Antarctica Is Losing Ice Faster Every Year (qz.com) 268
A survey of satellite data published in the journal Cryosphere confirms what scientists have suspected for a while now: ice loss from the critical region of Antarctica is happening at an increasingly fast pace. Quartz reports: In total, researchers found that Antarctica lost roughly 1,929 gigatons of ice in 2015, which amounts to an increase of roughly 36 gigatons per year every year since 2008. (A gigaton is one billion tons.) Nearly 90% of that increase in loss occurred in West Antarctica, "probably in response to ocean warming," according to NASA. The new data analysis mostly confirms other recent research, but does so with a higher degree of precision by using a new technique that can process a larger amount of satellite data than was possible before.
West Antarctica has been losing a lot of ice in recent years, and at an ever-growing pace, while East Antarctica is losing ice more steadily. The West Antarctic ice sheet is of particular concern because, like a building that stands on an uneven foundation, it is inherently unstable, making it especially vulnerable to the warming climate. If the entire ice sheet were destabilized and melted into the sea, researchers estimate it would lead to 3 meters (9 feet) of sea level rise globally. Models suggest that under a low-emissions scenario, where the world commits to "peaking" and then steadily reducing emissions in the near future, complete destabilization of the West Antarctic ice sheet is possible to avoid. But under medium- or high-emissions scenarios, the loss of the ice sheet becomes inevitable.
West Antarctica has been losing a lot of ice in recent years, and at an ever-growing pace, while East Antarctica is losing ice more steadily. The West Antarctic ice sheet is of particular concern because, like a building that stands on an uneven foundation, it is inherently unstable, making it especially vulnerable to the warming climate. If the entire ice sheet were destabilized and melted into the sea, researchers estimate it would lead to 3 meters (9 feet) of sea level rise globally. Models suggest that under a low-emissions scenario, where the world commits to "peaking" and then steadily reducing emissions in the near future, complete destabilization of the West Antarctic ice sheet is possible to avoid. But under medium- or high-emissions scenarios, the loss of the ice sheet becomes inevitable.
Sadly (Score:3, Insightful)
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Part of the problem is that it really isn't obvious to the casual observer.
For example, I've been going to Cape Cod (Mass) for over 50 years. In that time the sea level has remained the same. It has not changed in any significant, meaningful, observable manner that has any impact on the man on the street, or at the beach.
This lack of observable change makes it hard to appreciate.
There is another problem and that is the hoopla about global warming distracts from a far more imminent and disastrous change that
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You would think that even if there was a 10% probability that any of the dire predictions scientists are making about affects of nan made green house gas emissions were true, that regardless of the 90% chance that they were wrong, based on the 10% probability that they are right, you might just shut the f*ck up, err on the side of caution, stop this useless debate (of morons) and get on with what needs to be done.
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They will blame gays. And Crisis Actors. And Obama.
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there will still be deniers claiming a population of 7 billion humans had nothing to do with it
Over population is the problem. We need a more generous child tax credit in the US limited to 2 children and we need to reduce immigration to force other countries to deal with their overpopulation and we need nuclear power.
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tldr:
When temperatures rise and ice melts, more water flows to the seas from glaciers and ice caps, and ocean water warms and expands in volume. This combination of effects has played the major role in raising average global sea level between four and eight inches (10 and 20 centimeters) in the past hundred years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
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Re:Sadly (Score:4, Insightful)
You know how I can tell there's no science in any of that bullshit you just posted?
No one does science in "cubic miles".
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One cubic mile is 17478049959.184 hogshead. That's 1.7478049959184 mega hogshead (MHgshd)
https://www.convertunits.com/f... [convertunits.com]
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It's like you don't even know what science is.
I did simple math. I got modded to -1, Troll by fucking shitlords like you who don't like simple fucking facts pointing out that their fucking doom and gloom climate change scenarios are utter fucking bullshit.
You would get far less than 1 inch of sea rise if all Antarctic ice melted. You would get less than 1 inch of sea rise if you COPIED all of Antarctic sea ice and melted it (leaving the original ice in place). Please demonstrate how that is not true. Us
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You can do perfectly good science in cubic miles, as long as you don't confuse 0.75 miles with 12 inches = 1/5280 miles.
SOMEONE gets it!
Correct arithmetic (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when is one foot = 0.75 of a mile?
And a better approach would be the surface area of a sphere, 4 pi r ^ 2.
4 * pi * 6378 * 6378 = 500,000,000 km^2 according to my trusty slide rule.
Volume of 1 m coverage is 500,000,000,000,000 m^2 or 500,000 giga tonnes of water if I have not slipped a few zeros.
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1 mile is 5280 feet, so 1 extra foot is 5281. 5281/5280 * the radius of Earth = LOL.
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Re:Sadly (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you're an expert on the subject, back-of-the-envelope calculations in a Slashdot post are probably not the most accurate way to estimate sea level rise.
Fortunately, more knowledgeable people have done more sophisticated analyses of this very hypothetical, and they put their estimates [antarcticglaciers.org] closer to 3.44 meters, aka 11 feet of sea-level rise.
Fortunately for us, it's unlikely that all the Antarctic ice will melt any time soon.
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Fortunately, more knowledgeable people have done more sophisticated analyses of this very hypothetical, and they put their estimates [antarcticglaciers.org] closer to 3.44 meters, aka 11 feet of sea-level rise.
This article [gizmodo.com] (linked in a comment above) says it's much more than that, based on a study by the British Antarctic Survey [bas.ac.uk]:
Of course, your source doesn't say what you says it does, the figure you quoted is for the West Antarctic ice sheet and the Antarctic Peninsula only:
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And that 1 foot is not 0.75 miles.
But yes, back of the envelope calculations are a fine way to sort truth from bullshit.
Re:Sadly (Score:5, Informative)
4/3 pi 3960.75^3 - 4/3 pi 3960^3 = 4/3 pi (3960.75^3 - 3960^3) = 147823591.42729045764684076422549 cubic miles. Multiply by 70% for the amount of surface the oceans cover and you get 103476513.99910332035278853495784 cubic miles.
Pro tip: if you want to convince us of your scientific prowess, don't quote so many significant digits. 32 of them are enough to express the diameter of the known universe to a precision of one micrometre.
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More significantly, don't equate "one foot" to "0.75 miles". That curious bit of elision is how he arrives at those ridiculous numbers.
I saw what you did there. You are right indeed. But others have covered 0.75 mi != 1 ft adequately.
I think we can conclude that significance, on many levels, is not something sexconker is up on.
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Earth has a radius of about 3960 miles.
Taking Earth as a sphere, its volume is 4/3 pi 3960^3 cubic miles. A 1 foot rise in sea level, assuming 100% of the planet was covered by ocean, would yield a volume of 4/3 pi 3960.75^3 cubic miles.
4/3 pi 3960.75^3 - 4/3 pi 3960^3 = 4/3 pi (3960.75^3 - 3960^3) = 147823591.42729045764684076422549 cubic miles. Multiply by 70% for the amount of surface the oceans cover and you get 103476513.99910332035278853495784 cubic miles.
Over 100 million cubic miles of additional sea water would be required to raise the level of the oceans a mere 12 inches. This ignores the additional surface area rising oceans would cover, and thus underestimates the volume of water necessary to raise the oceans a single foot.
All of Antarctica contains between 6 and 7 million cubic miles of ice. If it all melted today, we'd get less than an inch of sea level rise.
F*^king amateurs who think they know better than published, peer-reviewed climate scientists are a waste of space.
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Beware your lack of understanding. Gravity and rotation and the sun and the moon all have an impact. Rest assured a 3m sea level rise at high tide near the equator would not be reflected in the Antarctic at low or high tide. To understand the impact of spin and centrifugal affect, get a large lead weight on a string and start spinning around, the weight will rise at the end of the string as you spin, now hold it at head height and stop, the string will wrap around your head, pulling in the lead weight which
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On the contrary.
There is a point to arguing now. To prove we were right. Before we die.
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Earth has a radius of about 3960 miles.
Taking Earth as a sphere, its volume is 4/3 pi 3960^3 cubic miles.
A 1 foot rise in sea level, assuming 100% of the planet was covered by ocean, would yield a volume of 4/3 pi 3960.75^3 cubic miles.
Why did you increase the radius by 0.75 mile? That's a hell of a lot more than 1 foot (1 foot = 1/5280 mile = 0.00018939393 mile).
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I've been around a long time and I'm still surprised at how fucking stupid people are.
So many people attacked my post for the completely wrong reasons when they could have spent 3 seconds to look at the math and have a laugh.
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yes. Facts are unintentionally misleading in this era of too much information.
Urban legend has it that the weight of all the ants on earth is greater than that of any other species, yet science [bbc.com] seems to indicate they're approximately the same.
Our livestock and pets [treehugger.com] alone dwarf the #2 life form.
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In response to the assertion that "the Antarctic ice sheet is growing", Barsteward inquired:
are you talking ice coverage and/or ice thickness?
He's referring to the fact that the East Antarctic ice sheet is accumulating additional snow at and near the South Pole. What he's purposefully ignoring is that the East Antarctic sheet is losing ice at its periphery nearly as quickly as the West Antarctic sheet is - and the West sheet is absolutely hemorrhaging ice.
In fact, the additional buildup of snow on the East sheet is almost undoubtedly a result
No it is not (Score:2, Funny)
Itâ(TM)s gaining ice per renowned scientist Rush Limbaugh and the high school drop outs who listen to him.
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I didn't know Rush Limbaugh worked for NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/g... [nasa.gov]
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Looking forward to the new beachfront property (Score:3)
I honestly looked this up two weeks ago. I live in Los Angeles and if all the ice north and south melts it really doesn't look all that much different here. To be honest most places do not have the nice warm weather we have here but it looks like that will change and there will actually be more ideal weather in higher northern latitudes. So it suggests to me I should get off my butt and save for some northern real estate. Northern California here I come.
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Do note that 3 meter rise, however. I'm not sure whether or not that's enough to flood the San Joaquin valley, but if it is expect the weather to change massively.
For that matter, the Salton Sea is likely to refill with salt water, and so is any place else that's low.
OTOH, you've got a few decades to move, so no need to rush, land prices are already so high that you wouldn't gain much.
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Do note that 3 meter rise, however. I'm not sure whether or not that's enough to flood the San Joaquin valley,
No, not even close, actually.
The data is all out there (Score:2, Interesting)
We're fucked, sorry for the language but we're fucked, entirely.
Still, it shocks me how many times I have to explain to my girl (and friends and family) why we shouldn't be god damn breeding.
Not long now, it's exponential (for the most part)
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Wow. I bet everyone loves you at dinner parties.
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Still, it shocks me how many times I have to explain to my girl (and friends and family) why we shouldn't be god damn breeding.
Most guys try to explain to their girl why they *should* be breeding.
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I *think* you're too pessimistic. We won't hold to 2 degrees Centigrade, and we may not hold to 4, and it's quite probable that the sea levels will indeed rise 3 meters, or slightly more. But that's not an insuperable problem. It's going to mean hard times for lots of people, animals, plants, etc., but there are also a lot who will do well. I doubt that it will cause civilization to fall unless somebody starts WWIII.
Expect this to cause a significantly degraded environment, largely due to the fact that
Sadest of All Is ... (Score:2, Interesting)
We are only 15-25,000 years out of the last ice age in a 110,000 year cycle.
Since we are most likely to continue to warm for some 10s of thousands of years, based on past cycles, it seems inevitable that Antarctica is doomed to lose its major ice sheets, whether mankind does anything about emissions or not.
It doesn't matter (Score:2)
It doesn't matter what the science says. I simply does not matter. Humanity is going to eat the planet. Humanity is going to burn every molecule of hydrocarbons in can get its paws on. No laws, no international agreements, no nothing - it does not mean shit.
This thing is a juggernaut, and step out of the way if you can (but you can't, really). The money power wins. No, this thing is going to play itself out.
Good luck to us all!
Raises hand (Score:2)
Sorry.
I said I'm sorry.
Well then you sleep with me, that's one night I won't shrink the ice shelf. furfuksake, it ain't hard.
FFS, what's your virginity against the environment? Take one for the team. Hell, take one for the planet!
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Were you born this way, or did you have to work at it?
Facepalms (Score:2)
This article, or some variant, is reposted to /. every week.
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As much click bait as any Hollywood gossip rag, true. I read the comments to be entertained, mostly.
Two possible responses.. (Score:2)
Pick one:
a) Fortunately Antarctica is a myth, so there's no cause for concern.
b) We're going to be in deep shit when the penguiform balrogs thaw out of the ice.
Idiots on parade. (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
About that Gin and Tonic... (Score:2)
Seems legit (Score:3, Informative)
So if I read this right they are comparing 2008 data collected by synthetic aperture radar to 2013-15 data obtained from Landsat 7 and 8 imagery.
They optimize calculations for idealized flow rates and produce these values with overlapping error margins and declare a conclusion based on 2 calculated data points using two different observation and calculation methods.
Discharge (Gt yr1)
2008: 1894 ± 43 (synthetic aperture radar)
2015: 1929 ± 40 (Landsat 7 and 8 imagery)
Seems legit to me...
Way to incite a panic (Score:4, Interesting)
2000 Gt gain > 1929 Gt loss. The uncertainty over how much is lost via sublimation and water runoff clouds whether Antarctica has a net gain or loss of ice.
The last study I saw on this [nasa.gov] (from 2015 based on satellite data) concluded the net effect is Antarctica is gaining ice.
Holy infestations batman! (Score:3)
Since when did Slashdot get inundated in quasi-intellectual climate sceptics?
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Regression to the Mean? (Score:2)
So, just 4 years ago NASA published this.
https://www.nasa.gov/content/g... [nasa.gov]
After a period of unusually high amounts, why would it be surprising to see a regression to the mean?
Discuss
A gigaton is one billion tons (Score:2)
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The article uses "probably", scientists use "likely".
FYI the word count in the PDF:
probably:0
likely:13
Likely has an actual meaning in scientific language, and it's not the same as general English.
What I cringe at is feckless assholes that use every excuse they can to suck wind through their teeth and suggest doubt where there is none.
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The article uses "probably", scientists use "likely".
If I google "define:likely" it says it means "probably".
Likely has an actual meaning in scientific language, and it's not the same as general English.
I have used the words "likely" and "probably" in scientific papers many times over the last 35 years. If there is a special scientific meaning, I am unaware of it, but would be interested to hear what it is. I used both to mean greater than 50% chance of happening. That is exactly what I also mean when I use either in everyday conversation.
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Sure Bill, link one.
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Sure Bill, link one.
Nope. I use a pseudonym on Slashdot for a reason. I have no interest in outing myself by linking to my real name.
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if you're going to appeal to authority ...
You have your fallacies confused. I didn't appeal to authority. I appealed to ignorance [wikipedia.org].
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I've got 99 probable scenarios, but likely ain't one.
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I used both to mean greater than 50% chance of happening. That is exactly what I also mean when I use either in everyday conversation.
Well, I would say "likely" has a more subjective and causal tone to it than probably which is more objective and numeric. As in "The reduced crop is likely due to cold and wet weather" vs "If we run we can probably catch the bus". If you swap words the meaning is the same, but it sounds less natural to me. That likely/unlikely is tighter connected to plausible/implausible than probable/improbable. Like you can say that according to the standard model the Higgs boson is likely to be so-and-such while CERN pr
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IPCC has declared specific "scientific" meaning for such terms when used in their reports. You may want to align your use of them to that. See https://www.theglobeandmail.co... [theglobeandmail.com] for an overview.
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What *is* this precise scientific meaning of likely. I know that probably means the calculated odds are over 50%. How does likely differ from that? Does it assume a bell curve and say more than one standard deviation, or what?
I don't write papers, but when I want a specific meaning I attach numbers, hopefully with error bars, if the numbers aren't themselves bounds.
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I know that probably means the calculated odds are over 50%.
How do you know that? Bill's favourite authoritative dictionary, Google, describes probably as "almost certainly; as far as one knows or can tell.", and "almost certainly" is well into the 90% range.
Re: "Probably" doesn't cut it. (Score:2)
Re: "Probably" doesn't cut it. (Score:5, Insightful)
World sea levels go up three meters? A quick computation shows that is "probably" very very wrong.
Kindly share your "quick computation." And explain why it disproves the conclusions of the paper linked in TFS.
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The "quick computation" is probably something along the lines of this:
WhatIWant + GoogleSearch + OilCompanyAstroturfing = GlobalWarningIsFalse
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Kindly share your "quick computation."
No computation necessary. I have it from the highest authority [newsweek.com] that the ice caps are growing so much they're setting records. Anything else is FAKE NEWS.
There is a cooling, and there’s a heating. I mean, look, it used to not be climate change, it used to be global warming. That wasn’t working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place. The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records. They’re at a record level!
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My computations are different. My main concern is the rate of melting, and how to accelerate it to be complete within my active lifetime.
You see, I want to know what's under all those miles of ice, and I am willing to drown every single one of you to find out.
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You can't call FUD without references.
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Also no. There is no simple solution besides changing our behavior to mitigate man made climate change. Are you trying to pretend that all we need is the right idea and we can keep behaving as we have been?
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The thing is, it's questionable how much of the change is already committed. There are a lot of lags in various feedback cycles, and if, say, the permafrost methane is already inevitable, then that may mean that a much greater temperature rise is already inevitable. Methane may have a half life of 50 years (?? not that long??) but it's a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, and when it degrades, it degrades to CO2. Nobody's quite sure how much methane is locked up in the permafrost...but it's already s
Re: "Probably" doesn't cut it. (Score:4, Insightful)
HiThere pointed out:
The thing is, it's questionable how much of the change is already committed. There are a lot of lags in various feedback cycles, and if, say, the permafrost methane is already inevitable, then that may mean that a much greater temperature rise is already inevitable. Methane may have a half life of 50 years (?? not that long??) but it's a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, and when it degrades, it degrades to CO2. Nobody's quite sure how much methane is locked up in the permafrost...but it's already starting to melt, so it may well be too late to stabilize things. How much mitigation we can do is uncertain. And the sun is now hotter than it was the last time all that CO2 was in the atmosphere (see carboniferous period http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/c... [berkeley.edu]), so nobody's quite certain what will happen. There are models, but anyone who believes them needs their head examined.
FWIW, methane's half-life as an atmospheric gas is about 12 years - but, to your point, its effects on atmospheric warming persist for as long as a century. C02 hangs around for up to 50,000 years, so its effects on warming are more critical in the longer term. Other gases and aerosols also contribute to global warming (and thus climate change) to various degrees, and with varying amounts of persistence. It's a complex set of interactions. [nih.gov]
What nobody seems to be taking into account is the rapidly-mounting evidence that glaciers and icecaps are complex, unstable systems, the continued existence of which depends on relative stability in base climate conditions (aka "chaotic systems [wikipedia.org]"). Every year for the past decade, glaciologists studying the Greenland icecap have observed that melting there is proceeding - and increasing - far faster than their models predict. It's an asymptotic trend that leads to what I think is the inevitable conclusion that Greenland's ice sheet (which is three miles thick in the center) is going to collapse within no more than a few hundred years.
That's way, WAY faster than even recently-revised models predict - but those models are predicated on the notion that miles-thick icecaps are essentially reservoirs of cold that will preserve their integrity for millenia. The problem is that all the current evidence is that those assumptions are unwarranted. They certainly don't account for the staggering rate of surface melt, or for the destablilzing effect of all that meltwater eroding the integrity of the ice sheet beneath the surface as it drains, via moulins, all the way to bedrock.
The instability of the icecap surface (its so-called "rottenness") has led the government of Greenland to altogether ban scientists from setting foot on it during the warm season, for safety reasons. They're now forced to deploy and recover automated weather stations and other instrument packages from helicopters hovering above the ice, in order to comply with that prohibition. In fact, it's getting harder for glaciologists and climatologists to collect reliable, long-term, automated data from Greenland in general, because their instrument packages and weather stations keep disappearing into the moulins that unpredictably open underneath them.
The current climate change situation reeks to me of the Permian/Triassic catastrophe. That event was produced by natural causes (although exactly what triggered it initially is still not definitively settled) whereas this one was unquestionably precipitated by global carbon emissions resulting from the age of industrialization, particularly in the developed world.
We, as a species, can be forgiven for not realizing the consequences of causing such enormous increases in CO2 emissions back in the 19th century and the first ... let's be generous and say "eight
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Another thing is certain. If we don't leave a bit more fuel in the ground and take measures to better produce our food, there will be serious consequences to pay.
Can we admit that?
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It is not a simple solution, but I am also of the opinion that our best shot is along those lines.
Re: "Probably" doesn't cut it. (Score:2, Informative)
You missed the bit about glaciers scouring the soil away and dumping it in the ocean. What you have is rock, which takes a while to become soil, and thus productive
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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/g... [nasa.gov]
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I trust the IPCC, but I also trust NASA. Now, I am completely confused. Has the NASA study been discredited? If not, wtf is going on.
Re:West Antarctica? (Score:5, Informative)
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So in other words we don't know, because we now have several studies that refute each other. Funny how that works.
You're right - the situation could be far worse than reported.
Re:West Antarctica? (Score:4, Informative)
If you notice the title of that study it says "ice sheet". I can't follow your link, because I won't allow javascript, but if I recall that study properly it was a study of floating sea ice, not of all ice, and one would expect that when Antarctica was shedding ice, a lot would end up as floating ice sheets rather than immediately melting, so there's no contradiction.
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Not too worry, I've noticed that this is something that many denialists struggle with: that actual observed reality trumps assertions, and not the other way around.
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I posted a NASA paper which states that ice is accumulating overall in Antarctica.
Aaand someone posted a citation proving you were wrong. Do you think we can't read?
And that West Antarctica has localized loss, and also has a rather marked increase in geothermal activity under the ice.
The actual science [wiley.com] says that the plume has been for several geographical eras, so hardly "marked increase".
Did you assume we can't google?
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No, they posted a citation contradicting mine. It doesn't prove it's wrong. It simply says there are two conflicting reports, both from well-respected entities. So which is right? Are they both wrong? Do we actually know what is going on?
So at first you claimed with absolute certainty that the ice sheet was growing, even though you knew there was contradictory evidence: and when called on it, you feign confusion. Are you lying?
See, the problem is you only accept data that you BELIEVE is correct, and ignore all other.
Well, to be specific, I'm skeptical about YOUR claims, because it appears that I've caught you in a lie.
A real scientist, a true skeptic (which is the foundation of science) would look at conflicting data and say "more research needed, we cannot draw conclusions". FAITH would demand you adhere to your position. That is religion...
So: you think there is a degree of uncertainty in the actual situation, i.e. the ice sheet loss could be far worse than the subject article claims. Consequently, you support an immediate, and drastic cut in greenhou
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"FAITH" does not demand that one sticks to a position regardless of the evidence, that's a very common misconception. Faith merely means to have belief, as in, "I believe I am right". What you are saying is you trust your sources, your reasoning process, and thus your conclusion. A religious person has faith in God in precisely the same manner as one might have faith in a scientific study. They have trust in their sources, their reasoning process, and thus their conclusion.
What you may be referring to is *b
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Do you have any idea how many dormant, and not so dormant, volcanoes there are around the world, particularly around the "ring of fire"? The surprise would be if there weren't a lot of volcanoes under the ice.
OTOH, volcanoes can certainly cause the weather to change for a year or two, and the climate to change for a few decades. But I don't think we'll see anything like the Deccan Traps. (I have a theory that they were set off by a giant meteor hitting the opposite side of the world.)
As for the Nitrogen
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