reasonable to do a cost-benefit analysis of "adapting now" vs "mitigating in the future?" I mean, just to avoid running around like a chicken with our heads cut off.....
End of the century? (Score:2)
Red Pill Minute (Score:5, Funny)
I suppose all you Slashdot sheeple actually believe there is a place called "Antarctica" and that there are "glaciers" there. It's because you've been brainwashed by Marxist-run universities and their so-called "science" which is just SJW virtue signaling.
You should view my series of 7-hour YouTube videos called, "Why Science is for Losers" and subscribe to my channel. Use the promotion code: "88_14WORDS_Hexen_WhiteWolfMRA".
And don't forget to hit up my Patreon page, because bringing the truth to the masses is thirsty work, and have you seen the price of Mike's Hard Lemonade lately?
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You know, 10 years ago this would have been modded funny and nobody would have bothered to reply because it is SO far out there that it MUST be a joke.
Poe's Law. It's not just for Creationists anymore.
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I'm trying to trigger your sleeping mind by laying some #TRUTH on you.
Go to my YouTube channel before it's banned by the Soros Pedophile Mafia. I heard they're gonna ban my channel for having too much #TRUTH.
See my latest viral video, "Why Transgender Feminists Keep Putting Their Dicks In My Mouth".
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My YouTube channel is redpilling virtue signaling dumbocrats like you every day. What could be more useful?
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Them ass whole scientysts wunt work for oil compknees acause they wunt mayke enuff monee!
I got my Gun for wenn they comme ta putt soler powr onto my roof. Goddam gubmynt.
Yay Trump. My Precedent! And Mr. Pootins two!
Coastal cities on cliffs (Score:2)
Many coastal cities are largely well above sea level. They may lose a few hundred feet to the ocean but they would not be submerged.
In addition some coastal cities were raised or had seawalls and other protection put in place after earlier flooding or storms.
Re:Coastal cities on cliffs (Score:4, Informative)
New York City - 33â above sea level.
Sandy Storm Surge was just under 14'. If it had been 14', it would have destroyed the subway system- basically killing mass transit in New York.
Miami... no- let's talk Florida- averages 6' above sea level.
All of our major ports are built at sea level. Many of our refineries are built at sea level (not cheap to rebuild).
And keep in mind that about 90% of climate models assume we'll find some way to reduce the carbon level by 2100. We don't currently have any way to reduce the carbon level.
I'm not saying it's real. I'm just saying you are being a bit flippant with something that is actually pretty serious.
Sort of like the engineer who warned that the O rings were too cold on the shuttle. He was ignored and overridden too.
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We don't currently have any way to reduce the carbon level.
We do in fact. Dr. Darryl Seimer, a nuclear engineer and chemistry professor, has a proposal to do just that.
The first step is to stop digging. We need to stop producing CO2 and to do that we need lots of nuclear power.
The next thing is to enhance a natural process of turning basalt (a kind of bedrock) into limestone (also a kind of bedrock). We do this by mining the basalt and spreading it on croplands. Why would farmers agree to this? Because this is a variation on an ancient and continuing practice
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Not it would not reduce the carbon level. It would reduce the amount of new CO2e being pumped into the atmosphere. But what the OP is referring to is that the models all assume we find an effective method for CCS, ie removing atmospheric CO2e and sequestrating it.
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No, we should believe it because the consequences are insane.
I worked in risk management for a while. There are 2 main factors you take into account when preparing for a risk, likelyhood of the event and damage per case. Now, I think we can agree that while it would probably not be threatening the existence of humanity, it would severely damage our ability to do business (to stay in corporate terms), which is not-quite-killing us but severely crippling us.
Anything at this level of damage, no matter the impa
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Because there's no mountain range in between?
I did some simple calcs (Score:5, Informative)
Antarctica's average precipitation [wikipedia.org] is 166 mm per year. Its surface area [wikipedia.org] is 14 million square km. Therefore it receives an average of:
(0.166 meters)*(14 million km^2)*(1000 m/km)^2 = 2.324 trillion cubic meters of precipitation each year
Since water weighs one ton per cubic meter, that.s 2.324 trillion tons of water falling onto Antarctica every year. Unlike most of the other continents, this precipitation does not flow to the sea as water. it mostly ends up locked up as snow or ice (there are a handful of "rivers [wikipedia.org]" - mostly small streams of glacial meltwater running to the sea). If you assume the ice on the continent has reached equilibrium (amount it gains equals amount it loses each year), that means it has to lose 2.324 trillion tons of ice each year, mostly as icebergs. If it loses more than that, sea levels go up. If it loses less than that, sea levels go down.
That massive iceberg (4x the size of Manhattan) that broke off earlier this year was estimated at 1 trillion tons. While that's a huge amount to lose all at once, it's less than half the amount Antarctica needs to lose every year to maintain equilibrium. The press likes to hype up outlier events like that because it appears to confirm the belief that Antarctica's ice is melting. But outliers are just that - outliers, and not necessarily representative of what's actually happening. The last scientific net gain/loss study [nasa.gov] I saw actually concluded that Antarctica is gaining ice. Not losing it. Enough to lower sea levels by 0.23 mm per year.
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That massive iceberg (4x the size of Manhattan) that broke off earlier this year was estimated at 1 trillion tons. While that's a huge amount to lose all at once, it's less than half the amount Antarctica needs to lose every year to maintain equilibrium. The press likes to hype up outlier events like that because it appears to confirm the belief that Antarctica's ice is melting. But outliers are just that - outliers, and not necessarily representative of what's actually happening. The last scientific net gain/loss study [nasa.gov] I saw actually concluded that Antarctica is gaining ice. Not losing it. Enough to lower sea levels by 0.23 mm per year.
The GRACE satellites disagree with that study that shows a net gain of ice on Antarctica. By measuring changes in gravity the GRACE satellites find that Antarctica is actually losing ice overall, about 118 gigatonnes/year mostly in West Antarctica. GRACE Ice Sheets and Glaciers [nasa.gov]
Never mind the carbon dioxide (Score:2, Interesting)
These aren't heated significantly by whatever heat might be trapped by slightly more CO2 -- despite what politicians say, seeing as this whole Environment business has become more of just that, with excuses for taxation and making life more difficult for everyone. Unless you pay extra of course.
Instead, just the other week, there was news about some large hot magma plumes being present underneath the Twaites Glacier and other nearby areas [bas.ac.uk], and that is what is heating up this ice. So it may still break out a
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Instead, just the other week, there was news about some large hot magma plumes
The magma plumes have been there for a long time, while the ice was stable. It didn't start moving until we added CO2 to the mix.
Death By Nay Sayers (Score:2)
Bad assumptions (Score:2)
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The ice isn't floating "in the glass", it's sitting on a land mass above the glass, genius.
Where do you Dunning-Kruger imbeciles keep coming from?
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There's certainly a lot of them about, lately.
Re:Put ice in a glass. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fill the glass to the top with water so the ice sticks out the top. Watch what happens when the ice melts. Science. Thanks for playing, morons.
You do know that Antarctica is a continent, and the miles-thick ice sheet under discussion is on land, not floating, right?
Fill a glass to the top with water. Then, melt ice somewhere else, and pour the melted water into the glass. The glass will overflow.
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Melting floating ice has zero effect. (Score:2)
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Is that you, Rep. Steve Stockman [youtube.com]?
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That's why you don't see any measurable effect YET. So far, the ice that's been cracking off and dropping into the sea was the ice already IN the sea.
Now we're reaching the ice that's lying on top of land. Oh, Antarctica, unlike that thing on the top of your globe, is actually a continent. There is land under that miles of ice. That's why we care about melting Antarctica more than we care about the arctic ice going away. That's why this is being talked about instead of the same shit happening on the other e
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Agreed, if only they could stop having children in this already over-populated world... THAT would be progress!
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Conservatives make no sense. Contraception is bad, abortion is bad, but at the same time anything and everything to actually help the people they force to exist is bad too.
A conservative is a person that will fight tooth and nail for you to be born, but as soon as you're pumped out you're on your own.
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This.
I tried to make people realize that we're heading for our extinction until I noticed that, hey, it's gonna strike when I'm no longer around. Why the fuck should I care?
I used to give a shit about people. I actually wanted to prevent disaster until I noticed that this species is too stupid to survive. We're not the first species that can and will eliminate its own livelihood. But we'll be the first that can actively regret it once we're done.
But I won't. Either I'm gone, or I'll simply accept it as the
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You just forgot one point; a lot of ice is above sea level.
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Come on dude! That's not what I was talking about. Have you ever seen pictures of glaciers hundreds of feet above sea level? My guess is that these things aren't really floating in sea water but are instead resting against the ground way down below somehow.
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Because it's hard to do a restore when we fuck up this run. And ya know, the world's old, back when it formed we didn't have the concept of rollbacks yet.
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Don't worry, I've been deconverted no later than when I heard that the effects would only become crippling long after I'm dead.
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Nah. The water levels rise without my aid, so my work is done.