Journey To the 'Doomsday Glacier' (bbc.com) 97
For the first time a hole has been hot-water drilled through Thwaites Glacier to access the sea water below. Where is the water from and why is it melting the glacier so vigorously? From a report: The images are murky at first. Sediment sweeps past the camera as Icefin, a bright yellow remotely operated robot submarine, moves tentatively forward under the ice. Then the waters begin to clear. Icefin is under almost half a mile (600m) of ice, at the front of one the fastest-changing large glaciers in the world. Suddenly a shadow looms above, an overhanging cliff of dirt-encrusted ice. It doesn't look like much, but this is a unique image -- the first ever pictures from a frontier that is changing our world. Icefin has reached the point at which the warm ocean water meets the wall of ice at the front of the mighty Thwaites glacier -- the point where this vast body of ice begins to melt.
Glaciologists have described Thwaites as the "most important" glacier in the world, the "riskiest" glacier, even the "doomsday" glacier. It is massive -- roughly the size of Britain. It already accounts for 4% of world sea level rise each year -- a huge figure for a single glacier -- and satellite data show that it is melting increasingly rapidly. There is enough water locked up in it to raise world sea level by more than half a metre. And Thwaites sits like a keystone right in the centre of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet -- a vast basin of ice that contains more than 3m of additional potential sea level rise. Yet, until this year, no-one has attempted a large-scale scientific survey on the glacier. The Icefin team, along with 40 or so other scientists, are part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a five-year, $50m joint UK-US effort to understand why it is changing so rapidly. The project represents the biggest and most complex scientific field programme in Antarctic history.
Glaciologists have described Thwaites as the "most important" glacier in the world, the "riskiest" glacier, even the "doomsday" glacier. It is massive -- roughly the size of Britain. It already accounts for 4% of world sea level rise each year -- a huge figure for a single glacier -- and satellite data show that it is melting increasingly rapidly. There is enough water locked up in it to raise world sea level by more than half a metre. And Thwaites sits like a keystone right in the centre of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet -- a vast basin of ice that contains more than 3m of additional potential sea level rise. Yet, until this year, no-one has attempted a large-scale scientific survey on the glacier. The Icefin team, along with 40 or so other scientists, are part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a five-year, $50m joint UK-US effort to understand why it is changing so rapidly. The project represents the biggest and most complex scientific field programme in Antarctic history.
Eat more bugs, live in a box, stop having kids (Score:2, Funny)
and pay more taxes, and the weather will be fixed.
-- Greta Thunberg
Re: As the late David Bowie sang... (Score:4, Interesting)
You can die in willful mass-genocidal ignorance, of course. It is your right as an individual.
Problem is: You're trying to take us with you. And you will see how we treat somebody who tries to murder us.
Yes. Murder. Willful. Deliberate. Systematic. Planned.
Re: As the late David Bowie sang... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: As the late David Bowie sang... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Correct. Wide-scale deforestation dates back at least to the age of sail, after the invention of cannon anyway. We built lots of ships, and then sent them out into the ocean and sank them.
However, emissions accelerated manyfold during the industrial revolution, when coal and oil use really took off. And that genie can never really be put back in that bottle again.
Welcome to the age of the Great Filter.
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I predict life will continue to get better and better regardless, but that's not a popular opinion.
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In either case, isn't it already getting worse?
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Increasing chilling effects, panopticon, oligarchy, wealth concentration, and the fallout of past industri-corp neglect has begun to unearth and roost.
But we have lots more porn and cat gifs, so there's that.
Re: As the late David Bowie sang... (Score:2)
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Famine aren't common anymore,
There's millions of hungry people
The WFP 2020 Global Hotspots Report highlights grave challenges in sub-Saharan Africa over the next six months with Zimbabwe, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central Sahel region standing out when it comes to the needs of hungry children, women and men.
, and not caused by adverse weather.
Well, except in Zimbabwe: In 2020, more than 7.7 million people - half the population - will face food insecurity at the peak of the lean season, as poor rains and erratic weather patterns have a nega [wfp.org]
Re: As the late David Bowie sang... (Score:2)
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Those countries don't have the civilization the other 180+ countries do. That's my point.
Pardon me.
I mistook your point for being that famines weren't common anymore. And that they weren't caused by weather.
By point is that they are common. The world has several right now that are caused by, or at least exacerbated by, weather.
However, you are mistaken that the only source of energy is fossil fuels. There are much better ones now, that don't cause famines.
Re: As the late David Bowie sang... (Score:2)
The earth, will continue to do what the earth does
Not a very strong argument for ignoring what we do, but bravo for trying to play devil's advocate. You work with what you've got, right??
(Fucking idiot.)
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Re: As the late David Bowie sang... (Score:5, Insightful)
Carbon from the earth itself. It just has that much and won't be sequestered forever.
Maybe, maybe not... I haven't heard of anyone actually suggesting eternal sequestering, but I have heard of efforts to match carbon-releasing processes to sequestering processes, so the active amount is controllable.
Are we speeding it up? Of course. But in that process we have developed a remarkable and literate scientific civilization.
...Which will mean approximately nothing without a sustainable ecology. When our society collapses, so does our knowledge.
Will New Orleans end up underwater? Probably. So will many places. We can adapt to that, we will.
It's not just cities being submerged that is problematic. It's the collapse of the corn industry due to rain, so we'll have to find a new industrial-scale source of starch for our chemical needs. It's the infrastructure expense as we have to adapt our inland cities to accommodate the billions of displaced people from the flooded coasts. It's the disaster relief efforts as storms become more energetic. It's the economic calamity as major shipping ports shut down and new ones have to be built, rerouting entire regions of supply chains.
Sure, we can adapt to that... but it's going to be a long, hard, and expensive road to travel. There will be tremendous amounts of human suffering, not lust in hardship and death for those who can't adapt, but in extra work for those that have to carry the bulk of the "adapting" load.
We will reach for the stars, and thanks to our civilization, never have they been closer to our grasp. We will become an interstellar species, and venture out into the heavens. The earth, will continue to do what the earth does, until the sun takes her.
A poignant thought, but far outside our grasp at the moment. There is no other planet in the solar system that we can colonize with current technology, and we definitely don't have the technology to survive as an "interstellar species". The most we can do right now is to fling ourselves off of this planet, and promptly (within a generation or two) die.
We will never come into balance with the earth because the earth was never in balance to begin with. Every era has brought change to the earth, and that won't stop. ... We aren't stupid enough to try is change the earth to keep it constant to the moment of our awakening.
No, we aren't stupid, and that's not the point. Those of us who fight climate change aren't trying to restore any perfect "balance with the earth", or stop the change the next era will bring. We're trying to keep this era, with breathable air and a functioning 4000-year-old society, going for as long as we can. Yes, someday the era will end, and New Orleans will sink, and we'll have to seek refuge among the stars... but our goal is to hold that off as long as possible, and to avoid the high cost of adapting to such catastrophe, as our "literate scientific civilization" continues to advance our technology. If we're successful, then by the time the Florida becomes a reef, we'll already have mature technology allowing our society to easily adapt to the new life.
We aren't hiding in a box. We're facing our species' ongoing battle with death, and we plan to cheat.
Re: As the late David Bowie sang... (Score:1)
Yes, it will end up underwater (Score:2)
> Will New Orleans end up underwater?
Yes, it will.
https://cdn.ricochet.com/wp-co... [ricochet.com]
New Orleans will get drenched about every hundred years.
So will Houston. I pray we have the right leadership when it happens.
http://legacy.decaturdaily.com... [decaturdaily.com]
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We're in a glacial period
BUT we aborted the cooling with OUR burning.
The sun is NOT hotter enough to account for the change
Fix it or die, just that simple.
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The last line is the lie in all this.
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So there is already death,
With respect to humans, 20 years ago, the estimated human deaths from the anthropogenic part of climate change was 160,000 for the year [umich.edu]. So we're already dying from it too.
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(2) Amelioration is better for biodiversity and ocean productivity.
(3) Without our input, carbon wouldn't have melted the ice for a couple or few million years at least. Humans wouldn't be this species on that time scale.
(4) The objective isn't to keep it constant. It is to slow down the warming sufficiently that we get to keep some oceanic productivity, put less extinction pressure on ecosystems, and keep up food security as long as we can.
The moment of
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As a child, were you disciplined with a windmill?
Global Warming Auschwitz? (Score:1)
You can die in willful mass-genocidal ignorance, of course. It is your right as an individual.
Problem is: You're trying to take us with you. And you will see how we treat somebody who tries to murder us.
Yes. Murder. Willful. Deliberate. Systematic. Planned.
I can also mock people that scream The sky is falling! and act like hysterical little girls. Like, you know, saying there's a Global Warming Final Solution going on.
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I can also mock people that scream The sky is falling!
It sort of is. [womensagenda.com.au]
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You can die in willful mass-genocidal ignorance, of course. It is your right as an individual.
Problem is: You're trying to take us with you. And you will see how we treat somebody who tries to murder us.
Yes. Murder. Willful. Deliberate. Systematic. Planned.
Exaggeration only makes you sound like a loon. The climate scientists were always fine. It was nutjobs posting about the end of the world that gave the anti-science folks all the ammunition they needed.
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(or as a related joke goes, "it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end")
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It is a major problem at 1.5 metres more so for the USA than any other country, the entire US east coast in under threat.
What is interesting is why it seems to sudden. You can see what happened, as the glacier melted from underneath, it released a whole lot of freshwater which floated to the surface and froze much more readily than sea water, leaving all looking normal for quite some time and then, the threshold was, crossed. Now the freshwater from the glacier melt does not freeze as readily, simply the w
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Great. There's a doomsday clock, doomsday song, doomsday button(s), doomsday comic book character and now a doomsday glacier.
I want a doomsday fluffy bunny. Why can't we ever have a nice doomsday item? Everything has become so negative.
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How dare you!
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Kids these days, sheesh . . .
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Oh, and MUCH less inherited wealth both transferred and positional
"50m joint UK-US effort to understand (Score:3)
why it is changing so rapidly"
Easy answer, the weather is hotter.
Now, give my 50m$
I can tell you why, right now! (Score:2)
Two words: Homo "sapiens"
Not using contraception, is mass-genocide. And will be punished with extinction.
Re:I can tell you why, right now! (Score:5, Funny)
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DNA that doesn't try to replicate will quickly find itself replaced by DNA that does or is more successful at it. It's only you that's going extinct. Now please have the grace and dignity to do so without carrying on so loudly.
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Translation:
"I believe the Earth can support infinite people because God tells me so right there in the Bible. God also says we can do whatever we want to do because he loves us more than everyone else. We're just going to keep doing what we're doing. Everything is fine."
Re: I can tell you why, right now! (Score:3, Insightful)
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Oh, did you actually want to look at the difficulties of overpopulation, birth rates, and income disparity? Or pollution? Or environmental changes? I sort of assumed based off your "antinatalism ilk" comment that you weren't really interested in having a debate about actual science. So, Mr or Ms "Antinatalism ilk" what's your confusion about the negative consequences of a continuously growing global population on our environment, infrastructure, natural resources, and health?
Should we start with something b
Re: I can tell you why, right now! (Score:2)
Have a nice day.
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Why would I have started out that way with someone, I'll grant that it wasn't you...my bad, who opened their discussion by ranting about antinatalism? You really think that person was looking to have any kind of rational argument?
You're right, I brought up several topics that you didn't mention. You didn't express much of an argument yourself, you just appear to be trying to defend the original "antinatalism" post as if it has some kind of valid point. Or you're just being scrappy on the internet.
Let's rese
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The hardest choices require the strongest wills.
Re: I can tell you why, right now! (Score:1)
And punishment? Who exactly is doing the punishment? God? The FSM? AOC? Punishment is something inflicted by one entity upon another for bad behavior. Perhaps you meant to say "consequences" which does not require an outside actor?
More likely, I suspect you're just ranting and virtue signaling, as usual, trying to karma whore with zero
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By mass genocide he means untargeted, planet-wide, and likely a very large percentage, >99%, of the total human race.
By punishment he means the same as when touching a hotplate it burns you.
Re: I can tell you why, right now! (Score:1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] says pretty clearly it means things like "extinction". Perhaps you'd like to clarify?
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Ie: A mass extinction event that we knowingly and willing forced onto the planet.
Re: I can tell you why, right now! (Score:2)
Mass genocide? Doesn't simple "genocide" sufficiently cover the concept? Why is it "mass genocide"?
I like your way of acknowledging that you don't have anything relevant to contribute.
Re: I can tell you why, right now! (Score:1)
Have a nice day.
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A mass genocide would kill off more than one genotype.
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Two words: Homo "sapiens"
Not using contraception, is mass-genocide. And will be punished with extinction.
Your parents should have done a better job with contraception.
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Either way, the glacier's demise will be bad news. This is regardless of the cause, and so understanding it is useful.
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No, they figured out the glaciers demise is increasing. You see, here in the science world, math and statistics really matter in directing how civilization and the Earth's other flora and fauna can cope.
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No, they figured out the glaciers demise is increasing. You see, here in the science world, math and statistics really matter in directing how civilization and the Earth's other flora and fauna can cope.
Yes and do tell why is it increasing? Because of man made climate change? No. Because of the shape of the ocean floor exposing an ever larger surface area of ice to warm ocean water. It's increasing because of geometry and nothing else, Mr. Scientist.
Re: Liberal hoax (Score:1)
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Seems to me you took the bait, it's not irrational to hate people like you, and no one has taught anyone "believe" as such.
Re: Liberal hoax (Score:1)
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Data (Score:5, Interesting)
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Page after page describing the view, the scale and the cups of tea. Zero actual data. No science. Only opinions. Only 'could', 'might' and 'chance'.
What a waste of time.
If only it happened in DC - then we could call it an impeachment.
Skimming the article (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the projects wasn't completed due to weather (drilling from the top). The one in the summary did which found multiple processes are at play, fresh water circulates up, drawing warm salt from underneath in convection, melting the ice faster from beneath, undermining its support.
The overall surface area is nearly the size of Great Britain (192,000 sq. km vs. 209,331). However the west side of Antartica has thicker ice than the east side, over two miles thick.
So its expected to increase ocean levels about 3 meters, making current high tide levels as lows, and making high tides about 9-10' higher than they currently are.
Re:Skimming the article (Score:4, Interesting)
"man is too insignificant"
Erm, that's been proven to not be the case, as the meaning of this "climate change" really is the man made aspects of it, not the natural changes of the climate. Sure, the climate is always changing overall, but the sudden shift that came about from the industrial revolution, and extreme changes since have been proven to be outside natural trends. In fact the speed is beyond anything we have evidence of ever happening before in the history of the planet, aside from sudden catastrophes like meteor strikes and volcanic eruptions.
Vice-versa, the current climate changes demonstrate that billions of humans are quite significant, and overcame the natural occurrence of an entire planet.
As someone who will also gain beachfront property, it's not all it's cracked up to be, insurance companies have been pulling out of shoreline communities entirely, regardless of having property up on a hill miles from the shore, it's more expensive and fewer options.
The reality is not as pleasant as that fantasy.
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insurance companies have been pulling out of shoreline communities entirely
Lolwut?! Citation needed.
You need to consider, what economists call "revealed preference". Obama just spend $18 million on a house a foot above sea level, despite telling us that that same house will be underwater by, like, next spring...
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I didn't save the letter from my former insurance company, and my insurance agent was nonplussed as it's become a thing, just wrote up a new policy with a different company--it's the new norm as the changes impact us.
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insurance companies have been pulling out of shoreline communities entirely
Lolwut?! Citation needed.
You need to consider, what economists call "revealed preference". Obama just spend $18 million on a house a foot above sea level, despite telling us that that same house will be underwater by, like, next spring...
Well, $11.9 million (maybe the coastal location caused a price drop?) and there are some reports that the house is 10 feet above.
Economists also have a whole discipline "behaviour economics" exploring how people make "irrational" decisions that can contradict other decisions that they make. I am disappointing but not particularly surprised when people do this type of thing.
Ooh look, another one of those denialist trolls! (Score:2)
This one's taking the old "the climate's always changing" argument out for a walk.
They don't even change the wording. It's like an algorithm generates these posts.
A kind of artificial unintelligence.
*cough* so much straw... (Score:5, Insightful)
So while everyone is bickering about "changing something" to "combat climate change" - let me simply align priorities: Yes indeed, climate changes over time, and yes indeed, there is an increase in the feedback cycle due to atmospheric changes, and yes some of those atmospheric changes are from human industrial output. But overall, asking the population to "pretty please" just stop making that output is nae impossible. Really because we don't change quickly; we don't act with a single mind (which helps our adaptability); and because there are so many of us - we're expendable. Sadly, there will be mass migrations of starving & suffering humans and still industrial inertia will continue to fight the admittedly expensive alternatives. So it's not worth debating the physical models and observations, it will be a fascinating opportunity to manage herds of humans becoming hunter/gather tribes again.
For the next few centuries, a few major weather events and a slew of smaller floods will gently-at-first, then ever-more-strongly convince populations to "move away from there". The arguments over borders and immigration will be less about physical barriers and more about assimilation and education. Imagine all of Bangladesh walking over to Myanmar and creating havoc, cascading into other countries. This could eventually disrupt manufacturing centers for most of the rest of world, causing wild price spikes on the most random things. Not because of strife alone, but just because populations need time and effort to unify as a viable workforce.
Now imagine all of Southern Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana also moving. Economically, consumption models make a relatively sudden change - so that a relatively tiny town in Arkansas becomes a waypost, then a center for some labor, etc. This is a huge challenge to leadership to ensure towns rise, have adequate resources, civil institutions, training for workforces, and a market role. With massive unemployment due to a locale being unfeasible for transport or infrastructure, idle hands will come with opportunistic crime. Law enforcement and penal institutions will probably also grow in importance - and hopefully social services, but the US has not been balanced in those ratios for quite some time.
Just run the experiment using any economic model on the back of a napkin, we're in need of fast-deploying "town makers" to accept populations with near-zero capabilities and bootstrap. Go visit the experiments already running in the Middle East (where unemployment is at unbelievable numbers) - achieving what I'm describing is tremendously difficult, but ultimately required. The alternatives are not enjoyable, even for the affluent, since the many areas will hold a multitude of squabbling tribes, disrupting trade and destroying infrastructure under martial law. Child survival rates will go down, if only from lower access to modern healthcare and sanitation.
IE Climate Change is not about saving energy, it's about lifting people into productive roles, and convincing them it's necessary
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Where there's a will there's a way. If we decide to change we most certainly can.
There is many recent and historical examples. Reversing the ozone layer damage is one recent example. China limiting it's population is another. Transitioning into war production, for any war, over many eras, is many examples all on its own.
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"IE Climate Change is not about saving energy, it's about lifting people into productive roles, and convincing them it's necessary"
No, it's not. It's all about transferring wealth from the 1st world to the 3rd world, and giving China a free pass to build a 100 coal fired power plants.
https://www.nzz.ch/klimapoliti... [www.nzz.ch]
"But one has to say clearly: We de facto redistribute global wealth through climate policy." -- Ottmar Edenhofer, 2010, IPCC
Endenhofer is not the only one against capitalism at the IPCC.
h [sovereignnations.com]
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I barely understand this comment. The economic model doesn't really matter; trade need not be equitable. But it must happen - no society consumes only what it produces. Add-in luxury items and you either have a black market or a form of capitalism, since you'll need a trading currency to keep things efficient. Politically, democracy or authoritarianism doesn't change the societal effects of uninhabitable places. China can manipulate prices and pay wages into a pseudo market, but it cannot make the rain
Brrrr (Score:2)
It's time to get started... (Score:2)
Spock's fault (Score:2)
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Why do you think linking to a page on about the most biased source you can find will convince anyone? All you're doing is virtue-signalling to your echochamber.
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So, if it all melts ... (Score:2)