Scientists are floored by what’s happening in the Arctic right now | Hacker News Reader

Scientists are floored by what’s happening in the Arctic right now

washingtonpost.com

34 pointscryptoz24 comments

The headline that the Post chose seems intentionally vague. I also didn't see any quote supporting the idea that scientists are 'floored.' One scientist was quoted as saying, "It's a very interesting time." A more accurate headline would be, "Scientists find that the Arctic is warming much faster than other regions."

"You won't believe these 7 things going on in the Artic. Number 5 will shock you!"

Yes it seems like the Washington Post has fallen into the Business Insider school of journalism. What a shame.

All of their headlines in the Most Read sidebar are obvious clickbait. It really is such a shame.

Measure Arctic ice with this one weird trick

Oof. Clickbait headlines are like watching evolution in action.

The article is a better read than the title suggests.

Of note, the extra cold spot in the North Atlantic is proposed to be connect to the extra warmth of the Artic.

This radical and swift change to normal conditions is troublesome.

> Clickbait headlines are like watching evolution in action.

Actually, there's a theory for viruses of the mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind. Headlines and other memes can spread if they appeal to certain emotional responses and "fitter" memes spread faster.

One way to mitigate this is to disallow words like 'floored' when used in the context of emotions, but that's going to require some serious AI to help with it.

It's a tough dilemma for any ad-supported news organization. You get paid by getting eyeballs on a story. With most people getting their news via social networks and aggregators you need a headline that is shareable and yet still gets people to click through for the remaining article.

If the headline is too informative you get fewer eyeballs and less revenue.

So, if you're the editor of Washington Post, what do you choose? The headline that appeals to emotion and encourages clicks, or an accurate headline that is less appealing and less vague? Especially knowing that there's a fleet of rebloggers out there who will take your story, turn it into 10 pages of slides and "credit" you but have the more clickbait headline?

>>temperature anomalies above 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the 1951 to 1980 average in this region.<<

>>impacts of Arctic warming include the melting of major Arctic glaciers and Greenland (containing the potential for up to 7 meters of sea level rise if it were to melt entirely), the thawing of carbon rich permafrost (which could add to the burden of atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions) and signs of worsening wildfires across the boreal forests of Alaska, to name a few.<<

"Floored" may be perfectly apt in this instance...

I agree. Even a line from the article would make a better title, "January saw the greatest departure from average of any month on record"

With the massive drop in oil prices, global oil consumption and carbon emissions will continue to trend upwards.

In aggregate, the American consumer is certainly not showing any concern for climate change:

Americans Revert to Buying Gas Guzzlers: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-revert-to-buying-gas-g...

The color scale for the chart makes it look worse than it is (red looks "hotter" than the equator, for example) when it's really just measuring variance from expected temps.

Nevertheless, the more data we get, the more terrifying global warming looks. It is really a scary problem to confront, and discoveries like this show us how poorly we understand our life support system as we perturb it.

The really scary thing about this isn't the arctic ice; it's the permafrost at high latitudes. The permafrost contains a whole heck of a lot of methane, and as it melts it releases that methane, which in turn causes the atmosphere to warm further.

We may look back on this moment as the start of a runaway greenhouse effect.

>We may look back on this moment as the start of a runaway greenhouse effect.

Sensationalist, scaremonger much?

Obviously, the arctic is heating up more because heat rises.

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all night.

I am hopeful that HN will have a useful and productive discussion about climate change this time. Your comment is not helpful to that end. Please consider how important this issue is and refrain from jokes about the catastrophic destruction of our environment and its stability.

It would be easier to take seriously if it wasn't a pseudo-clickbait title. It's practically; "You won't believe what scientists think about these results!"

Don't they need to redesign all the climate models now that gravitational waves exist? A giant wave would make the sun closer to the earth and thus global warming.

You are being downvoted for two reasons:

1. No, the existence of gravity waves does not, in any way, impact our climate models. Both because their effect is way too small to change anything, and also because we measure the distance to the sun constantly - these measurements are not affected by the existence or not of gravity waves.

2. Your question appears loaded, as if you are implying "climate scientists were wrong all this time."

So serious! I think we can make jokes and still have a serious discussion.

How? If jokes were encouraged, they'd naturally float to the top, pushing serious discussion to the bottom. On Hacker News, we might appreciate your joke, but we'll still downvote, because we prefer the serious discussion on the top with the jokes on the bottom.

People here mostly react adversely to lame/predictable jokes. Exceptionally good ones get the opposite treatment. A current example is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11124967, which currently has over a hundred points. Personally I don't care for it, though pierrec's reply is amusing. But as an example of how the community responds to humor, it's typical.

I think scott_s got it right (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7696013). HN isn't against humor, it's against stock humor. Stock humor is internet crabgrass.

I have seen quite a few well received jokes on HN. I've even made one or two myself. But as far as I can remember, those jokes tend to continue towards relevant discussion. A relevant point that can be made without humor, to which humor is added, is continuing the discussion and has a far better chance of being accepted than a joke that, if you took away the humor, leaves nothing to be discussed.

HN's community generally doesn't joke and tries for informed discussion or constructive criticism. It isn't Fark or Reddit. It's the community norm and is enforced by the people visiting the site.

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