Climate Model Predicts West Antarctic Ice Sheet Could Melt Rapidly
climatecentral.org
climatecentral.org
And direct link to the paper: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v531/n7596/full/nature1...
And note, this is separate from the paper last week by James Hansen et al, which discussed the newly researched effects of new feedback loops in ice-melt-surface-waters shutting down ocean circulation (and also increased the amount of sea level rise in shorter time periods).
These are scary times.
The one with a weird weird constants IIRC?
In the relevant climate science, Hanson is just one of the thousand scientists from the whole world who all perform their own research and then report and agree on the summary findings internationally, you surely can't assert that all are "influenced" by just one person.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change surely isn't accepting "only his" claims. If nobody of thousands of the scientists would have similar findings, nobody would accept his work as serious:
http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_structure.shtml
Hint: the work of denialists is exactly that: not serious, as most of them can't even make the basic assumptions right.
So what should you consider for a valid "body of research"? The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There's no better international organization of scientists who work on these topics.
See their procedures:
http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_procedures.shtm...
Then see their last report, on the level you can probably understand, but with a lot of fine details:
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/
Specifically, start from the summary:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FIN...
Unless you read at least that, you won't even have an idea about the material for which you seem to believe you're against (even if you claim that "you're not a denialist.)" The report reflects the state of the art of that science.
Red herring, it's not about any person. It's about the scientific process.
This is for general audience which was exposed to the claims "it's just sun" or the variations:
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-wor...
I agree that there are people who don't understand how science works (that is, they are effectively illiterate for basic scientific methods and facts), so I always try to explain them the basics of science first. Somebody who believes Earth existed for just 6000 years doesn't even know what science is all about, so you can't even expect him to plan more than until the imminent judgement day, oh happy day (sadly, there are actual influential US politicians who said such things).
I start explaining such person that without using the same scientific principles, the mobile phone they carry around wouldn't be possible (just for GPS, the satellites have to carry atomic clocks and the formulas that are used every time have to consider both special and general relativity). Science works.
Otherwise, how can you even talk about the fact that we scientifically know, for example, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of the last 800,000 years, and that it was for all that time, not counting the last decades, much lower than now (see the chart, max around 300, now we're already at 400 ppm).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period
And how we know? The same way we know how to make GPS. Science. And it's nothing US-based, there are other countries very capable of the best science. You know, countries able to send the probe to the comet.
Once somebody understands the basics, the start about climate should be learning about IPCC, the process and conclusions.
"Science" is not one thing. It works with very different accuracies and predictive powers in different disciplines. The science that makes your mobile phone and GPS work is nailed down by massive amounts of data and controlled experiments confirming theories to many decimal places. That's why those things work so well and so precisely.
Climate science is nowhere near that accurate--not by many orders of magnitude. So if you are telling people that they should believe climate science with the same confidence that they should believe the science that makes their mobile phone and GPS work, you are giving them serious misinformation.
> we scientifically know, for example, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere of the last 800,000 years, and that it was for all that time, not counting the last decades, much lower than now
Yes. And we also scientifically know that CO2 concentrations during most of the last few hundred million years were much higher than now.
What we don't know is how the climate works to a sufficient accuracy to bet trillions of dollars on particular predictions about what effect rising CO2 levels now are going to have.
Edit: still ain't completely sold. Anyone has pointers to why there was significantly less ice around Greenland about a 1000 years ago or can prove that this is wrong?
That what you name "significantly" was during the change of the parts of degrees C:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
Compare to IPPC estimates: two whole degrees change are the most optimistic expectations and assume almost no use of fossil fuels in future, compared to now.
> Finally someone gave me a link and some pointers
See my other comment here, I also give the link to the raw data and the programs of the models too. And the books that teach the basic formulas involved. It is all real, and the effective consensus of the scientists is not accidental. There's immense scientific work on one side, almost no scientific work on another, and people have the impression that it's 50:50 only because the other side gets so much "air time."
See also how that other side is really the one which effectively lives from being there:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-c...
Now that I have hopefully established myself as an uninformed but intelligent sceptic, not denier, here are two pointers as to why the explanation kind of worked this time:
* links to the actual report, and the intro part. Most people, even in technical forums, assumes malice right away, starts telling me how "2500 scientists can't be wrong" and that I should read the report, all while leaving me with a not-so-subtle feeling that they never read it themselves.
* actually, to a degree at least, answer my question about Greenland instead of immediately assuming malice and bringing out the troll hunting gear. This is, IIRC, the first time I have seen a serious answer that partly covers that question.
On my side I might read a bit more in the report, note one AGW person who isn't all torch and pitchforks and possibly change my mind. (I already live kind of carefully but because I don't like wasting resources, not because I have believed in AGW so far.)
https://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction-basi...
The SF bay has more problems than the coast. Parts of San Francisco may need seawalls, and bayfront development such as Redwood Shores needs to be stopped. Google HQ is in trouble; they're on fill and only 10' above sea level. But once you're south of US101/CA237, you're OK in most of Silicon Valley.
In the southeastern US, things are potentially much worse. There's no coastal mountain range. Florida is barely above sea level now. Miami floods regularly. New Orleans is partly below sea level already.
A big question is what this does to Mississippi River flooding. A higher sea level means less river flow and more upstream flooding.
Miami Beach is 4' above sea level on limestone. The slightest acceleration in seal level rise will doom the city. Maybe when the mega mansions on Palm Island become unserviceable people will take things seriously.
People say it could take another 100 years for the sea level to actually consume the land, but that's really not necessary. Just look at New York post Hurricane Sandy. Crippled parts of the city for months. When you get a storm like that, combined with higher tides and more regular flooding it seems like game over because they're just won't be enough time to rebuild before the next flood.
For Hurricane Sandy, if the 14th St power substation had been protected, and subway and train tunnels equipped with flood gates (that was supposed to happen after 9/11 as an anti-terrorism measure) the damage would have been much more localized. The appropriate role for government here is to toughen up the infrastructure. New York has a plan.[1]
We just have to write off Miami Beach and parts of New Orleans. New Orleans has higher ground nearby, but Miami doesn't.
There are some tricks used in urban areas subject to river floods. Here's the Tamshui River as it flows through Tapei.[2] The river is bordered by broad parks, and the park is bordered by a freeway raised on a berm. That's all for flood control. During floods, the parks are underwater. Massive floodgates block roads under the freeway. (There are emergency stairs for people caught on the wrong side.) The river bridges are all high enough to bridge any flood. After each flood, the parks need some maintenance, but they have few structures and the ones they have are very solid. San Jose has a similar, but smaller, arrangement for the Guadalupe River. (Yes, that's why there are such nice trails and bike paths in downtown San Jose.)
[1] http://www.nyc.gov/html/sirr/downloads/pdf/final_report/Ch3_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamsui_River#/media/File:Dansh...
We constantly overestimate our abilities while we underestimate the problems that can emerge.
Combined with our rather low ability to think in systems theory enough, to actually understand the system we are living in...
Bad combo...
The basic problem is the limestone. Because of the limestone, seawalls are essentially useless as the water goes underneath through the porous ground. I think very likely the comments only seem exaggerated to you because it's difficult to imagine with all the people around you driving fancy cars and buying expensive condos, like pre-cupernican difficult.
No one knows how long miami has, but I would bet it's closer to 20 years than 100 years. To be quite honest, I hope it happens sooner rather than later as maybe something like that will start to wake people the fuck up. Doubtful though. There's always another rationalization.
There is this strange idea, particularly in the US, that we can buy our way out of the problems caused by sea level rise. That's (somewhat) true in some cases, but Miami is not one of them. The ground is simply too porous. You'd have to pull some Dubai-level shit and build a second Miami Beach next to the original and move everyone over.
South Florida will almost undoubtably be the first area in the United States where wealthy people are materially impacted by sea level rise. And because the foundation is so porous it won't take 100 years before areas become untenable. Flooding that last a few days starts to last weeks.
It really doesn't take much.
I have yet to a shred of evidence for this 20 year theory
Unless your post was satire. Putting seawalls up everywhere that might be affected seems like the wrong message to take away from the article.
The US as a whole is in good shape; much of the US is way above sea level. Russia, which has almost no useful coastline, will be fine.
NYC alone has real estate price of ~$1 trillion.
I don't think there are any real problems directly caused by global warming in rich countries. Price information, including insurance costs, will be enough.
Second order effects like changes in the viability of crops may affect food security (but I expect climate change to make crops more viable elsewhere, or a different production mix), and economic (but warming related) migration will be a continuing and increasing challenge. International migration of farmers is probably the biggest problem I see.
International coordination of action is not going to happen or make any real difference without threat of military force, and I don't buy the idea that the problems will be acute and obvious enough to justify that. You can't fight tragedy of the commons without an overarching authority which we don't have. Countries will cheat for local gain. Global climate change politics is mostly a waste of time unless people are willing to start wars over failures to curb emmissions, and I just don't see it. People are much more willing to start wars over migration pressures, so I think that's what we'll see.
That negative sentiment will take on a life of its own.
The local solution in this context at least has the benefit of having well defined goals where individual agents act out of there own easy to understand best interest. i.e: My house in Florida is flooding- I'm going to move to a different state. i.e: New York City is flooding and I'm a property developer- I'm going to build high rises somewhere close to NYC but at +30 m elevation.
If your house in Florida is flooded and you move to Montana, you merely avoided the problem. I'm not saying it's wrong of you; it's the rational action for an individual. But it didn't solve anything any more than refugees fleeing Syria have solved the problem of war in Syria. And, just like Syria, some people will have to foot the bill this way or that.
It's very likely that we're already locked into a certain level of sea level rise over the next few hundred years due to the breakup of antarctic ice sheets. This may not be something we can stop even if we could reduce atmospheric CO2 to whatever level we chose tomorrow. We need to look at ways of mitigating the impact of climate change and environmental change (whatever the cause) in the future even as we look at ways to try to reduce the negative impact of human activity on the climate and biosphere in general.
There are far too many people who look at pollution and climate change through an essentially religious lens. As though CO2 emissions are sin, and the only thing to do when caught sinning is to stop sinning, or at least sin less. This is an incredibly immature way to handle the complex relationship between mankind and Earth's environment.
Other than concern for the welfare of billions of people, who will buy your products? How will technology, education, and economic development spread in the developing world or even in the wealthy ones, when so many resources are spent on surviving climate change? Look what a blow the Great Recession and a couple of minor wars was to so many people; this would be much worse.
Basically: seawalls aren't the solution, but they're probably part of how we cope with whatever degree of sea-level rise is already bound to happen at this point.
I only hope that whatever event(s) trigger this policy change are somewhat reversible. Earth is, ironically, going to be the first testbed for terraforming technology.
We can hide behind per-capita stats but the global CO2 level and climate does not care about per capita.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/30/china-car...
Every single Republican candidate for president was openly mocking Obama when he was in Paris a few months ago for the climate talks. They're an absolute embarrassment:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/republicans-obama-clim...
It does not show that the Chinese government is actually going to change anything substantive.
Here's something from late 2015:
China is totally crushing the U.S. on renewable energy http://grist.org/climate-energy/china-is-totally-crushing-th...
Here's one that is just a month old:
China set to surpass its climate targets as renewables soar https://www.newscientist.com/article/2079179-china-set-to-su...
The graph BNEF prepared shows carbon emissions ~tripling from 2012 to 2040, due to substantial growth in non-OECD coal & gas consumption, which swamps the drop in these categories for OECD countries.
Meanwhile, the US is far too entrenched with ideology and vested interests that have captured the political machinery.
Kind of sad that we're in this state, but people keep voting Republican...
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/a-fresh-look-at...
I suppose if the scientists were in charge, we'd finally stop burning fossil fuels? That we'd force massive changes to resource distribution and reshape society in order to save the world?
And if you don't agree, you're too dangerous, right? Off ot the gulags?
Do you understand that millions and millions of people would die of starvation?
It's amazing how eagerly people advocate for the right kind of totalitarianism.
But China seems now to be really willing to reduce its impact on the planet. There are the huge investments on solar panels for instance.
Animal agriculture has around 51% CO2 footprint. Bunch of it done on the rich soils of Amazon, and vast plains of USA.
Meat, dairy and eggs is what is killing us. Not traffic, not heating.
The first claim seems to be incorrect at least based on simple googling to obtain the following link: https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html
According to that link agriculture/land-use appears to have about 1/6 the impact of industrial processes/fossil fuel.
The second claim appears to be incorrect for "human produced" CO2 at least, using standard numbers. Perhaps there is another source?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
Summing up the numbers there, I get the following results:
Annual CO2 Emissions:
(China): 10,540,000 kt
(USA + Canada + Mexico + Brazil + Argentina + Venezuala): 7,245,000 kt
Maybe we could make progress more quickly on fighting climate change if we simply bought off businesses. Implement a carbon tax that replaces business income tax and results in a net lower tax burden on businesses (from day one), and I bet a lot of opposition funding would dry up.
It would be very expensive... but compare to the cost of protecting or moving all our coastal cities and communities.
Maybe one reason climate change has become a cultural/political issue is that the people who understand the issue best and have worked on it the hardest, tend to also be people who are suspicious of businesses in general. They resist anything that looks like a corporate giveaway, and prefer a regulatory, government-led approach. As a result, "freedom first" libertarian types have lined up with big businesses in opposition.
I won't pretend that I've thought through the details deeply--take this as a musing more than an actual proposal.
Like mold in a petri dish, the human population will collapse ultimately into decentralized anarchist societies who trade among one another. Assuming we stop the 400+ reactors from going into meltdown, the majority of the population will return to farming.
We're not going to Mars anytime soon. You people can't live without AC or even know how to grow a fucking tomato plant. Sadly, most of this community will die.
I'm not saying "global warming causes all the hurricanes", I'm saying "humans messing with the atmosphere has increased the variance and severity of our weather". If you don't agree with that, you're in willful denial.
Anyways, thanks for recognizing that my comment was great. I'll take what I can get.
-- Upton Sinclair
Nobody is arguing climate change can have big impact. We're discussing AGW. Obviously deforestation and air pollution is a Bad Thing. The environmentalists would be better off telling that story which is quite simple and easy to understand.
I'm a buyer of that as both logic and an investment but not the Chicken-Little AGW story. Positioning is very important when you are selling something.
~7 million die from air pollution related deaths per year
Total number of people that die of starvation per year: ~8 million. ~900 million malnourished.
~800 million don't have access to clean water. Several millions die each year from diseases related to unsanitary water.
I don't understand why we can't unite and tackle those 3 instead of making it a battle between politics, environmentalism and self-righteousness (both sides).
If you believe or don't believe in AGW - tackling air pollution, food supply and the water crisis should be of utmost importance.
The left has been the majority for a while, but not in charge because 1 person != 1 vote (2 senators / state regardless of population, no D.C. senator, electoral college system.. any more?)
Disproportionate representation is a problem, for sure, but the American left would have far more success despite that problem if only they would go vote in off-year elections.
Either way, I don't think it would help the fundamental problem, which is that roughly half of the voters in this country don't accept climate science, and their party and associated media have set up a huge feedback loop to keep it that way. Helping the Democrats isn't really a solution, because we need two healthy parties.
Agree that we need multiple functional sane parties, but we haven't had that happy situation in the US for forty years.
People just don't get that this could be a serious problem & that once you notice you have a problem, you've got 250 years of locked in effects.
Here's hoping that SolarCity, Tesla, and others can make a technological difference.
Many totally different questio ns meaning different things to different people.
To many people I guess voting is choosing the lesser evil.
Really? So you're saying every person in America can be neatly defined as either right or left? That's odd because I know a lot of conservative folks who are for marriage equality and left-wing folks who love guns and are members of the NRA.
For hysterical raisins, the US has a basically permanent two-party system. Charitably speaking, you can be socially and economically either conservative or liberal, R or D.
There are some people who are economically conservative and socially liberal -- "do what you want, and leave me alone." There are others who are economically liberal and socially conservative -- "we should help the less fortunate, because that is what Christ and compassion demand." And there are plenty of other positions, but the only two real options are R and D. Tweaking the meanings of those two letters is your best bet.
The irony being that people with money and power are the least likely to ever be affected by it.
Phase three will be "it was actually the liberals who blocked action on climate change"
What if the safety of the planet lay in stopping greenhouse emissions. But certain large blocs of the international community refused to stop pumping it out of the ground.
Now say diplomatic means don't create any real progress, only broken promises. For an example of what that might look like, take the nuclear accord John Kerry just got Iran to sign this year. Already they have tested new long range missiles and their leader, Khamenei, released a statement this week: "Those who say the future is in negotiations, not in missiles, are either ignorant or traitors," [0].
Seriously, what happens when those with fossil fuel reserved chose to use them, even when your country is being responsible? What if it meant another war in Iraq: would the positions on policy for fixing AGW swtich between Democrats and Republicans?
[0]: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-missiles-khamenei-idU...
If they want anyone to act they would do as the king of Nineveh:Jona 3:6 "For word came to the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes."
The moment I see climate scientists starts to switch to teleconferences I think I will give it a second thought.
(Yeah. I know many, possibly most of you don't believe a thing of that but it is still a good example.)
(FWIW: I make a living making solar cell technology, I previously programmed recycling machines. I just happen to be tired of hypocrisy.)
A revenue neutral carbon tax at about $80/ton is popular enough that oil companies use it in their planning for the future.
The "right" has favored cap and trade schemes in the past (specifically Reagan), but suddenly became allergic to the idea.
Your "solutions" are ridiculous anti-market solutions, presumably exaggerations that you would use to describe the solutions that have actually been proposed?
Also, Teslas and other electric vehicles do not depend on fossil fuels, even if they can potentially be powered by fossil fuels (at much higher efficiencies than fossil fuel vehicles)
Of course they do. They are made of materials that depend on fossil fuels for extraction. To pretend otherwise is completely idiotic. Everything that doesn't come from plants has to be mined and mining is energy intensive.
I just wanted to say that "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" seems to be a common tactic along with high levels of straw person arguments.
Bear in mind, this is absolutely necessary for the entire world at some point. Fossil fuels will not last forever. Best start now and not procrastinate.
In terms of specific policy to pursue: basically lots of subsidies.
The overarching climate models also typically aren't individual monolithic models, but tend involve various multidisciplinary pieces spanning much of the physical sciences. Also, get ready to work in Fortran. I spent a summer at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and met some people there whose work was mostly the uncertainty quantification of outside climate models. My understanding at the time was that the lab specifically does not produce their own model, but rather, acts as an impartial testing ground for the major efforts from other global institutions.
All of that aside, they do have plenty of problems, and people from the outside do come in and make improvements, it's just not necessarily easy to break into. If you wanted something more accessible to start thinking about, you could do worse than the edGCM from Columbia[1].
[1] http://edgcm.columbia.edu/software2/edgcm-climate-modeling/
As someone with a small amount of background in software engineering (though it's not my primary job) I can say that they do think about these things and do have very experienced software developers working on these projects, but help is always appreciated!
Speaking to the accuracy of the simulations I do think that's more in the domain scientist's court though, since most of these things use pretty specialized numerical models and physical approximations.
Edit: I'd also like to say that I pretty much agree with everything cwal said.
Also, feedback loops are something they have only very recently considered.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/?wpmp_tp=1
The models are all numerical simulations. But even if you are skilled in numerical calculations you'd need a lot of energy to learn and understand the domain too.
Here's one university elementary-introduction-level course about that:
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~sme/CSC2602/
and one book with the real formulas:
http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~stocker/papers/stocker14icm.pdf
I guess if this new model is accurate, the scenarios on that link which are projected for 100-300 years out could instead happen in a few decades. This would result in major areas of Miami, New Orleans, NYC, and Sacramento all going underwater.
Scary stuff.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/24/opinion/sunday...
Florida, OTOH, would be lost.
This story is about ~1 metre sea level rise. Greenland's glaciers (if they were to entirely melt) provide ~8 metres, and Antarctica's would provide ~60 metres - so even if you built a wall to protect some / much of this area, you'd have to be planning either subsequent abandonment or a lot more construction work.
But this presupposes that it's feasible from an engineering or financial perspective -- I suspect that in any but a tiny number of cases that it would not be.
In turn it assumes that people would want to live behind a wall that is protecting them from probable death if it collapses, or is intentionally destroyed by the kinds of people who like to kill other people. And these walls would be quite an attractive target.
Would you want to live beneath sea-level if you had the option to live above sea-level?
Then there's groundwater issues (salinity is going to render such earth less habitable).
> -- Donald Trump, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/0...
There's a considerable chance that this man will be your next president.
This was unacceptable to them. So they got to keep their money, and sacrificed the future of the planet instead.
What is an alternative hypothesis? The energy companies worked against renewable because it was Good For The Country? Because nothing expensive or hard is worth getting? Because economic ruin was definitely going to happen?
i.e. is there one catastrophic event where everything is immediately flooded? (Similar to Katrina).
Or is the area just slowly flooded over decades? In which case, no one does anything? (i.e. the Sacramento scenario is hard to fathom in this scenario)
Maybe look into whatever it is they do in the Netherlands. A very large fraction of the entire country is just barely above sea level (or even below it in places).
For example, if the sea were to spill over onto all below-sea-level land, Amsterdam would be an island, some 15 km off the new coastline. The Port of Rotterdam would still be there (25km offshore), but the rest of the city would disappear.
Also, changes in land values are far more likely to be driven by changes in employment patterns, transportation technology, and weather systems than by sea levels.
It is a huge continent... if the ices melts, it's terrible in a way, but looking positivistically at the situation, there must be lots of potential.
I'm sure there are some treaties etc on Antarctica that limit exploitation? What if a bunch of people went down there with some guns and claimed some land, what would happen?
Not sure why you were downvoted. What we do with it is an interesting question. There is little harm in looking for ways to adapt to climate change if we don't succeed in stopping it.
Water is very cheap, people need it. The important thing is to have available water near the people that is easy and cheap to process. So it's important to keep the big rivers as clean as possible, and use that water efficiently.
If tomorrow all the ice in Antarctica magically disappears, it would not change the problems of the people that need water to drink or cultivate plants.
(If the ice magically disappears, it will create other problems changing the climate patterns. If it just melt instead of truly disappearing, it will cause floods.)
The collapse of ice in Antarctica is basically limited to the tinier West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with the EAIS expected to make a more or less neutral balance (perhaps even slightly positive).
If I actually want to use fresh water, Antarctica's ice is not available at all - at least not until we start towing icebergs to Saudi Arabia or something...
It's probably one of the best observed treaties, but that would change, I fear.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070802-russi...
Not sure about Antartica.
At best you're probably talking, Antarctica becomes as livable as Alaska is now.
We've destroyed most of the ocean's fish, and we're heavily dependent on livestock and crops for food. If we disrupt the weather too much, we're not going to be able to make food. People are going to starve, and not by the millions but by the hundreds of millions. Certainly enough strife to cause war between the countries that are actually trying to do something and the countries that are continuing to ramp their CO2 output.
We don't know when we cross the line from 'severe' to 'dire', but we've got enough destructive technology that if it becomes a global problem, we may end up blowing ourselves up trying to resolve the conflict.
I was recently in Africa, and I was shown the rate at which the country (Cote d'Iviore) was growing. Families with as many as 10 kids. But all I could see was deforestation. Miles and miles of deforestation, something like 30 minutes of driving through an urban area that had all been vegetation in 2011.
This season's weather was weird, and it has made me very afraid of what's coming in the next 5 years. We're destroying our planet's methods of regulation, and at the same time we are increasing the rate at which we're introducing adversarial agents. It's going to be a disaster, because everyone reading this critically knows that the people in power aren't going to do anything about it until people in their own country are dying by the millions as a result.
If you care about surviving the next 20 years, this should be your biggest concern. We depend on a stable climate. Without that, we will not have food. Be afraid.
The general problem is that most of the world lacks the scientific understanding to know how big & bad of a problem this may turn out to be.
Google & zuckerberg could just black out certain zip codes every so often. go to google.com & get a message about the impending doom & what the person can do about it.
To me, people should not be able to pick & choose technology. If you enjoy using a cell phone & sending email then you should accept what scientists are saying. No more doubting.
If software is eating the world, it should hurry up & start directing the herd.
This is not a valid argument. The science that underlies the workings of your cell phone and email is more accurate by many orders of magnitude than climate science. "Science" is not all one thing, and climate science does not get to claim the same accuracy as, say, electrodynamics just because it has "science" in its name.
Suppose some scientists say "global warming is an imminent existential threat". Should I be forced to implement their policy proposals as well, or do I just have to nod my head in agreeance to their every decree? What is the threshold upon which scientists must be "accepted" (and presumably obeyed)? Who decides this?
This is the stuff of nightmares.
Climate change will stress our civilization and we will deal with that stress, becoming more capable and sophisticated in the process. Well that, or we will die. But that has been the deal since the start. Lets stay awake people, there will be lots of adapting to do!
You missed one. It is also possible that we become less capable and less sophisticated (e.g. the dark ages).
"The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world."
Just like yeast die of alcohol (pollution) poisoning during fermentation before their food source is anywhere near depleted, we might have plenty of food but not do so hot. If yeast could only slow their reproduction they might last for a darn good while in the brew...but luckily they destroy themselves! Otherwise beer would be too slow, and that's unacceptable.
Imagine if the money pouring into the American political process right now was channeled into electing Congressional leaders who, you know, believe in science. Or if some of the grassroots dollars being burned on TV ads for candidates A, B and C could be spent on a campaign to convince the public that a carbon tax would be good for us.
A couple polls of economists (nearly unanimous)
http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-re... http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-re...
Edit: lol why downvote? are you the only person on HN who doesn't like charts?
:-)
This does nothing but lend creedance to the flat earth theory. NORTH AND SOUTH POLE ARE THE SAME
If you are specifically interested in ice sheet models you could look at these:
PISM - http://pism-docs.org/wiki/doku.php
CISM - http://oceans11.lanl.gov/cism/
ISSM - https://issm.jpl.nasa.gov/
> Sea level has risen a lot — 10 to 20 meters — in warm
> periods in the past
[1] https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2013/04/30/how-the-ice-...
On last conference in Paris NOTHING was done. All agreed that everyone will do what they "can" to work against global warming, which means every country in the world can say "we are doing what we can" while doing almost nothing.
For example, this article that describes the runaway rising of sea level predicts that "Antarctica has the potential to contribute more than a metre of sea-level rise by 2100 and more than 15 metres by 2500."
We are dead by 2100 when the sea level is up one meter. It's the future generations who suffer.
In terms of the 'we don't seem to think about it' – it's behavioral economics 101. We're very optimistic about our futures, and very obsessed with the present. It's why people need to be opted-in to 401k plans. We imagine 'tomorrow' to be this wonderful place where everything will get done and work out ok.
My optimism on Paris? It's a cautious one...
I understand the scepticism, but if there is a problem with the status quo, that is the only way to find out about it. The people making money off selling oil aren't going to volunteer to shut down.
But in the end, that's small fries. I should be taking the bus to work if I really wanted to reduce my travel carbon footprint.
My house probably produces way more CO2 than my car. Heating/cooling (use a programmable thermostat, wear warm clothes indoors in winter). Lights (I've mostly switched to CFL.. no LEDs yet, until the CFLs start dying). Laundry (use cold water.. new detergents work better in cold water anyway). Water heating (you'll never take my long hot showers from me!!).
In carbon emitted per mile it's about the same as traveling by car. But those airliners cover a lot of miles in one trip.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_transp...]
But of course if you follow that philosophy that probably just means you lose the evolutionary lottery and someone else will have plenty of children to take your kids' place.
[1] https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.ht... [2] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC/countries...
I've also read that many of China's emissions come from producing products for export, such that the U.S. may be shedding official omissions by shifting production to China, which allows the emissions to be counted there even though the final product ends up being used in the U.S.
I have no doubt that given the will, the problem of climate change is not an overly hard problem to fix. We humans have always been good at problem solving.
We just need those vested interest to get out of the way and let that happen.
We desperately need a clearer picture of what the climate change timeline is going to look like, and how to approach each step, given immensely complicated cultural realities. People in smaller countries with good education systems are positioned perfectly to take a lead role in that.
In science, debate is encouraged. Seems that some are scared of a debate.
FAQ 11.2 | How Do Volcanic Eruptions Affect Climate and Our Ability to Predict Climate?
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chap...
These models are very much life stock market predictions of boom and bust which seldom come true yet both booms and busts happen regularly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration
It costs about $550 to remove a ton of CO2 from the atmosphere. Alternatives, such as sequestering CO2 from seawater, may be cheaper, around $150. I'm going to stick with the higher estimate.
To just tread water we'd need to remove as much CO2 as we're adding presently.
Current global emissions are 9.875 gigatons (billion tons).8 Let's call it 10 gigatons to make the math easier.
That's 550 * 10 billion or $5,550 billion dollars per year in carbon sequestration. A thousand billion is better known as a trillion (in the US), and the US GDP is about $15 trillion.
This would equal 1/3 of total US economic output.
On a global scale, GDP is about $70 trillion, so we're looking at 1/12 of the global economy. Call it an 8% tax on everything.
It's the sort of thing a unified international effort might accomplish, but it's well beyond the reach of even the single richest person or corporation.
There's the additional problem that once you remove the CO2, you've got to hold on to it. That's 10 Gt you'd have to freeze or compress and essentially hold in storage for a few thousand years. That's a considerable warehousing project.
Not releasing the CO2 in the first place may be strongly preferable.
------------
Correction: I'd read off the 10 Gt value not realising it was carbon, rather than CO2. Actual is 35 Gt CO2, so multiply dollar amounts and percentages by 3.5.
That's $19.25 trillion, or more than the total US GDP, and 28% of total global GDP. Or a ~30% tax on everything.
Well, given the cost it looks like relocating NYC by itself is going to be, it might be worth it to pursue some research into energy efficient processes that can break the CO2 down.
> There's the additional problem that once you remove the CO2, you've got to hold on to it. That's 10 Gt you'd have to freeze or compress and essentially hold in storage for a few thousand years. That's a considerable warehousing project.
I was proposing putting money into researching a technique / process to break the CO2 down into O2 and carbon. Carbon has uses that would freeze it outside the carbon cycle for a long time.
> Not releasing the CO2 in the first place may be strongly preferable.
Well, from all the news, its too late now, so we might need to go to some other solution.
The former are 10 Gt/yr. Latter 35 Gt/yr. Cost exceeds total US economic output, or 28% of global GDP.
Keep in mind: that's per year, forever. Or at least so long as there's carbon to burn. Probably about a century inclusive of all hard-to-get coal.
Your other statement is an article of faith, not evidence.
Also, think about how much of the Earth is covered in plants that already do this -- I'm doubtful we could come up with something that could match the current CO2->O2 capacity of all the Earth's plants and algae.
> Also, think about how much of the Earth is covered in plants that already do this -- I'm doubtful we could come up with something that could match the current CO2->O2 capacity of all the Earth's plants and algae.
We need to make up the delta not replace what's there.
We need a well-funded super pac to more than offset the super pacs of the fossil fuel industry. A big stick that can go after every congress person, senator and governor relentlessly.
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reache...
> “The planet as a whole is doing what was expected in terms of warming. Sea ice as a whole is decreasing as expected, but just like with global warming, not every location with sea ice will have a downward trend in ice extent,” Parkinson said.
> Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost an average of 20,800 square miles (53,900 square kilometers) of ice a year; the Antarctic has gained an average of 7,300 square miles (18,900 sq km).
---
The sea level is currently rising at about 3mm/yr (~1.2in/decade). The sea level is about 8 inches higher now than in 1870, and the rate of rising is increasing (+0.016mm/yr^2).
That said, any time you consider any geoengineering idea, you have to make the argument that the $1 trillion or whatever you'd spend on solar radiation management or ice shelf preservation or whatever, would not be money better spent on just transitioning away from fossil fuel use.
Surface area of Earth = 510 million km^2 = 5.10e14 m^2.
~70% is water, so 3.57e14 m^2.
Multiply that by 3mm (3e-3 m) = 1.07e12 m^3.
1.07 trillion tonnes of water. Per year.
Or 33,907 tonnes per second!
Actually the Hoover dam streams 2000 tons per second [1]. So we may not be far off!
Basically build 15 Hoover dams worth of nuclear plants in Antarctica and their plumbing.
Expensive? Yes. But also quite doable especially compared to cost of losing coastal cities.
1. https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/ReclamationDamsIrrigationProje...
It would require a lot of energy, but all remedies to climate change require that.
Where does all the energy go if it does not go into raising the temperature?
The Gulf Stream does exactly what is suggestion, moving massive amounts of warm water north and it's effect on winter temperatures in Western Europe is massive.
Any digree of disconnection from reality is easily attainable.
Tay should read this page.
The worst case is they where wrong and we improved the planet for nothing...oh no.
The other problem is that "makes no difference at all" is a good outcome. A bad outcome is that we reduce carbon usage drastically, which reduces economic output drastically, which causes many deaths. (This is not hyperbole. Take China, for instance. They're polluting like crazy, but even with all the pollution, people are better off. They're moving to the cities to get out of rural poverty. That poverty shortens life spans more than the pollution does.)
I'll believe it when I see it. We have at least 40% larger ice sheets now than in 2012, and more than in 2006 [1]. See also [2].
These models have been shown to be wildly inaccurate at empirical prediction [3], so I think we need to work harder and exercise more scientific skepticism before creating alarmist headlines in the mainstream media.
[1] https://www.commentarymagazine.com/culture-civilization/popu...
[2] http://blog.drwile.com/?p=12927
[3] http://objectivescience.net/warming-predictions-vs-real-worl...
Edit - to the downvoters, please explain why I shouldn't exercise scientific skepticism relating to how the mainstream discusses climate change.
Linking to blog posts is not "exercising scientific scepticism". It's a fucking biased blog post that's just another echo in your echo chamber. Here, let me try:
Obama is a space lizard[1][2][3]
Edit: To all the downvoters, please explain why I shouldn't exercise scientific scepticism relating to how the mainstream discusses the presidents reptilian status?
1. http://www.ufo-blogger.com/2013/03/man-in-black-reptilian-sh...
I'm sorry this particular topic turns off your ability to think critically and brings out snarkiness instead.
FYI the doctor is a "young-earth creationist" who has a PHD in an unrelated subject. Here's him arguing about how evolution is rubbish[1], perhaps we should listen to him because he's a doctor don't you know?
The other two sources are essentially reblogs from patently biased websites with an agenda to push, one by a neo-conservative (wow unexpected) and the other unnamed.
If you'd spend a little time critically thinking about your sources rather than using them to confirm some bias of yours you'd have already discounted them as trash.
http://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2310.epdf?referrer_ac...
[1]http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100120/full/463284a.html [2]http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-forecast-for-2...
His blog post rebuts your claims.
Maybe you can provide more counter-argument to my skepticism of climate changes being man-made.
Take a look at this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Phaneroz...
Sea levels have historically gone all over the place, definitely without us driving SUVs way back when.
Now this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Post-Gla...
It's pretty stable during the industrial revolution, when CO2 production really was kicked up a notch. Also, the rate of sea level rises rose at a much faster rate say 10,000 years ago than they're rising right now.
What I'm trying to say is that I think these temperature trends are more macro on the order of thousands of years, and probably mostly out of our control. I think what we're seeing now with contemporary research - 10 years ago, or 40 years ago - is mostly noise.
Chart 2: again, the scale, it's thousands of years. A thousand years literally take up 20 pixels in that chart, so the beginning of the industrial revolution was about 5 pixels from the right. It's literally smaller than the dots used to mark the data points. Also, CO2 and greenhouse gasses released due to human activity are higher now than they have ever been in history: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Global_C... (this whole chart fits inside the last dot on your second chart.)
Sea ice is incredibly sensitive to warming.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center the Maximum winter extent of sea ice is now at the lowest recorded in the satellite record.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_ice [2] https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Here's what I think. People are being overly alarmist and it's driving policy. Nature goes it cycles, on the order of maybe hundreds or thousands (or more) years. It's been way colder in the past than it is now, and it's also been way warmer in the past than it is now. We should reduce CO2 emissions insofar as it affects the health of people, such as smog in China.
But have we definitely teased out our effect on the temperatures from what the earth is doing on its own anyway? I'm still skeptical. Who knows, maybe there's a pattern in the earth's cosmic orbit that accounts for 99% of the warming. Or maybe it's only 1% and we're the 99% cause and Al Gore was right. But until I see this definitive proof, I have to stay skeptical.
Here: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
These, by the way, are a common defenses used by skeptics: this might be a cycle and not understanding what is meant by global warming. The preferred term is climate change. Yes, it has been colder in the past, and yes, it still snows. What has changed is the pattern of cold weather. Here's a relevant XCKD: https://xkcd.com/1321/. Essentially, it get cold, but it's doesn't stay cold. Also, the patterns of storms have changed. We've always had blizzards and tropical storms, but the intensity of these storms has ramped up.
The claim of a cyclical nature is questionable considering the data highly suggests a correlation between rising CO2 levels and the global temperature. The point that is missing out is that this is referring to the global average warmth, and our weather systems are VERY sensitive to this. Even a small change, like 2 to 4 degrees will have devastating effects.
Claire Parkinson (http://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/sed/bio/claire.l.parkinson) has been studying polar sea ice for about four decades. She has been speaking to public audiences for nearly as long. And it was those public audiences who provoked one of the NASA climatologist’s latest research projects.
“When I give public lectures or talk with people interested in the topic of polar ice, somebody will often say something like: ‘Well, the ice is decreasing in the Arctic but it’s increasing in the Antarctic, so don’t they cancel out?’” said Parkinson. “The answer is no, they don’t cancel out.”
People think all sorts of interesting and plausible thoughts and hypotheses; that doesn't make them correct. People once thought the Sun revolved around the Earth, which seems plausible when you look outside. How do we distinguish between true and false hypotheses? Science!
The hypothesis you describe is interesting but not a new one. It has been carefully considered and ruled out by almost all scientists involved - based not on an idea in someone's mind but on extensive evidence, it's almost certain that global warming is caused by humans. A good place to read about the evidence would be the IPCC[1]; their summary reports are succinct, and written clearly for non-scientists.
We'll never be absolutely certain, but we'll never be absolutely certain of anything and would never take any action if we waited to meet that standard. What will you say to the millions who die, starve, lose their homes and wealth: 'I didn't know?' We could not have more or clearer warnings. I feel we have a great responsbility and need to act immediately or blood will be on our hands, just like the people who refused to act in the face of catastrophes in the past.
I'm pretty sure that climatologists are acutely aware of the nature of the climate.
> But have we definitely teased out our effect on the temperatures from what the earth is doing on its own anyway? I'm still skeptical. Who knows, maybe there's a pattern in the earth's cosmic orbit that accounts for 99% of the warming. Or maybe it's only 1% and we're the 99% cause and Al Gore was right. But until I see this definitive proof, I have to stay skeptical.
According to the IPCC AR 5 (which I'm sure a well-informed skeptic such as yourself have perused), there is a 95-100% probability that greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activity are responsible for at least half of the warming observed from 1950-2010. Are you not satisfied with this certainty level?
There's two numbers that blow my mind every time I think about them.
The first is the energy produced by the radioactive decay at the fiery core of the Earth: 45 terawatts. That power is enough to move the continents around the globe.
The second is the energy produced by human industry -- all of our coal plants, oil burned, nuclear power, solar & wind, the whole 9 yards: 16 terawatts. That's 1/3 the power generated by the entire rest of the Earth, down to the core, and it's growing: if it grows at the same rate as it has historically, in 25 or 30 years we'll surpass the core entirely.
Humans aren't just insignificant specks on the surface of the Earth, we're major players, comparable to its fiery core. Knowing that, is it so surprising we can affect the climate significantly?
But exercising "scientific" skepticism would involve citing real (i.e. primary) sources, not blog posts that don't seem to be able to cite properly either. Otherwise it's just skepticism.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
which directly contradicts your statement. ( In fact we have record low sea ice this winter.)
Everybody's perfectly happy to believe the climate scientists when they say "That's mainly due to El Nino this year."
Then the next day the same scientists say "CO2 emissions are affecting the climate" and we're back to "What global warming? If I can't see something it doesn't exist."
Unless we are talking about a big object hanging out nearby, slowly getting closer, in which case I have plenty of non-scientist acquaintances who will be pointing telescopes at it and verifying.
Science is a bitch!
Is it really 10 years? Within our lifetimes? Within 50 years?
I really wish someone would nail down a definitive timeline to when someone should really worry about climate change.
I mean ordering the world's problems big to small, I'd say unemployment, income inequality, and stagnant economic growth are more important things to worry about.
If you do not understand the science, that doesn't make the science wrong, it just makes you look stupid.
Buying oil enriches countries antagonistic to the US. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela. Oil is a global commodity. If we use less oil then those countries will lose twice: Once because they're selling fewer barrels of oil and then again because, with less demand, pre-tax price per barrel goes down.
This also means we get free money at the expense of those countries. If we enter into a treaty with Europe and China to each put a $2/gallon tax on oil, that does not make gas go from $2 to $4, because the tax will reduce consumption (as intended), which reduces demand, which lowers prices. So instead of paying $2 of which $2 goes to the bad guys, you pay $3 of which $2 goes to Uncle Sam and $1 goes to the bad guys. Then that's $2 we can use to cut other taxes, $1 of which came from the bad guys. So not only is this revenue neutral, it's effectively a tax cut -- you pay $1 extra for gas and then pay $2 less in income tax. American taxpayers end up with more money in their pockets at the expense of Russia and Iran. And the higher we make the gas tax the more it reduces demand which transfers even more money from antagonistic foreign countries to US taxpayers.
Somebody tell me why CO2 even matters when carbon tax justifies itself regardless.
Global oil prices have fallen due to demand descruction. Total quantity of oil consumed is down as well. Revenues, as P * Q, are down. It's a compound effect.
Saying that both supply and demand have fallen is incorrect in an economist's sense as to an economist these are functions. Shifting one function (usually expressed as a "curve") moves along the other curve, even without a change in that function.
Confusing, I know.
Luxury foods are really the biggest greenhouse gas footprint. Cows produce more than 60% of our methane footprint, and on a 20 year scale methane is around 80 times more potent than CO2 for global warming.
Taxes can be a solution but you have to take subsidies too.
https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/sources/agri...
According to that link agriculture is 9% of CO2-equivalent emissions while electricity and transportation are 58%. Which isn't to say nothing should be done about agriculture, but it isn't the bulk of the problem, and it isn't what motivates climate change deniers.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM
Here's an 18% estimate while transportation is 13%.
Here's a 51% estimate, trumping everything else.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6294
Some hypothesise that the footprint is even larger.
Given the fact that we have to produce food for around 100 billion animals yearly (where a significant amount of these animals weighs more than 250lbs it's not surprising it takes a lot of energy to do that.
Machines like cars, planes are on the other hand pretty efficient. Unlike animal bodies.
Again, not disagreeing in any way, just looking to provide some context in relation to the subject matter in the original post. In fact, I think climate change and environmental stewardship are issues that go hand in hand and should definitely be taken more seriously.
But perhaps a bigger problem than nobody knowing about the gravity problem is that at this stage, nobody wants to know, either. For that reason, nobody can prevent the coming period of change.
Carbon dioxide is a fund pollutant.