Greenland's Ice Sheet Melting Seven Times Faster Than In 1990s (theguardian.com) 282
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Greenland's ice sheet is melting much faster than previously thought, threatening hundreds of millions of people with inundation and bringing some of the irreversible impacts of the climate emergency much closer. Ice is being lost from Greenland seven times faster than it was in the 1990s, and the scale and speed of ice loss is much higher than was predicted in the comprehensive studies of global climate science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to data. That means sea level rises are likely to reach 67cm by 2100, about 7cm more than the IPCC's main prediction. Such a rate of rise will put 400 million people at risk of flooding every year, instead of the 360 million predicted by the IPCC, by the end of the century.
Greenland has lost 3.8 trillion tons of ice since 1992, and the rate of ice loss has risen from 33 billion tons a year in the 1990s to 254 billion tons a year in the past decade. Greenland's ice contributes directly to sea level rises as it melts because it rests on a large land mass, unlike the floating sea ice that makes up much of the rest of the Arctic ice cap. About half of the ice loss from Greenland was from melting driven by air surface temperatures, which have risen much faster in the Arctic than the global average, and the rest was from the speeding up of the flow of ice into the sea from glaciers, driven by the warming ocean. The scale and speed of the ice loss surprised the team of 96 polar scientists behind the findings, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature. The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise comprised 26 separate surveys of Greenland from 1992 to 2018, with data from 11 different satellites and comparisons of volume, flow and gravity compiled by experts from the UK, Nasa in the US, and the European Space Agency.
Greenland has lost 3.8 trillion tons of ice since 1992, and the rate of ice loss has risen from 33 billion tons a year in the 1990s to 254 billion tons a year in the past decade. Greenland's ice contributes directly to sea level rises as it melts because it rests on a large land mass, unlike the floating sea ice that makes up much of the rest of the Arctic ice cap. About half of the ice loss from Greenland was from melting driven by air surface temperatures, which have risen much faster in the Arctic than the global average, and the rest was from the speeding up of the flow of ice into the sea from glaciers, driven by the warming ocean. The scale and speed of the ice loss surprised the team of 96 polar scientists behind the findings, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature. The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise comprised 26 separate surveys of Greenland from 1992 to 2018, with data from 11 different satellites and comparisons of volume, flow and gravity compiled by experts from the UK, Nasa in the US, and the European Space Agency.
Some Context (Score:5, Insightful)
Even at these accelerated rates, you're looking at a loss of maybe 1-2% of Greenland's ice over a century...
Re:Some Context (Score:5, Interesting)
Even at these accelerated rates, you're looking at a loss of maybe 1-2% of Greenland's ice over a century...
That's assuming that the rate doesn't *continue* to accelerate, which it certainly will if we keep the status quo of accelerating greenhouse gas emissions.
On top of that, many experts suspect that there may be positive feedback mechanisms that will kick in as the ice disintegrates, which will cause the melting to accelerate even faster than would be expected from just temperature changes.
Not to mention, some people would like the human race to endure longer than just one more century.
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That's assuming that the rate doesn't *continue* to accelerate, which it certainly will
Over the last decade (2013-2017, the last year measured in the paper), the rate of ice loss has slowed (I'm basing this on the paper). So you shouldn't assume that as a given.
Re:Some Context (Score:5, Interesting)
The peak year for ice loss, according to the observations, was 2011 when 335bn tonnes of ice were lost. Since then, the average rate has slowed to 238bn tonnes a year from 2013, but this does not include the most recent observations from this summer, which showed even more widespread melting.
it may have slowed but its still up from 3.8b tonnes in the 1990s to 238bn tonnes per year in the past decade
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Re:Some Context (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention, some people would like the human race to endure longer than just one more century.
Sigh. AGW is hardly likely to cause our extinction. What it will do is cause a lot of instability as some places that are productive now change their weather. Some areas might become desertified, some areas that are marginal for producing crops might find themselves the new "bread basket" of the world. some areas might end up with monsoon type weather patterns. After all, the effects overall will be more precipitation.
This can give rise to destabilizing climate change refugees, as people in once productive areas move to find new areas to settle in.
So not likely to cause extinction, but very possible that some of the powers that be at present will be rather marginalized by the changes.
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"That's assuming that the rate doesn't *continue* to accelerate"
So many possible replies to this, from the flippant: this morning it was 40 degrees outside, an hour later it was 45, an hour after that it was 51. If that 'warming' continues to accelerate, by my math tomorrow morning it'll be 400 degrees outside! ...to the serious: please look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This is a non-disputed concatenation of historical temperatures derived from various proxies - dendrochronology, ice cores, etc. No
Re:Some Context (Score:5, Insightful)
Humanity will probably be doing just fine. It's not at all clear that civilization will.
Re:Some Context (Score:5, Funny)
Humanity would be fine even if we had a nuclear WW3. I mean, it would suck ass, but we'd still be kicking around in pockets here and there so all is well I guess.
Oh, and stop trying to make "OK, Doomer" a thing. It's not a thing, it never will be a thing, and I've shit more clever things.
Re: Some Context (Score:2)
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Re:Some Context (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, don't let the glow of all your optimism distract you too much from your armed vigilance.
Re:Some Context (Score:5, Informative)
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There are several mechanisms. For example, ice is very good at reflecting the sunlight. If you lose ice then this sunlight will be absorbed better. ...
I see.
Sort of like covering light colored sand or roofing, which are very good at reflecting sunlight, with solar panels, which absorb virtually all of it, turning much of it into local heat, some into electricity that is turned into heat where it is used or in transmission losses on the way.
(Seriously, though: Solar panels should be about greenhouse-neutral
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That's assuming that the rate doesn't *continue* to accelerate, which it certainly will if we keep the status quo of accelerating greenhouse gas emissions.
Why?
Greenhouse gas energy absorption, for each gas (with its particular absorption bands) only increases logarithmicly with concentration. (Added gas can only absorb the energy in its band that wasn't already absorbed by what was already there, so progressively more gas is chasing progressively less energy.)
Methane
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That's assuming that the rate doesn't *continue* to accelerate, which it certainly will if we keep the status quo of accelerating greenhouse gas emissions.
Why? Greenhouse gas energy absorption, for each gas (with its particular absorption bands) only increases logarithmic with concentration.
Close enough: temperature rise with trace-gas absorber concentration, in the simplest model, is logarithmic. This is the Arrhenius law. So, an exponential growth in trace gas will result in a linear rise in temperature.
Acceleration would come from feedback amplification, and there are several mechanisms that can amplify the forcing. I believe snow cover was already mentioned (higher temperature --> less snow cover --> less reflection of sunlight --> more solar energy absorbed): this is one of the amplifiers that causes ice ages. Another one is that warmer water stores less CO2, so as the oceans heat the ocean sink of CO2 decreases.
Methane
Exactly. Another one is heating up tundra and releasing adsorbed carbon dioxide and methane, or releasing undersea methane stored as clathrates.
And those clathrates are a concern. Methane doesn't stay in the atmosphere as long as CO2, but worst case it can be nasty. The direct radiative greenhouse gas forcing effect has been estimated at 0.5 W/m2 . Yikes!! And even after it breaks down, one of the byproducts is CO2.
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Re: Some Context (Score:2)
But real world systems rarely experience that sort of exponential growth. When's the last time you left a plant growing and it spread through the whole neighborhood? Natural systems have complicated natural feedback systems that limit growth.
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More context. SuperKendall thinks that 2 point linear extrapolation for a model that is changing a lot in a short time is somehow valid over a century.
Based on the my projections using the same model applied to Super Kendall's last two posts, 3 posts from now he will have a negative IQ.
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But a great source of water to ship to the Sahara!
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Along the same lines as that story, the Arctic is now a net contributor to carbon emissions. This is what really scares climate scientists and others, it indicates a runaway greenhouse effect. So your denialism is probably okay for a few years, then it won't be.
Re: Some Context (Score:4, Informative)
Worse, somebody might point out that Antarctica's ice sheet has been growing.
As the climate warms, the air passing over Antarctica can hold more moisture, resulting in heavier snowfall, which leads to an expanded ice sheet.
This will continue for several decades according to most climate models.
The ice accumulation in Antarctica is nowhere near enough to make up for the ice melt in the Arctic.
Re: Some Context (Score:2)
The ice accumulation in Antarctica is nowhere near enough to make up for the ice melt in the Arctic.
The latter doesn't (directly) contribute to sea-level rise, at least... that cold meltwater will certainly throw-off ocean currents, however.
Re: Some Context (Score:5, Insightful)
Just normal maintenance along the shores can take this into account and add next to nothing in the engineering costs to manage this rise.
A significant part of Florida is less than 1 meter above the sea level. Ditto for Louisiana. You're also forgetting hurricanes - that additional meter on top of a storm surge will allow it to get much further inland.
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You're also forgetting hurricanes
No, I'm not. The prediction was that 400 million more people will experience flooding every year if we don't do anything. This means they are not under water now, they already experience periodic flooding from hurricanes and such, but just not seeing this flooding every year.
What do we do about this then? Well, since they already experience flooding now then we might not have to do anything but plan for the floods to come more often. Or, we can build more seawall, levees, canals, pumps, and other means
Re: Some Context (Score:5, Informative)
And no, Netherlands is not a good example - they have a lot of defensible space between the ocean and cities, including coastal marshes. They also don't get hit by Cat 5 hurricanes with some regularity, so they don't have to deal with these kinds of storm surges.
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What about perhaps, abandoning those states and moving to the interior?
Re: Some Context (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is, you can't lift all of the Florida or Louisiana. Once they start flooding they'll have to be abandoned.
Sure you can, just not all at once.
There are many old cities that are built on a "mound" that were later discovered to be many layers of old city being buried and new city being built on top. The entire mound isn't made of "old city", it's a city built on uneven ground and the low spots filled in over time with people disposing of trash, and made firm from dirt washed in from wind and rain.
With modern construction equipment we can fill in the low spots that are much larger and in much less time. We have decades to do this as the average sea level rises inches every year, and not all of this area is below sea level. If this area is abandoned then natural processes could fill this in for us, and then this area could be used again. Remember, we are talking about a slow rise over decades and this area will not be flooded all at once since these states are not completely flat.
We don't have to lift the entire state, just fill in the low spots slowly, just staying ahead of the slow rise of the sea.
So you are basically saying that spending trillions doing all that and more to react to the symptoms of climate change but kicking morons like Bolsonaro in the nuts for destroying the huge carbon sinks, retiring all fossil fuels and planting a few billion trees is too much to ask?
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The problem is, you can't lift all of the Florida or Louisiana. Once they start flooding they'll have to be abandoned.
Sure you can, just not all at once.
What are your back of the envelope calculations showing that the entire state of Florida can be raised above the highest anticipated storm surge, and the amount of fill it will take ad where this fill will come from?
Re: Some Context (Score:4, Informative)
So you are basically saying that spending trillions doing all that and more to react to the symptoms of climate change but kicking morons like Bolsonaro in the nuts for destroying the huge carbon sinks, retiring all fossil fuels and planting a few billion trees is too much to ask?
Huh? I'm not sure what you are proposing but I'm going to guess no, that is not what I am "basically" saying.
We know how to solve the problem and not have to spend any more money than we are already paying for infrastructure and energy. We need safe, affordable, low CO2, and reliable energy. This means no solar power outside of what we use off grid for things like pocket calculators and communication satellites. Solar power on the grid is stupid for how much it costs and how much land and raw material it takes. What we have now that is comparable in cost to coal and natural gas is onshore windmills, hydroelectric dams, and nuclear fission. With more onshore wind, hydro, and nuclear we can keep energy costs the same and lower our CO2 emissions. For transportation we can use nuclear powered ships, more electric trains and cars, and for everything else we can use carbon neutral synthesized hydrocarbons.
When it comes to addressing the rising sea levels there is plenty of evidence from historical records that the sea has been rising for all of recorded history, and at about the same rate for all this time. This means that even if we solved the problems of CO2 emissions from human activity we would still need to build seawalls, raise land near the shores, or watch this land slowly disappear under the sea.
What would cost "trillions" is switching to solar, wind, and batteries, like what is proposed in the Green New Deal and similar proposals. These plans cost a lot of money, will not lower CO2 emissions as much as a plan that includes hydro and nuclear, and are doomed to fail as people will simply protest from the rising energy costs and burn every tree in sight for fuel to stay warm through the first winter that comes after a ban on fossil fuels.
In short, no matter what we do the sea will likely keep rising. This is because it has been rising fairly steadily for centuries and our energy policies are unlikely to change this. We will have to deal with this one way or another.
You really never get tired of this do you? Both solar and wind have a LCOE that is half to a third that of nuclear energy and hydro is a very limited option in places where the terrain makes it a non starter. You are talking about going all out for the most expensive possible option, nuclear energy, and jacking up entire cities in massive engineering projects. On top of that you have spoken favourably of natural gas as an option while claiming solar and wind power produce massive CO2 footprints even though a simple google search reveals that the carbon footprint of solar and wind is even lower than that of nuclear with a lower LCOE. If you really have numbers to back up your claim that Solar is way more expensive than Nuclear with a much greater CO2 footprint than anything else on the market then show us the numbers. Even Solar with a carbon footprint ~45 (g CO2/kWhe) still beats the tar out of Combined Cycle Natural Gas at 469 (g CO2/kWhe) and POTUS's 'clean' Coal at 1001 (g CO2/kWhe). And both wind and solar beat the stuffing out of Nuclear with LCOE's of 73.7 $/KWh and 55.8 $/KWh vs. 96.2 $/KWh for even advanced nuclear. On top of that these facilities are also cheaper to build than nuclear facilities, the capital costs per kWh in 2019 are $1600/kW for onshore wind, $1060/kW for utility scale solar and $6000/kW for advanced nuclear.
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Gee, what to do about floods? How about move to Colorado high ground? Or is that too easy?
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You're also forgetting hurricanes.
How'd that work out for New Orleans during Katrina?
Re: Some Context (Score:4, Insightful)
You are arguing with a moron. It's pointless. These people like to feel smarter than all these "idiots" they imagine running around scared of something that they are too smart to be scared of.
You can certainly debate whether it's going to end all life on the planet in 10 years (it's not) or whether it's going to be an increasingly catastrophic issue over the next 100 years (it is), but most climate deniers are just dreary, contrarian cheesedicks whose main argument seems to be sarcastic incredulity (witness above chain of these dipshits tripping over each other to mock it using teenage level sarcasm).
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It was said, however, that we have 12 years to reverse course or we will be facing climate catastrophe in the long run.
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Given what goes on in Florida, we're better off without that state.
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If your doctor says, "You have cancer." (Score:5, Insightful)
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You mean the explosion where humans weren't around? The one we never adapted to because we weren't there? The one we never ever tried raising crops in?
Re: Some Context (Score:5, Insightful)
True. There is no threat to the planet, it has been through way, way worse.
As long as human survival is not a key element of concern, there isn't really much to worry about.
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And the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDDC) [thegwpf.com] in 2015.
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And, for that matter, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre [abc.net.au] And the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDDC) [thegwpf.com] in 2015.
Now elaborate on that. What is your position - that increased snowfall invalidates radiative forcing?
In the northeast of the US, there are places like Boston that are getting a lot more snow. I think it is something like 17 inches more per year over average these days.
This doesn't mean that radiative forcing doesn't exist, it means that the so called "snow belt" is moving northward.
The Antarctic can easily end up with more precipitation. All it takes is more humid air. Which can be provided by more ev
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The first of the links you gave is an 11 year old paper in a non-peer-reviewed venue. That's fine, but science consists of lots of measurements by multiple different scientific teams. The particular data you show is ice mass estimated from elevation; you need to make some assumptions to turn altimetry into ice mass (most notably, snow is lower density than ice, so you need to guess how much of the elevation you measure is snow cover or ice cover.) More recent and better measurements show that no, in fact,
Re: Some Context (Score:4, Informative)
Deniers and skeptics [Re: Some Context] (Score:3)
"Skeptics" would be people who want to see evidence before making up their minds.
They are very different things. However, far too many deniers pretend that they are skeptics. You can tell that they aren't when you notice that they uncritically believe any purported evidence that supports their pre-determined denial-- they aren't skeptical at all.
I would have little problem with skeptics exc
Re:That's pretty funny (Score:5, Informative)
Nice strategy there asshole.
1. Invent position that nobody actually holds
2. Attack it aggressively
3. Act smug for slaying an army of straw men
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That's pretty much the playbook of these denier douchebags. They are cardboard cutouts of one another. "Oh, tut tut tut. AGW tut tut. Oh, look, it's snowing I guess we'll all die tomorrow from AGW tut tut tut! OMG, AOC says the weather in NYC will be 150 degrees in a week, tut tut tut!".
I mean can you imagine how douchily creepy these mugs must look as they leer at the screen tut-tutting over their bon mots mocking those dumb people who believe in AGW (tut tut).
Re:That's pretty funny (Score:4, Insightful)
You should probably watch the movie[wattsupwiththat]
Eh I'm not doing your research for you.
Watts up with that is a denialist website and has no credibility. A link to there is no better than saying "I heard a bloke down the pub say". If you'd said that I'd also ask for you do do the research and post a link.
If I were to go there I'd then have to go and actually research the points to see if they were remotely correct, which sounds like a lot of work and since it's a point you're trying to make to me, I kind of figure that's your job.
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I thought this was going to be good. That surely it will be a well sourced article indicting the scientific community and how they've misused AGW to pad their own pockets and ensure job security.
Instead I got a video with some poppy music that speaks solely of news article HEADLINES. And then uses those headlines to dismiss all claims about AGW.
Colour me less than impressed. I was really hoping we finally had proof that AGW was just a hoax and that Australia wasn't currently experiencing the worst bushfires
I will have seaside property very soon (Score:2)
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As for all those pore bastards at lower elevations than me, they should have planned ahead!
All those people who have elevation 67cm lower than you?
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well yea. actually it's not like that at all as long as you would be somewhere near seaside on a hill you can have lots of leeway in regards of the water rising and still maintaining seaside property.
really the rising water worst case scenarios are really not that bad - missippi area is largely fked of course - it's the other possible weather effects from it that could be bad.
globally looking at a map level even rising the water 30 meters is really not so bad. 67 centimeters affects most places very little
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Yeah, but be aware that the map is deceptive. Canada is a lot smaller than it looks on the map, because of distortion as a sphere is projected onto a plane.
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well the whole starting value for that particular map is deceptive as f. siberia and canada are still big af though. the interesting thing would be to model what would happen with rainfall patterns in regards of sahara if parts of it got submerged. thats a large swath of land that we can't farm now.
anyhow if there's one thing thats pissing me off about the global warming/water rising alarmist folk is that .. very few of them seem to be making models and/or preparing for it. just saying that it's going t
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what if instead we actually started making some plans for if water rises 30 meters ?
It's not going to rise 30 meters. It's going to rise 67 centimeters (according to the summary).
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venice was never meant to be a permament large city too. it's fked but it was always fked. it's just a temporary refuge from the hordes.
As they say, Venice has been dying for 800 years.
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That's basically my exit strategy. I'm 45, by the time the shit hits the fan, I'll probably be out of here.
There's a saying in German, "Nach mir die Sintflut". Basically it means "devil may care", literally it translates to "after me (may) the deluge (be)". It is literally what our ancient politicians are thinking.
Gotta fix objective reality erosion first. (Score:5, Insightful)
Science used to have a role in society.
There used to be entire branches of our government directly meeting with major scientist groups - not to investigate and punish them for their actions - but to walk through the results of meta-analysis and basic scientific literacy topics on major issues of the day.
Presidential and congressional advisory panels, places were anything not backed by actual science would be pushed away in favor of repeatable evidence and scientifically backed methods.
They certainly weren't perfect - but since the 1990's even what little we had have been systematically eliminated.
More than anything else, what we're really having is an erosion of basic objective reality, in favor of political realities.
Even basic rational skeptical groups have shrunk back in popular culture - basically gone even on Youtube.
So yeah - a little thing like the fundamental makeup of our large-scale climate systems changing on an accelerating basis is kind of going under the radar.
To be fair - this is mostly the power of the Baby Boomers. News serves both their interests, and more importantly their lack of interests more than anything else. There's no malice - but a huge percentage of living humans have just given up caring about the concerns of the living - and kind of retreated into a cocoon of facebook and Fox news.
Humanity waking up from that is going to be a very strange thing. Such a strange waste of time we have to live with in the meantime.
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Science used to have a role in society.
It still does, but it's not going to require some international science board to solve this problem. This is a local problem.
These cities and settlements along the shores know that storms can come, and with it flood waters. These cities plan engineering projects decades in advance with plenty of margin for error to manage the flooding that comes with the storms. Smaller settlements along the sea may simply have to move to higher ground if they don't have the capacity to build seawalls and such.
All we are
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may simply have to move to higher ground if they don't have the capacity to build seawalls and such.
Like Fukushima. Gee I wish they built a seawall.
Okay Nooker (Score:2)
Like Fukushima. Gee I wish they built a seawall.
They would not have needed a seawall had they not dug in so deep in preparing the site.
Okay Nooker.
If you remember Ryu on streetfighter Nooooker, Noooooker just keeps popping into my head whenever you comment now. I'm trying to write a comment to answer your points but I just can stop laughing at how ridiculous your "Okay Doomer" line is. I get it now that you're coming from a good place and you want to look after everyone but are too embarrassed to admit you've been deceived. I gotta say, I think you jumped the shark today!!!
There was a time when you would have never considered wind or
The actual report conclusions (Score:3, Informative)
Conclusions from the actual report. Thank goodness The Guardian writers are experts at reducing complex, nuanced information into a scary headline.
Conclusions
We combine 26 satellite estimates of ice sheet mass balance and assess 10 models of ice sheet surface mass balance and 6 models of glacial isostatic adjustment, to show that the Greenland Ice Sheet lost 3800 ± 339Gt of ice between 1992 and 2018. During the common period 2005 to 2015, the spread of mass balance estimates derived from satellite altimetry, gravimetry, and the input-output method is 24 Gt/yr, or 10% of the estimated rate of imbalance. The rate of ice loss has generally increased over time, rising from 18 ± 28 Gt/yr between 1992 to 1997, peaking at 270 ± 27 Gt/yr between 2007 and 2012, and reducing to 239 ± 20 Gt/yr between 2012 and 2017. Just over half (1971 ± 555 Gt, or 52%) of the ice losses are due to reduced surface mass balance (mostly meltwater runoff) associated with changing atmospheric conditions [13,14], and these changes have also driven the shorter-term temporal variability in ice sheet mass balance. Despite variations in the imbalance of individual glaciers [4,5,33], ice losses due to increasing discharge from the ice sheet as a whole have risen steadily from 41 ± 37 Gt/yr in the 1990’s to 87 ± 25 Gt/yr since then, and account for just under half of all losses (48%) over the survey period.
Our assessment shows that estimates of Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance derived from satellite altimetry, gravimetry, and the input output method agree to within 20 Gt/yr, that model estimates of surface mass balance agree to within 40 Gt/yr, and that model estimates of glacial isostatic adjustment agree to within 20 Gt/yr. These differences represent a small fraction (13%) of the Greenland Ice Sheet
mass imbalance and are comparable to its estimated uncertainty (13 Gt/yr). Nevertheless, there is still departure among models of
glacial isostatic adjustment in northern Greenland. Spatial resolution is a key factor in the degree to which models of surface mass balance
can represent ablation and precipitation at local scales, and estimates of ice sheet mass balance determined from satellite altimetry and the
input-output method continue to be positively and negatively biased, respectively, compared to those based on satellite gravimetry (albeit
by small amounts). More satellite estimates of ice sheet mass balance at the start (1990’s) and end (2010’s) of our record would help to reduce
the dependence on fewer data during those periods; although new missions [49,50] will no doubt address the latter, further analysis of historical
satellite data is required to address the former.
Clathrate gun hypothesis (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Bye all.............
This is starting to sound like "Farm Aid" (Score:2)
Totally useless numbers (Score:2)
Greenland has lost 3.8 trillion tons of ice since 1992
This number means absolutely nothing to the layman. I'd like to know what percentage of Greenland ice does it constitute - 1%, 0.1%, 0.0001%? It is like saying that a tree produces 2 cubic meters of oxygen without specifying the time period.
Warming doubles every few years in the press relea (Score:3)
With a basic understanding of exponentials, one could immediately spot the panic narrative the press is producing here. No development can double, quadruple, septuple its growth rate that often.
If someone had invested 1 (one) dollar around Jesus birthday at 1% interest rate, it would have increased to about 525 million dollars by now. For a 5% interest rate, it would be around 4,089,596,209,829,250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 Dollars by now, give or take a few billion in the digits that my current calculator cannot display.
That is a 1% or 5% increase of something per year over 2000 years. Despite these immense numbers, it's a *constant* growth rate. An accelerating growth rate, no matter how slowly it'd be accelerating, would break the limits of any system within a few iterations, no matter how large the system was.
To understand the effect of an "accelerating growth rate", even if the increase in yearly growth is absolutely minuscule, the same example: 1 dollar invested in the year 1 CE, at 1% interest rate, with the interest rate itself rising by a measly 1% per year, so 1% interest in the first year, 1,01% in the second year, 1,0201% in the third and so forth. Not "doubling" or "septupling" the growth rate as the press claims the warming or ice loss is, but a meager 1% growth rate INCREASE per year. So for 1 dollar invested into such a scheme at year 1 CE, the accumulated capital would be off the charts and outside of excel after year 796, leaving the charts at 2,97*10^307, a few quadrillion dollars per atom in the observable universe, give or take.
So nothing in the world can sustain an accelerating growth rate. Ever. Anyone who claims an accelerating growth rate for anything will be proven right or a liar within a few cycles of their predictions. NOTHING at all can ever double their growth rate regularly. Not bacterial colonies under ideal conditions, not nuclear fission events and not nuclear fusion either and not the expansion of the universe, either. Anyone who claims doubling growth rates of anything is lying.
If "ice loss rate" really was septupling over a few years, there wouldn't be any ice left in the entirety of the solar system by next month.
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With a basic understanding of exponentials, one could immediately spot the panic narrative the press is producing here. No development can double, quadruple, septuple its growth rate that often.
A landslide can, for a short period. Nobody is claiming it can go on forever. The claim is that it can go on long enough to fuck us up good.
If someone had invested 1 (one) dollar around Jesus birthday at 1% interest rate, it would
...be irrelevant to a discussion on climate change.
nothing in the world can sustain an accelerating growth rate. Ever.
Right, there's a limit. And that limit is when all the ice melts, and the sea level rises enough to make feeding the population improbable.
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It is to the hundreds of thousands of people that are flooded out of their homes, you selfish little shit.
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You mean the coastal regions in Denmark will end up below sea level? *GASP*! We must do *something* -now-! I know! Let's implement a single global government run by.. uhm..hmm.. who should run the world... oh! I know! The socialists! No one else is qualified. After all, no one else has the experience at mass murder required to keep the global population down and everyone in sufficient poverty to prevent progress. Yay socialism!
You know what, you've made me curious. Nobody was discussing socialism but then you brought it up. I can see from this post that you hate socialism. If a person as stupid and narrow minded as you hates socialism then maybe it's an interesting thing to find out about. Socialism is the thing that happened in Sweden and allowed them to have the highest standards of living in the world after the war. Right?
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The world you live in must be wonderful. Simple, easy to grasp answers to complex problems, an easy, fixed concept of the enemy and someone to blame for everything.
Sadly, I prefer my reality to make sense.
Re: So adorable (Score:2)
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You need to consider that the projections have consistently underestimates the sea level rise.
OTOH, if Greenland melts, the sea level will decrease in the North Atlantic, because the Greenland ice sheets will no longer be gravitationally attracting the water. Of course, Antarctica melting would have the opposite effect.
P.S.: Greenland is important, but not compared to Antarctica. Which seems to be shedding an increasing amount of sea ice. It would be interesting to know what factors they included in tha
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OK, I read the linked stories. One of them doesn't justify that "67 cm". It claims "26-82cm" but it doesn't justify that, either. The other claims "67 cm", but it's not clear what that is based on. It's my guess that it's based on an old IPCC report that is already known to have understated the melting, but that *is* just a guess.
FWIW, the IPCC has a history of refusing to consider extreme projections, apparently in the interest of political acceptability. Some of the rejected extreme projections have
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UN reports are written by consensus, and it is challenging to keep expertise and politics separate. In subject matters where some states are confronted with facts that go against their perceived national interest (meaning by that the wealth, power and worldview of their ruling class), that can mean a lot of horse trading over every word and every comma. Less cynically, it is also true that once adopted, the consensus report belongs, through the UN, to every state that participated in it. So it's not just a
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98% of Predictive Analytics Experts voted to deny the existence of gravity. The ball is in your court, Scientists!
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How do we know it's a bad thing?
Because the rest of the world might not be as happy as the Greenlanders about that.
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It was? When?
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It was? When?
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA—As the Arctic warms, Greenland’s fringe of glaciers is thinning and melting—but the future of the Greenland ice sheet remains a giant question mark. Until recently, that was also true of the ice sheet’s past: Scientists have long debated whether it might have shrunk away to nothing during Earth’s warmest periods. Now, a new study suggests that Greenland was entirely ice free at some point in the last 1.25 million years.
https://www.sciencemag.org/new... [sciencemag.org]
Re:Okay Doomer. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's ironic you try to make "Ok Doomer" a thing, because OK Boomer originated in response to an out of touch Boomer trying to shut down a younger person addressing the urgency of the environmental crisis we are all facing. And we are sick of letting those who won't live to see the broken world continue to break OUR future.
Your comment is a troll - and the fact that it's currently marked insightful only shows how awful slashdot currently is. What a deep shame. No one needs to meet your ridiculous criteria for taking facts seriously. What a farce. Go clutch your gun and whine about young people while we fix what you broke.
OK Doomer (Score:2, Insightful)
Comments like yours are what are wrong with Slashdot. It doesn't really matter whether your utter evidence free nonsense is trolling or in earnest - it's falsehood piled on top of falsehood. It might as well be hosted on CNN.
The climate is changing, as it always has, as it always will. Rather than breathe a sigh of relief we may have staved off the next ice age by a few hundred years, you seek to panic the world because of a dubious claim that a slightly warmer Earth is overall harmful in some way...
Your
Re: OK Doomer (Score:3, Insightful)
Explain the ice hockey kink of the last 100 years in this image: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/e... [xkcd.com]
Your move.
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Explain your plan on what to do about it?
I've conceded the point on there being global warming from CO2 emissions long ago. I did this because whether it is true or not we will need replacements for fossils fuels as they become more difficult to obtain, and therefore the costs will rise. There has been global warming. Human activity is a likely cause for some portion of it. This global warming is quite likely bad for us. Therefore we will need energy that is affordable, safe, emits little or no CO2, is
Re: OK Nuker (Score:2)
That is far more productive than being another Doomer talking about how fucked we would be if we don't do anything.
Working through your posts are like a study in PsyOps.
Re: OK Doomer (Score:3)
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Explain your plan on what to do about it?
Well done, in a thread about global warming, you have made the stupidest post of the day. Congratulations that's actually an achievement.
Superkendall is total moron and completely wrong. The OP is correct in that claim whether or not he has a plan to fix humanity.
I've conceded the point on there being global warming from CO2 emissions long ago.
Oh you conceded to reality? Well done, have a cookie!
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The climate is changing (at a rate that's threatening and surprising
Not really
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Except you didn't address this:
If they were serious about this problem of global warming, and listened to the scientists and engineers on solutions, they would not be asking for money. What they would be asking these nations producing the CO2 to do is spend this money on reducing their CO2 output. How would they reduce this CO2 output? Onshore windmills, hydroelectric dams, geothermal, and nuclear fission.
It's reasonable to ask why the Doomers are so focused on name calling and blame, and not on solutions. Real solutions, not "other people should live stone age lives while I buy iStuff and Nintendos".
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Sure, it won't cost us anything .... except the cleanup and long term loss of land due to the inevitable accident when you let people build their own nukes without appropriate controls and oversight.
B..U..L..L.
Okay Nuker (Score:2)
Now you can have a label too my friend!
Okay Nooker (Score:2)
Thanks for pointing that out.
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While this post traffics in the same braindead conspiracy theory that's at the heart of climate denialism, there is some truth to it, in that there are very few people who both want to address the climate emergency and understand what addressing it effectively would mean. Probably 95% of people eirher want to address it but are uninformed, misinformed or disinformed about how to do so (and if they weren't then their position might change), or they're denialists who are disinformed beyond repair or part of a
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Oh, fuck off. The models have been largely accurate for decades. Climate scientists have consistently painted a rosier picture out of fear that they'll be labelled "alarmists" by fossil fuel industry shills and trolls.
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Pedulla57 said 'Global Warming' didn't work, so it became 'Climate Change'. Now it's 'Climate Emergency'?
Those are three different things.
NASA says
"Global warming refers to surface temperature increases, while climate change includes global warming and everything else that increasing greenhouse gas amounts will affect."
https://pmm.nasa.gov/education/articles/whats-name-global-warming-vs-climate-change [nasa.gov]
As for 'Climate Emergency', here there is a very real disagreement as to what constitutes fact. Many have been led to believe there's a political agenda espousing fake news from those with opposing views. A blatantly outrageous example is Patrick Albert Moore, a very rich Canadian industry consultant, once president of Greenpeace Canada, and now considered an environmental 'turncoat'. Moore asserts that, rather than potentially destroying every living thing on the earth, inc