As Ice Melts, Arctic Ecosystem Confronts Emboldened Killer Whales (nytimes.com) 149
The hunting grounds are apparently widening for one of "nature's most effective predators" reports the New York Times, warning of "potentially significant consequences for animals up and down the food chain...."
"As sea ice has receded, killer whales — which are actually dolphins — are now venturing to parts of the sea that were once inaccessible, and spending more time in places they were once seen only sporadically," according to data presented by research scientist Brynn Kimber (who works in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Mammal Laboratory). Arctic sea ice has declined significantly in the four decades since satellite monitoring began. Roughly 75 percent of ice volume disappeared in the last 15 years alone, and the remaining ice is thinner and of poorer quality, said Amy Willoughby, a marine mammal biologist with NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center. The loss of ice coupled with warming waters and atmospheric temperatures has affected every level of the Arctic ecosystem. Large mammals like polar bears have struggled to navigate shrinking habitats, while the marine algae at the base of the Arctic food chain blooms sooner and more abundantly than ever before.
In recent years, scientists have noticed similar upheaval in the behavior of the region's marine mammals. Orca are feasting more often on bowhead whales. Scientists and Indigenous Arctic communities have noted a growing number of bowhead whale carcasses in the northeastern Chukchi and western Beaufort seas with signs of orca attack....
"Killer whales are really intelligent," said Cory Matthews, a research scientist with the Arctic region of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. "They consume really fast. If a new area opens up, they can get in there maybe within the next year and exploit a prey population that could be perhaps really slow to respond to those changes."
"As sea ice has receded, killer whales — which are actually dolphins — are now venturing to parts of the sea that were once inaccessible, and spending more time in places they were once seen only sporadically," according to data presented by research scientist Brynn Kimber (who works in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Mammal Laboratory). Arctic sea ice has declined significantly in the four decades since satellite monitoring began. Roughly 75 percent of ice volume disappeared in the last 15 years alone, and the remaining ice is thinner and of poorer quality, said Amy Willoughby, a marine mammal biologist with NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center. The loss of ice coupled with warming waters and atmospheric temperatures has affected every level of the Arctic ecosystem. Large mammals like polar bears have struggled to navigate shrinking habitats, while the marine algae at the base of the Arctic food chain blooms sooner and more abundantly than ever before.
In recent years, scientists have noticed similar upheaval in the behavior of the region's marine mammals. Orca are feasting more often on bowhead whales. Scientists and Indigenous Arctic communities have noted a growing number of bowhead whale carcasses in the northeastern Chukchi and western Beaufort seas with signs of orca attack....
"Killer whales are really intelligent," said Cory Matthews, a research scientist with the Arctic region of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. "They consume really fast. If a new area opens up, they can get in there maybe within the next year and exploit a prey population that could be perhaps really slow to respond to those changes."
News for nerds, finally? (Score:5, Funny)
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Tis the season of Prancer, Dancer, Dasher and Lasher... ahem... Laser...
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Re: News for nerds, finally? (Score:4, Funny)
Orcas got religion?
Re: News for nerds, finally? (Score:2)
Re: News for nerds, finally? (Score:5, Informative)
That being said, Orcas scare the shit out of me. They are smart and voracious hunters. They have so many ways of attacking, and can work out how to get their pray in the water.
If you've ever gone swimming with dolphins (there are various types you can swim with in the wild, but let's just concentrate on bottlenose), Orca's smaller cousins (who they eat) and gotten a close look, you will probably have noticed that they are extremely muscular and powerful. They completely and utterly outclass humans humans in the water. Heck, they completely outclass sharks in the water except for the not being able to breathe water natively part. They're extremely powerful predators, larger than bears or tigers, and yet people tend to feel completely safe jumping into the water with a random pod of wild dolphins. Because, for their own reasons they very rarely kill humans, and, on the rare occasion that they have actually killed humans with an intentional attack, it was probably just meant as a mild warning, but the dolphin probably didn't realize how fragile we are. While Orcas are basically the ogre versions of dolphins, they seem to have the same attitude as dolphins towards humans with no verified killings of humans by Orcas in the wild.
Why this is exactly is not entirely known. It could be argued that it's because we taste bad, but they kill for fun too, so that doesn't seem to be it. Maybe they think that our pathetic flailing in the water indicates that we're diseased so shouldn't be eaten or, more likely, our helplessness evokes a sense of sympathy. Maybe it's because we're just too much of a curiosity to them. Another possibility is that they're smart enough to recognize that we're actually a much bigger potential threat to them than they are to us even if an individual (or group) of humans in the water is basically helpless. If they recognize that we control those massive dangerous boats they see everywhere, that could be the case.
Anyway, the point is that Orcas are very, very dangerous animals. Probably the most dangerous predators on the planet. That's a difficult contest of course, because you have to leave humans out of it for the contest to be fair. A naked, unarmed human isn't, but with the right tools, nothing else can come close considering that "the right tools" can include vehicles, firearms, rocket propelled harpoons, etc. It's also difficult because you have to consider their environments. An orca in the water could certainly kill a bear, tiger or lion though. It could even kill a hippo or a Nile crocodile. On land might be a different story though. Of course, Orcas can do pretty well on land for at least a short time, so outside its environment would be tricky. Most of those other predators would still have to be pretty dumb to attack an Orca even on land since the orca could still crush or bite most of them in half. Hippos might be able to directly attack, but they're rarely predatory and probably wouldn't. Overall, I think the title for most dangerous known predator probably needs to go to Orcas.
So, incredibly dangerous and yet basically very, very safe for humans. So, on the one hand, I can see how they can be considered scary, but on the other hand, it's not actually a rational fear for a human.
Female orcas also undergo menopause (Score:3)
https://polarjournal.ch/en/202... [polarjournal.ch]
One needs to be wary of female orcas, especially females of middle age.
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One needs to be wary of female orcas, especially females of middle age.
Oh, certainly, but compared to, for example, reef sharks, box jellyfish, stonefish, etc. in the water and lions, tigers, bears (oh my!) hippos, etc. on land, it's probably a lot safer around Orcas.
Re: News for nerds, finally? (Score:5, Funny)
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I also neglected very angry Sea Bass.
Re: News for nerds, finally? (Score:2)
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There is a reason that Delphinidae looks so much like dolphin though. I mean, that's like refusing to watch Jurassic Park movies because their "Velociraptors" are obviously actually Deinonychus (based on size and snout shape). Ok, I admit, I almost didn't watch the Jurassic Park movies at the time for that very reason. The name Jurassic was also a huge turnoff to me given that Jurassic species were in the minority (I learned to accept it as a marketing thing within the world of the movie itself since "Mesoz
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I included them because while they're not obligate carnivores or strictly speaking, predators, the difference is academic to anything they chase down and kill. Which they most certainly will from time to time. Also, while they're primarily herbivorous, they can be opportunistically carnivorous, including of animals that they killed. There turn out to be a lot of primary herbivores that opportunistically eat meat, both scavenged and their own kills. Deer, for example, will both scavenge dead animals and snat
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You could have just used the term "most dangerous known large animal" instead of making Hippos honorary carnivores. I'm only nitpicking because your excellent post made strong science-based arguments so it should be held to higher scrutiny then ordinary or opinion based speech.
I included them as honorary predators rather than honorary carnivores. To be clear, I'm not the one making them carnivores, they're carnivorous by nature. I'm not sure if they should be classed as omnivores or not, but they definitely eat plants for the bulk of their diet, but they also definitely eat meat as well. So they're primarily herbivores who are opportunistically carnivorous. The question is about including them as predators. They lack some characteristics typically found in land predators, like fo
The simple fix (Score:2, Funny)
We can add a sign
"Kill the Killer Whales"
right over our
"Save the Whales"
signs.
I think most people don't realize how effective lawn signs can be in solving problems...
Re: News for nerds, finally? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Wait what,.. the liver is about a third of the sharks body weight...? Are they alcoholics? Wouldn't blame them, with those killer whales chasing them...
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They are smart and voracious hunters.
Except for the resident population in the Puget Sound. Who rely solely on a supply of Chinook salmon for their diet, which is also food for a transient population of sea lions. Who consume a good portion of that salmon population.
In the rest of the world, sea lions are prey for orcas. Except here, where they just sit around, looking helpless while their dinner gets eaten. If they'd pick off even a few sea lions, the rest of them would f* off and leave the salmon alone. And the orcas would get a bonus of so
"Nobody wants nukes!" just means "Problem solved!" (Score:2, Insightful)
If people are going to take CO2 emissions seriously then they will have to build nuclear fission power plants in large numbers. That's because nuclear power has the lowest CO2 emissions of any energy source we have available.
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/saf... [ourworldindata.org] (I'll get to the death rates listed on that source in a bit.)
More sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
But, as I'll often see people claim, "nuclear power is not safe!" Here's an article from 2016 that shows nuclear power to be the safes
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How predictable, within minutes of the story going up there is a copy/paste MacMann comment that gets a single up-vote within minutes of being posted. Every single time.
Nobody wants your nuclear shit, it's too expensive. If you want to spend your own tens of billions on it then go ahead, I'm not paying for your "solution" that won't work and would take too long even if it did.
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It's infinitely funny to me how far left "take everyone down to the same level, because we hate success" folks have so successfully pretended to be "anti-global warming" to date.
When they are directly and in many cases solely responsible for most nations not having CO2 per electricity generated of France in the rest of the Western World. Can't have cheap, abundant and almost CO2 emissions free electricity. That would make poor wealthy, or "stabilized" as Marxists phrase it. And that makes them counter-revol
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Can't have cheap, abundant and almost CO2 emissions free electricity.
That depends. Is it "too cheap to meter" yet? Because that was the original promise. Unleash the mighty power of the atom and get access to almost unlimited power. It turns out though, that practically extracting that power is a lot more costly than originally anticipated.
Re: "Nobody wants nukes!" just means "Problem solv (Score:2)
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I think you may have misread me slightly. I'm talking about all the pro-nuclear talking points of the past, before cold, hard reality set in. The old promise is that power would be too cheap to meter with nuclear fission. It turned out though, that while the operating costs are fairly low, they're real, and the construction costs are high and the full decommissioning costs are also high, but currently not really known. There's the fuel issue and the question of finite uranium resources (technically they nat
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The majority of people don't have any kind of significant locally sourced electricity. For most people, it comes from far away. A robust electrical grid seems to be very important, but I'm certainly all for local power generation. A diverse mix is fine as well. No need for a monoculture. Without some amazing new nuclear reactors (and I know there are all these amazing new designs coming, but they've been coming for decades) that can be built faster, then nuclear stands little chance of coming to dominance w
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I know, I know. We need to pretend that if it doesn't pay for itself with subsidies counted in in a decade, it's a really bad investment.
In real world on the other hand, we just see electricity prices in places like France, put them against prices in places like Denmark, and don't cherrypick only windy days for it... and we end up with reality that shows that nuclear is dirt cheap, while wind is so expensive, that you have to have specific subsidies for the poor for the new problem it creates. The problem c
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I know, I know. We need to pretend that if it doesn't pay for itself with subsidies counted in in a decade, it's a really bad investment.
Are you trying to have a laugh? In our real world, nuclear always makes use of subsidies counted in decades to get built. Nuclear proponents will hedge with statements like that nuclear power isn't subsidized "per unit of production". Basically weasel words meant for you to come away with the impression that they're actually not subsidized at all. The projects are so huge and complex and take so long to build, with massive cost overruns typical that it's hard for them to be built at all without government h
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France is a great example of why nuclear doesn't work. They went all in with it, tried their best to make it work, and then realized it had just turned into corporate welfare for the energy companies.
That's why France wants to move away from nuclear now, it's too expensive and never became self-funded, always reliant on taxpayer subsidy. French energy companies are trying to build new nuclear in other places, and all the projects are failing badly. Over budget, over time, and with eye-watering subsidies.
Fos
Re: "Nobody wants nukes!" just means "Problem solv (Score:2)
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and then realized it had just turned into corporate welfare for the energy companies.
It is not that easy, considering that the energy company is state owned.
That's why France wants to move away from nuclear now, it's too expensive and never became self-funded, always reliant on taxpayer subsidy. :D
Obviously, as it is state owned
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EDF is majority state owned, but not state run. It's not supposed to be state funded either, it's supposed to be a profit making venture.
The idea was that the French state would invest heavily in building nuclear power, and then EDF would take over and run them for profit. EDF was also supposed to export the technology and experience, again for profit.
What actually happened is that EDF never managed to get off the subsidies for the nuclear plants, and the projects in other countries all went sour and nearly
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It's not supposed to be state funded either, it's supposed to be a profit making venture.
I'm not sure about that.
When it was founded, basically all of Europes power production was state owned. And none was really supposed to make a profit.
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There was a big reorg some time back that was supposed to stop EDF being a drain on public finances, but right from the start the idea was to cover costs from sales.
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This is the far left nutjob that doesn't actually know anything, but simply parrots the talking points without having to ever having taken a cursory look at underlying data. For example:
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
This is in the same vein. The only problem France has with energy right now is that it does need to start life cycle upgrades, and its domestic green movement is hysterically anti nuclear for all the same reasons of being anti-capitalist revolutionaries. They're headed for the same problem th
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It's build nuclear power plants or see your economy tank.
Making the economy tank is the actual goal for far more people than you might appreciate.
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Isn't nuclear power expensive? No, it's cheaper than natural gas, offshore wind, and rooftop solar, by many sources:
Not only is nuclear power more expensive than utility solar and onshore wind. Your link has a helpful chart [wikipedia.org] to show solar and wind are getting cheaper and cheaper, while nuclear is getting more and more expensive.
Another one too. [wikimedia.org]
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I get it, we solved global warming. What is it that you really wanted me to see? That nuclear power costs more than coal? I already pointed out that nuclear power has the lowest CO2 emissions, least deaths per TWh, least demands for land/labor/material, is abundant, and reliable. The costs you cite only delay the inevitable use of nuclear fission. What is going on now without delay is solving global warming. In time nuclear power costs will come down. Or maybe not. Either way we price fossil fuels o
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I felt it important enough to tell you you were wrong.
Not only is nuclear power more expensive than utility solar and onshore wind. Your link has a helpful chart [wikipedia.org] to show solar and wind are getting cheaper and cheaper, while nuclear is getting more and more expensive. Another one too. [wikimedia.org]
It should have been quite easy to understand.
Not only is nuclear not the cheap solution you claimed. It's actually getting more expensive.
As the links (that were pretty pictures) showed.
I guess it is hard to get someone to understand something when their job is based on not understanding that thing.
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You say, "Nobody wants nukes!" My answer, "Problem solved!"
No mod points today, but I agree completely. If you can afford to be picky about solutions, then global warming is obviously not that big a problem. And since they have the perfect solution all figured out and nothing else will do anyway, I just ignore it completely.
Have at it, go ahead and save the world folks. I'll just continue on as normal.
Absolutely nobody is agains nuclear power. (Score:2)
However, there is a notable amount of people who did the math and must assess that nuclear fission as we know it isn't cost-effective. Or all that effective in general to begin with. This is the sole reason why Germany is decommissioning classic nuclear fission. It's not that they don't have the engineering capacity, they just did the math.
If you show me a way to turn radiation into current without hopping over the nefarious "heating up water and the environment and piping steam through dynamo turbines" bit
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This is the sole reason why Germany is decommissioning classic nuclear fission. It's not that they don't have the engineering capacity, they just did the math.
Has nothing to do with math.
The German population was fighting to get rid of the nukes for over 50 years. Finally we won.
That nukes are expensive is not the reason. We simply had to many near accidents in the nukes, and they are all placed at places were with modern knowledge/regulations no one ever would be allowed to build one anyway.
Re:"Nobody wants nukes!" just means "Problem solve (Score:5, Informative)
Gee man, don't confuse these poor sods with facts.
Well, these poor sods blew gaskets when I pointed to Dr. David MacKay talking about the fantasy of renewable energy providing the power we need in his last interview: https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
Which was gone over in greater detail in his TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/davi... [ted.com]
And even more detail in his book: http://www.withouthotair.com/ [withouthotair.com]
Apparently people think things changed with renewable energy so much, especially solar power, that this data is not relevant to today. It seems that in just 5 years solar power made great leaps in efficiency that Dr. MacKay pointing out an order of magnitude advantage for nuclear power isn't true any more.
Same for the data in this online book on the subject: http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co... [roadmaptonowhere.com]
Nuclear power has an order of magnitude advantage over every renewable energy source, sometimes two or three orders of magnitude, on many of the metrics we care about. Or at least did 5 years ago. I guess that gap must have closed. Sure would be nice to see someone link to a source on that. There will be people that claim they linked to this data before but I must have missed it. Even so I'm not the only one interested in this data, other people reading Slashdot would like to see these numbers too.
Numbers like this from Roadmap to Nowhere:
But since the Roadmapâ(TM)s authors are so confident of their modeling, perhaps they would consider a modest 1.5X overbuild (one and a half times the bare-bones grid.) That comes to $22.8 Trillion â" not including backup and storage.
And keep in mind, that also includes 1.5X the land, or more than 196,800 square miles, up from 131,200. Then there are all the extra transmission corridors, and the copper wire, plus an additional offshore region half the size of West Virginia.
And, weâ(TM)ll need to replace (and recycle) 1.85 million m2 per day of worn-out panels, up from 1.23 million m2 â"Â forever. Plus thereâ(TM)ll be all those extra panel and turbine factories, when weâ(TM)re already two years behind schedule, and the clock is ticking.
http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co... [roadmaptonowhere.com]
Wow, that's a lot of solar panels we'd have to produce everyday in the USA. How are we going to make that many any time soon? The answer is we won't, we can't, so we will have to build nuclear power plants.
If some poor sod wishes to challenge this data still then I will again point out that "nobody wants nukes" translates to "problem solved". I say we solved the problem one way, others will say we solved the problem some other way. No matter who is correct we solved the problem. Now, if someone wants to prove we didn't solve the problem then they have to argue solar power costs more than coal, and wind power costs more than natural gas. Anyone care to make that argument?
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Every time when I check links of wind & solar advocates then they did not take into account the long term goal of 100% CO2 free. The problem is that at low percentage (up to about 60% depending on location) of energy generation from wind & solar they are really cheaper than nuclear. The reason is that they do not need to build storage and natural gas power plants are used instead of storage. It is so at least by Lazzard data which has nuclear significantly more expensive than other sources. But pric
Re:"Nobody wants nukes!" just means "Problem solve (Score:4, Interesting)
Expect flexible demand and supply from thermal energy storage paired with nuclear fission. There will be molten salts in the thermal energy store, the same kind used for solar thermal power. They use the same Brayton cycle turbines for fast response to changing demand. Heat for the molten salt can be from solar, fission, or both. Also available are hydro dams with their ability to dispatch power. Some with pumped hydro storage so nighttime wind and fission can be saved up for the morning peak demand. So early the sun isn't up yet. No worries though, nuclear fission has the boilers hot and the reservoirs full.
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But price of wind & solar rises more than linearly with the rise of the wind & solar portion in the energy generation mix.
That is wrong.
The prices drop.
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It is not wrong. You misunderstood it. Let me be a bit more formal.
I'm talking about partial derivative of wind & solar price with respect to the wind & solar percentage of the whole generation in a given region. This derivative is positive and rising due to rising demands for storage and beefier grid.
You are likely talking about economies of scale for wind & solar. I.e. partial derivative of wind & solar price with respect to the new wind & solar plants built per year. This derivative i
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If you tried to run a grid off of all nukes, it would be hilariously expensive.
I agree, so don't do that.
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Well, these poor sods blew gaskets when I pointed to Dr. David MacKay talking about the fantasy of renewable energy providing the power we need in his last interview: https://www.theguardian.com/en [theguardian.com]... [theguardian.com]
You mean where he said solar wasn't possible in the UK
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What are you trying to say? You linked to a Google search, not any specific article, so that's a lot to look at with nothing in particular highlighted to see. If you want to show we don't need nuclear power because we solved global warming without it then show it.
I got it. We solved global warming.
Now, can we stop scaring children to death?
Re: "Nobody wants nukes!" just means "Problem solv (Score:2)
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Not the best terrain for building nukes, the Russians worked around the problem by putting them on barges.
Re: "Nobody wants nukes!" just means "Problem sol (Score:2)
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Much of the arctic is muskeg, you want nice firm bedrock for stability and while places like Baffin Island, along with the eastern part of the arctic do have bedrock, much of the land is frozen swamp, which makes building almost anything large a challenge.
Barges or ships also work around the problems of getting building supplies up there, build in the south then tow it up north.
Re:"Nobody wants nukes!" just means "Problem solve (Score:4, Funny)
I learned we solved global warming. Shouldn't we celebrate that?
Now that we have solar power cheaper than coal power we can stop telling kids they will either burn to death in the heat or drown in the rising seas. Stop scaring our kids to death! We solved the problem!
Re: "Nobody wants nukes!" just means "Problem solv (Score:2)
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There's confirmation we solved global warming. Anyone else wish to cast a vote for or against? Now that we solved the problem can we stop with the senseless scaring of children to the point they can't talk, can't eat, can't sleep, or exhibit some other symptoms of clinical depression?
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Nightmares? At least they will be sleeping, that's an improvement.
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He's not confusing us with facts. He's confusing us with how he can keep posting the same outdated "facts". He's not as bad as the people who still claim things like "solar panels require more energy to make than they will ever produce", but he's still posting stuff written based on data that's a decade and a half old or older. For some of the people reading this, the data may be older than they are. People keep pointing this out to him, but he keeps on just going back to the few sources that he clings to a
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I get it, I solved global warming my way, you solved global warming your way. What's your problem then? We don't need as much area for solar and wind as Dr. MacKay claims? Okay, how much area is needed? If using all nuclear fission then land use would be 0.1% of the land in UK set aside for nuclear fission. Maybe 0.2% to make up for growth and accounting errors. Dr. MacKay puts wind alone as taking up about half of the land area in UK. Solar alone taking up one quarter. Wind and solar can share land
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I get it, I solved global warming my way, you solved global warming your way. What's your problem then? We don't need as much area for solar and wind as Dr. MacKay claims? Okay, how much area is needed?
We've discussed this before. For the US, with solar alone, it would be in the range of about 2.1%, possibly dual use with existing roads, parking lots, and even rooftops if required. Combined with wind it's less. The actual required land footprint for wind is tiny. Far, far smaller than that required for a nuclear power plant, for example.
Also your sarcastic, "you've solved global warming" argument is just sad. It's clearly not a solved problem. Going instantaneously 100% renewable (or nuclear, for that mat
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Links or it didn't happen. Here's mine: http://www.inference.org.uk/su... [inference.org.uk]
Where's yours? You say you have more recent data. Let's see those links.
It seems everyone agrees the global warming problem is solved. All that remains is adding up the land and materials for these solutions.
Re: "Nobody wants nukes!" just means "Problem solv (Score:2)
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Replying twice to my one post, seriously? Your link is to a chart based on decades old information. I don't need to provide links (which I've provided to you before and you've just dismissed them by saying that it somehow doesn't matter if power production per square meter with various methods is 2X or even 3X what MacKay says) to show that your information is outdated since you've done that yourself. Can you maybe find an updated version of that chart somewhere?
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There's that anonymous coward again reinforcing just how successful renewable energy has been in solving global warming. I don't much care how the problem is solved, only that it is solved. Now that you made it clear we solved the problem can we stop scaring kids into committing suicide over needless global warming fear mongering?
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Nuclear weapons are not nuclear power. Try again to make a case against nuclear power safety.
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The problem of nuclear was solved by solar and wind
Great, another confirmation we solved global warming. Any more good news?
Now, stop driving children into depression over this. Tell them the problem is solved. This depressing news is literally killing them. Make it stop.
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Man you guys hate anyone attacking those sacred cows.
Polar bears struggling? (Score:5, Interesting)
>Large mammals like polar bears have struggled to navigate shrinking habitats
Ah yes, the old propaganda of late 1900s and early 2000s. It's also complete and utter lie. Polar bears have never been better as species since we started monitoring them. They have experienced a massive growth in numbers in recent times.
Turns out "shrinking habitat" isn't really a thing for them, because they don't actually live out their lives on the ice but over land. Almost nothing lives on the ice. Polar bears mostly live on the northern edges of the continents, and they thrive there today to the point where humans have to start culling them again, as there's so many of them, they are now disturbing the northern settlements and towns across the continental Arctic, especially in Asia and North America.
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Re: Polar bears struggling? (Score:3)
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Seals are also thriving, because as temperature goes up, so does the energy state (amount of energy usable by the ecosystem through photosynthesis) of the region. More food generally means more biomass, which means more life. We live in historically cold period in the planet's existence, which is why megafauna that was so prevalent in the past is overwhelmingly dead. Large mammals are now the top of the foodchain, and not terribly surprisingly, they're thriving as more and more of things they eat are around
I for one. (Score:2)
Welcome our new Shamu overlords.
Re:WHAT F*** ICE MELT??? (Score:5, Informative)
From your link:
"The November 2021 monthly average extent was 9.77 million square kilometers (3.77 million square miles), which ranked tenth lowest in the satellite record. The 2021 extent was 930,000 million square kilometers (359,000 million square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 long-term average. Extent was higher than average in the Bering Sea, but is extremely low in Hudson Bay."
And...
"The downward linear trend in November sea ice extent over the 43-year satellite record is 53,300 square kilometers (20,600 square miles) per year, or 5 percent per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. Also based on the linear trend, since 1979, November has lost 2.2 million square kilometers (849,000 square miles). This is equivalent to about three times the size of Texas."
So... I'm not sure your claims are accurate, could you explain?
I don't see ice melting - I see ice not FORMING.
Re:WHAT F*** ICE MELT??? (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't bother looking at sea ice extent statistics anyway. It hides thick possibly perennial ice being replaced with thin seasonal ice and can therefore be rather misleading.
What really matters is ice volume.
Re: WHAT F*** ICE MELT??? (Score:2)
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It affects the salinity, which affects currents. It affects erosion, lots happening now along the shores of the Arctic ocean and it affects things like polar bears which have populations dependent on the ice for hunting. Also affects the albedo of the northern areas, ice is much more reflective then open ocean, so a feedback mechanism that raises temperatures.
Re: WHAT F*** ICE MELT??? (Score:2)
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Never really heard of any problems with access to fresh water in the far north besides the obvious need to stop it from freezing, piping it around is likely a challenge.
The salinity (density) of the water partially drives the Atlantic conveyor system, which brings warm water up from the tropics to NW Europe. At that ocean currents are a huge driver of climate by redistributing heat throughout the world. Major changes in currents can have a huge effect on local climate and the Atlantic conveyor system is dep
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For seal level rise, yes.
But losing ice changes the eco system.
The albedo -> more warming.
Warmer surface - aka water instead of ice -> more rain.
Potentially different currents.
Re: WHAT F*** ICE MELT??? (Score:2)
Re: WHAT F*** ICE MELT??? (Score:2)
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Re:WHAT F*** ICE MELT??? (Score:5, Insightful)
The person who originally made this comment expects nobody to follow and read the link or that if they do they won't be able to understand it anyway. People look at it and have a slightly advanced version of the XKCD frozen puddle reaction [xkcd.com]. 2012 / 2013 was worse so we must be okay now, even though we have far less sea ice than the normal interdecile range shown.
Is extremely clear - these people are trying to make you afraid that if you stand out and actually try to save humanity they will make fun of you. If you think about it, it's basically playground intimidation for 8 year olds. Either the grandparent poster is deliberately doing this or, more likely, they have internalised it and their fear of being made fun of and look for ways to ingratiate themselves with the people doing the intimidation, desperately finding ways to read evidence which will make it mean something different from the truth.
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I think you misunderstand my comment. Just to be clear; global warming is happening. The ice in the arctic is melting on average over years. Eventually there will be no arctic ice pack, probably even if we act, but definitely if we maintain our current failure to really act to stop causing global warming.
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These are the ice charts for this year.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
SHOW ME THE F***ING ICE MELT! There is none in the arctic. In fact, the total ice volume comes up lower than long term (1981-2001) norm ONLY because there is some weird warm spot over Canada this autumn which is keeping Hudson bay open. Kara sea, Barentz, Svalbard - everything is frozen.
The only place where the ICE MELTS are the chants of the holy cultists of the Greta the singing the "Blah Blah F-word" chants. In reality it does not.
Paraphrasing the old saying about numbers and gods. When satellite photos speak, cultists suck a tailpipe.
Your link doesn't support your claim but the opposite, it says that the trend is down although it has been even lower in recent years.
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The track was repaired at the end of 2018 with rail service resuming on Dec 2nd of that year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Unluckily there doesn't seem much interest in the port expanding leaving the tourism to drive the economy, in particular polar bears and they are suffering from the shrinking seasonal ice. Seems they don't eat over the summer, lazing about living on fat until the ice returns and they can hunt seal. Usual is 150 days of waiting, lately pushing 180 days which is about the length of ti
Re:WHAT F*** ICE MELT??? (Score:5, Informative)
SHOW ME THE F***ING ICE MELT! There is none in the arctic. In fact, the total ice volume comes up lower than long term (1981-2001) norm ONLY because there is some weird warm spot over Canada this autumn which is keeping Hudson bay open. Kara sea, Barentz, Svalbard - everything is frozen.
Maybe you're young, but I remember when the idea that the Northwest passage would ever be open for anyone without nuclear submarines or heavy duty icebreakers was dismissed as alarmist fantasy. Cruise ships take it now.
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Maybe you're young, but I remember when the idea that the Northwest passage would ever be open for anyone without nuclear submarines or heavy duty icebreakers was dismissed as alarmist fantasy. Cruise ships take it now.
Cruise ships do take the Northwest Passage now, cruise ships that happen to also be icebreakers.
https://www.aurora-expeditions... [aurora-expeditions.com]
The Greg Mortimer Ice Class 1A and Polar Code 6 compliant, hold BV* class and are fully compliant with the latest SOLAS requirements.
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Cruise ships do take the Northwest Passage now, cruise ships that happen to also be icebreakers.
https://www.aurora-expeditions... [aurora-expeditions.com]
The Greg Mortimer Ice Class 1A and Polar Code 6 compliant, hold BV* class and are fully compliant with the latest SOLAS requirements.
If you actually look up those designations, you'll find that ice class is about hull strengthening to deal with icy conditions, but having an ice class does not make a vessel an ice breaker. Ice class 1A specifically requires icebreaker assistance under difficult ice conditions. In other words, class 1A vessels are not icebreakers. As for polar code, unless it's a different polar code that's referring to, it appears to mostly be about procedures, operation and training than ship capabilities. In any case, i
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If you actually look up those designations,
I did look them up.
you'll find that ice class is about hull strengthening to deal with icy conditions, but having an ice class does not make a vessel an ice breaker.
It's a hull built to break through thin layers of ice. If it's not an "icebreaker" then it must be something like a "Ice hardened vessel" which to a point becomes a distinction without a difference. They were built to handle waters with ice on top, breaking through if it need be. Even the heavy icebreakers the USCG operates will travel with another icebreaker within shouting distance. That's because if something goes wrong they will need help right now.
These Arctic and Antarctic cruis
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