Sea Ice Extent Sinks to Record Lows at Both Poles | Hacker News Reader

Sea Ice Extent Sinks to Record Lows at Both Poles

nasa.gov

255 pointsmatteuan156 comments

Look at this graph of global sea ice extent for every year since 1978. It is insane how much an outlier the last 9 months are. Like sesame street level "one of these curves is not like the others" kind of outlier.

https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/sea-ice-...

Is there data available for this prior to 1978?

No, there was no reliable measurement before satellites. Quoting wikipedia:

Useful satellite data concerning sea ice began in December 1972 with the Electrically Scanning Microwave Radiometer (ESMR) instrument. However, this was not directly comparable with the later SMMR/SSMI, and so the practical record begins in late 1978 with the launch of NASA’s Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) satellite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_of_sea_ice

The worst models have always had really nasty asymptotes near the end, and it would certainly appear that we've reached that point in at least one critical system. Given the other issues arising at the same time (permafrost melting, methane release, coral bleaching...) it's not hard to see this as the beginning of the end.

Have models tended to predict disproportionate high-latitude warming?

Yes. "When climate warms or cools, the changes are generally much more drastic at high latitudes than they are closer to equator. Temperatures measured in ice core bore holes in Greenland show, for instance, that central Greenland temperatures during the Last Glacial Maximum were about 20 degrees lower than today while the tropics were only a couple of degrees cooler."

http://www.iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk/research/climatechange/mo...

That implies that climate is at a relatively unique place. I mean, there's arguably no way that Greenland temperatures will be higher than tropical temperatures. But I guess that makes sense, in that we're in an interglacial.

The scale does start somewhere around 16, though, so the relative change is like 10% to 15%.

40 years is kind of nothing in terms of geological time.

It's definitely an outlier but trend following has two different schools, that the trend will continue forever, or that the trend will revert to the mean. I'm in the camp that things will revert to mean for things like this, just like how California drought recovered so violently. I guess time will tell.

What mechanism do you propose would result in an increase in sea ice?

Obviously, humanity is going to curb its use of CO2 and the Earth will start to cool again.

It would still take centuries for the process to begin to reverse.

That's not really that long. If you're 20 today that will mean an inhabitable world for your great great great grandchildren. If they're really lucky, they will even be able to see some real animals.

Assuming no mass extinctions or desperate wars in between.

So we should just give up? That's a stupid attitude to take.

100,000 years - for Anthropocene CO2 reversal by natural processes.

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum took 100,000 years to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere naturally.[1]

The current situation is directly comparable. Humans have input 1000 Gigatons of CO2 to date and ~1000 Gigaton more by centuries end. Roughly PETM CO2 estimates [1].

The big PETM change came when the Methane Clathydrates at the bottom of the sea started melting.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08hpmmf : 35:42 In our time: The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, Melvyn Bragg & Guests.

I'm undecided, but I tend to prefer to err on the side of caution (even if there are economic consequences.) I believe you're referring to this trend? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record#/media/File...

Edit: If anyone is familiar enough with the science to explain the (in)significance of this graph vs. current trends I'd like to hear an explanation!

I was talking specifically about the graph that OP linked to.

If by "return to the mean" you're talking about the Pliocene[1], the last time CO2 levels were this high, when temperatures were 2-3C higher, ice sheets collapsed and seas were 25m higher, then yes - we're likely returning quite soon to that Pliocene mean, if not beyond!

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene_climate

If CO2 levels were this high previously, and temperatures were higher, what caused the CO2 levels to drop?

Natural sequestration that takes many thousands to millions of years.

No offense, because this is complicated stuff and IANA climate scientist - but this is a really serious topic, and I'd really recommend you spend some time studying the basics before posting a bunch of denialist-type stuff online where you may seed doubts to others.

I would highly recommend a couple background, approachable videos on the topic from mainstream experts:

* 11 min, Glen Peters, climate scientist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=529Og_YR0IU

* 53 min, Kevin Anderson, climate scientist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF1zNpzf8RM

To answer your specific question: paleoclimate has varied for many reasons, from solar and ecological changes to ongoing natural processes. CO2 is absorbed by the biosphere - by acidifying oceans, by plants that capture carbon then die and don't decay it all back into the air/water. The problem is this cycle is far too slow and low in capacity in human-relevant periods of time, relative to our present emission levels (or politically achievable fractions thereof). The biosphere is already absorbing about half the CO2 we emit, and there's evidence that share may be dropping as we overload its capacity in myriad ways (see today's permafrost bubble story as an example of a carbon sink turning upside down).

Just as a final ironic point - where do you think all the CO2 we're emitting is coming from? From carbon sequestered naturally over millions of years into oil, natural(!) gas and shale/tar sands/etc. The natural processes that put it there are what resulted in the climate we have today. We're literally digging up the carbon that millions of years ago kept the planet warm enough for dinosaurs and pumping it back up into the atmosphere. That climate is the mean to which we will return.

For the majority of the earths existence, there has been no ice on the poles.

May HN forgive me for responding to this.

For the majority of Solar existence, we have been a ball of incandescent star dust.

For the vast majority of earths existence, it has not been supportive to complex life.

For the majority of the earths existence, there weren't humans either... so yeah, if that's the world you prefer.

For the majority of earth's existence, 100% of all current species did not exist.

Or do you want to go back to those halcyon days of the preCambrian period

CO2 levels dropped once the temperature did[1].

[1]https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0e7_1420745413

The problem is not only the level, it is the rate of change.

Why do you ask?

In all seriousness, why? Have you not been able to look it up yourself? Will any sort of argument or evidence persuade you?

We know two things at this point about your stance.

1) Your gut is a valid data source.

2) You haven't looked up any of the plentiful information on this topic and prefer to ask people here.

This suggests that you're asking disingenuously. Please comment on how you will use the information we share with you (perhaps to supersede your gut?) before asking us to spend time constructing sourced, cogent responses.

Please don't be confrontational. You don't need to convince this commenter. You need to convince the hundreds of people who will read their comments and decide which stance is more reasonable.

This isn't about reasonable.

Theres tons of data out there, literally an entire field of work in science.

And that entire field of work is regularly debunked and debated with such old adages as - "scientists have an incentive to get grants, so they keep putting out material which the < evil illuminati types > want to hear".

And I've seen such arguments on HN.

I think there isn't any convincing left to be done, at most link people to sources and if they are motivated they'll cover it themselves.

Whats left is collective action.

>This isn't about reasonable.

Well then, in the court of public opinion at least, you've already lost.

Nobody is going to listen to the hobo screaming about how the government is spying on us in our own houses with our TVs. It doesn't matter if he's right if everyone ignores him, in fact the opposite, since people will associate the argument with screaming hobos.

Don't be a scientifically literate screaming hobo. It hurts the cause.

The history of failure of climate science is a study in the use of the court of public opinion.

That's where climate science was taken and rendered impotent, and more lasting damage done to it and to expertise itself, that we haven't recovered.

A long time ago, a particular news network helped climate cranks gain public recognition

The scientists had ignored these cranks, rightly inferring that engaging with crazy people makes them seem more credible.

The media group spun this reticence into a conspiracy by liberal/ivory tower/money stealing/hippies; evil experts crushing the lone voice of reason.

Simultaneously, the political party best served by this audience, developed their language and communication playbook to convert the media attention into a political force.

When scientists realized that they had to engage if they wanted to have any hope, they accepted tv shows or debates. The hope was that if they engaged, if facts and science as presented, people would understand what was at stake and would act in good faith.

And as you can guess, this was naive. The point was never to have an informed debate, it was to have a spectacle. Scientists and science lost.

This system works so well, that within the past few years, it's been expanded to target something as fundamental as evolution.

Frankly I'm in awe of it, and take notes. more than tech, communication and marketing are America's strengths.

In short I'm not a scientific literate screaming hobo. I'm an old fart, who's seen the hope in this fight die out several times. I've even been at the point where I said "human beings won't let this happen. It's just too obvious and important." Twice.

I no longer believe that there is another "side" to reach out to, because the message will never get through.

Instead it's time to just connect with people who are already acting, focus on ideas which move the needle, invest in communication and mobilization.

If you're frustrated, don't take that out on people who are misinformed. They aren't in your news bubble, and for years everything they've seen has said that climate science is bunk.

If you don't want to be a reasonable, level headed and compassionate fellow human who wishes to gently lead in the direction of truth, rather be silent so that someone else can.

It's the first time I've heard that CO2 levels previously in history were at the same level as now, so I asked a genuine question. This thread is starting to get as ridiculous as a Trump thread. Any shadow of questions that don't fit exactly with the echo chamber and you instantly get vilified as the devil, or a Trump supporter, even though I didn't espouse any climate-denier comments.

Its a reasonable issue - historic (estimates) of CO2 levels were not out of line with current levels. Yet historicly the world's ice hadn't melted. Is something else going on? Perhaps in concert with rising CO2?

"History" is a misnomer here. That term is usually used to refer to the time since the invention of writing, roughly 5,000 years ago. CO2 levels have never been anywhere close to current levels in that period.

CO2 levels have been this high, and much higher, in the distant past. But the climate has also varied enormously in the distant past as well. Roughly 55 million years ago, the planet had nearly no ice. A bit over two billion years ago, it's believed that the planet was almost entirely covered in ice.

So no, it's not really a reasonable issue. CO2 levels have varied a great deal, as has the climate. Nothing in the Earth's climate past suggests that the current dramatic rise in CO2 levels wouldn't also result in dramatic changes to the climate.

But isn't it the case that CO2 levels could not be seen as a direct indicator of ice levels in say the last 35 Million years? The ice-free times correspond to high CO2; the icebound times to low CO2. But in between there's considerable difference, and no simple correleation. One could be driven to think, something besides CO2 is (also) involved.

I don't know enough about it to know whether it is as you say, but nobody denies that climate feedback loops are extremely complicated and there's rarely a direct relationship between any two numbers.

In recent geologic time CO2 levels seem to mostly be influenced by temperature instead of increasing CO2 levels causing temperature rise like today (there does not seem to be animals in past all of a sudden excavating and burning gigatons of carbon annually). Over million year timescales the biggest cause in the change in Earth's temperature is Milankovitch cycles[1] which is short hand for changes in the shape Earth's orbit and changes in the position of the Earth's spin axis. These changes interact to produce various climate conditions. The biggest factor is that sometimes these cycles cause the northern hemisphere to have very cold winters and other times mild winters. When the winters are very cold, continental glaciers can form on North America and Eurasia. They reflect more sunlight than land and the Earth gets colder. This is an ice age. Eventually the orbital and spin axis parameters change (over tens of thousands of years) and, with warmer winters in the northern hemisphere, the ice sheets begin to melt. With this positive feedback loop, the ice age ends quickly, the Earth gets warmer, and the Earth enters what is called an inter-glacial (we are in one now).

This is, of course, a very simplified explanation. As one goes back hundreds of millions to billions of years, other large scale changes like plate tectonics, atmospheric composition/mass, sun brightness, continental weathering, etc. will cause the average surface temperature to vary considerably.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

We really need a corollary to Poe's Law known as Trump's Law.

BTW - No one brought up the spectre of Trump, you invoked it. People are, rightly, criticizing your gut feeling that flies in the face of our best understanding of multiple hard scientific fields and the tons of works and dedication by tens of thousands of researchers around the globe.

My point is, if you say something that doesn't completely damn Trump or say something that can be interpreted as even being mildly positive towards him, all of a sudden you're attacked as a Trump supporter. It's ridiculous. Same goes for climate change. I didn't say anything that denied climate change and yet look at the comments above. Sure, the ice levels are outliers this year, but I think they'll probably revert to the mean in a couple of years. Just like the CA drought. And yet all of a sudden I'm a climate science denier? It's stupid and idiotic.

I'm curious about this: what exactly do you think the (paleo)climatologist community thinks about this? Why do you think that the people most knowledgeable about how the climate has changed in the past, and what causes the climate to change, are so worried about the current situation, and what do you know or realize that they don't? I understand these questions seem loaded or accusative, but I'm genuinely trying to understand an outlook that I cannot begin to fathom.

There is no they. The climate science community is not united.

You have a gut feeling it will revert. Okay, great. But the consequences are on the scale of a significant fraction of the world's GDP as well as a significant fraction of the world population. Should we maybe have someone study it more carefully?

So say we find a bunch of smart people to think about the question. Give them the biggest computers money can buy. Have multiple competing teams who double-check each other and get rewarded if they find mistakes in others' work or have new ideas to improve the study. Make it big -- it is important, right? Global. Lots of smart people, lots of the biggest computers. Anything they need to help their work.

And after years of their work, when they come back with a report [1], then lets just ignore it and trust your gut instead, right?

[1] http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/mindex.shtml

bravo (although you did make me spit coffee all over my laptop which I am not happy about....)

> 40 years is kind of nothing in terms of geological time.

True, but if you take that view, that 40 years is a blink of an eye, we could be creating the equivalent of a supervolcano.

It's a bad rule of thumb and extremely simplistic to apply the law of large numbers on an extremely complex, dynamic and chaotic system like the earth, it's ecosystem, weather patterns, etc, like the system oscillates back and forth as a pendulum moving in one or two dimensions would. The mean is always in flux and sometimes it is completely obliterated.

If human civilization/population is causing the change then reverting to the mean doesn't sound like that great of an outcome.

> 40 years is kind of nothing in terms of geological time.

Right, which is why this stuff is so worrying. Such a huge change in only 40 years is unprecedented.

Pointing out the short timescale as a reason not to worry makes no sense.

Just out of curiosity, has someone verified that the graph is correct? (As it is no official plot and I am not sure what exact source was used.)

Yes. See https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newscientist.com/article/21...

I wonder what the error bars are. I mean, how much of the difference is actual, and how much can be explained by the measurement methods from 1980s being worse than contemporary?

In general, why almost no one puts error bars on their charts? Or even any information about the precision/accuracy of measurements?

Go to the source of the data. Both NASA and NOAA provide descriptions down to the last detail on how they get their data and what adjustments they make to it and why.

Edit: In this case it's NSIDC.

https://nsidc.org/

In the DC area, we had two weeks of 70 degree weather in February. The cherry trees blossomed because of it, and then they wilted off the trees because temperatures dropped to normal.

I saw Fox News manage to put a anti-global warming spin on it by only reporting that cold killed the cherry blossoms, leaving out the fact that they normally blossom in April.

civilization will fall because our ability to spend money and research on marketing and human manipulation will outstrip the field of perception of the people doing the manipulation.

I salute you for your commitment to watching Fox News. After Trump's election I said I was going to consume more of the other-side-centric media because I wanted to understand how this F'ing happened. I can't, though, it's too painful. So I salute you.

Nearby, record low wind-chill temperatures in Massachusetts yesterday after a massive blizzard ten days ago.

http://www.masslive.com/weather/index.ssf/2017/03/with_wind_...

http://www.masslive.com/weather/index.ssf/2017/03/60000_powe...

Anecdata.

I don't understand it how they ethically manage to do that. What kind of journalism is that?

> What kind of journalism is that? The propaganda kind

Humans leave for about 80 years. Not many are willing to make choices for generations coming after. If someone's gonna pay you millions to spread bullshit, why would you refuse?

Your world's gonna end in a couple of decades anyway right?

So when its colder than average, is that proof negative?

Already, the discussion here swings toward the climate change vs. "denialist" debate. Instead of politicizing it, maybe read the article? According to those interviewed, the trend until last year was to see more ice.

    > “It is tempting to say that the record low we are seeing this year is global warming finally catching up with Antarctica,” Meier said. “However, this might just be an extreme case of pushing the envelope of year-to-year variability. We’ll need to have several more years of data to be able to say there has been a significant change in the trend.”

Ironically, all those accusing others of being "denialists" are themselves failing to look at this scientifically, and resorting to the rudely unscientific tactic of name-calling.

To me, that statement sounds more like "Clutching at straws, it might be an outlier extreme case of year-to-year variability, but it's probably global warming; if you want a definitive answer, wait a couple years".

No. Implying a single piece of decontextualized evidence--sea levels not rising--casts doubt on AGW is a classic denialist tactic. Multiple lines of evidence provide compelling arguments for AGW. It's an intellectually dishonest gambit to try to play a game of "gotcha" instead of trying to come up with the most powerful explanation for a phenomenon, and toxic to scientific discourse.

I did not say what you think I said. In a topic as complex (and contentious) as weather, climate, global warming, etc. I think we should focus on understanding the science and employing civic discourse. I simply repeated what the scientist said: no conclusions yet, need more data. And in response I receive the blatant accusations of "classic denialist tactic[s]"? You think that's not toxic to discourse?

(Disclosure to pre-empt the common accusation of ignorance: I'm scientifically trained and work in renewable energy R&D.)

Unfortunately I think the level of discourse is already at rock-bottom. I would like to agree with you and I think people do need to be careful and not jump the gun (and thereby provide fodder for the denialist camp) but at some point we can't simply be academic about it all - the evidence for AGW (or ACC preferably) is overwhelming at this point and while an objective academic is preferable it can also be damaging to the goal of changing public opinion.

The denialist camp has a simple and effective strategy for disputing anthropomorphic climate change: First, always call it global warming to make it less understood and then if its cold [1], dispute GW and if any single piece of information doesn't 100% fit with GW (ie, a single datapoint that shows global temperatures cooling by ignoring ocean temperatures [2]).

However, if you are being 100% honest about any climate measurements you cannot say anything other than "Well, this single measurement doesn't tell us anything but it fits with the trend of rising temperatures globally and we need more data and research.". This may be true, but its not winning the argument. People will follow simple, easy narratives and will shy from complex arguments whose consequences are also terrifying and potentially apocalyptic. By sticking to our guns and taking the high road, we might be dooming ourselves and by the time people really feel climate change it will be too late. Is our high-minded discourse worth that? I'm not saying we rabidly jump on every datapoint and say "SEE CLIMATE CHANGE", but until I see a lot more credible information I think its time to stop taking such a passive stance.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/politics/james-inhofe-snowball... [2] https://weather.com/news/news/breitbart-misleads-americans-c...

So, just to be clear, you're saying that the attribution of reduced Antarctic sea ice extent to global warming is unclear, and not that the phenomenon referred to as global warming is itself somehow brought into doubt by the lack of clarity on that particular issue?

Hum, sea levels rise is a so systematic symptom of AGW that if it were lacking, it would be a reason to doubt other measurements. It would at a minimum require a very good explanation.

Unfortunately, the predicted sea level rise understates what we observe. That also warrants an explanation (there have been a few articles about it here), but in the other direction.

To me, this just seems like the usual public overreaction to a single observation.

Thirty months ago NASA reported Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reach...

That made a similar impact in different circles.

But looking at the data is hard, name calling is easy.

The person being called a "denialist" said that this measurement isn't a problem, because if it was a problem then sea levels would be rising. This is so incorrect that it's hard to see it being a legitimate misunderstanding, and it seems quite likely to be a deliberate attempt to mislead people. Either way, how exactly do you think we should handle people who barge into the conversation with ridiculous arguments like "sea ice must not be decreasing, because if it was then sea levels would be up"?

Is that the flagged comment? I didn't see that comment, but I was very nearly called a denialist, and was downvoted into oblivion for pointing out that we'd need to make sacrifices to stop climate change.

Clanan was basically called a denialist for quoting the article and calling out the name-calling.

Someone else was warned about posting "denialist-type stuff" because they asked what caused CO2 levels to drop after the Pliocene epoch.

The level of discourse in this thread is as low as I've seen it on Hacker News.

"Very nearly called a denialist" sounds a lot like not being called a denialist.

The responses you got in this thread look pretty reasonable to me. The downvotes don't seem very justified, but the discourse looks fine.

Clanan took a part of the article discussing Antarctica and discussed it as if it applied to the Arctic as well. The trend in the Arctic has been decreasing sea ice for decades, with a speed that overwhelms the slow increase in the Antarctic. The climate change caution is only for the Antarctic. The article doesn't say either way, but my understanding is that the changes in the Arctic are very much believed to be linked to climate change.

And despite that highly misleading cherrypicking from the article, Clanan got pretty reasonable responses, even though shrill criticism would be pretty well justified for this.

> "Very nearly called a denialist" sounds a lot like not being called a denialist.

"Synthetic" was the word used. What does that refer to if not an agent of someone being paid to distribute (denialist) propaganda? Also "naive".

And were you calling this a reasonable response to Clanan: "a classic denialist tactic...an intellectually dishonest gambit"

Name-calling with sophisticated insults is still name-calling. If this is what you mean by "shrill criticism", I don't see how that's intended to do anything but control the discourse by driving people away.

"a classic denialist tactic...an intellectually dishonest gambit"

This quote was used to describe the flagged comment, in which the person said that the article was misleading because if sea ice were really decreasing then sea levels would be rising. That seems completely accurate and justified to me.

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

The comment to which you're referring could be shortened to "sea levels are rising".

Calling out extremely bad arguments as extremely bad seems reasonable to me. That comment didn't understand that floating ice doesn't increase water levels when it melts. That's either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice. It would be like a comment on a math article saying that if multiplication were real then 2+2 would equal 5.

Keep in mind that this is not just an area where there are some ignorant people. There's a ton of money and powerful political organizations (one of which happens to be running most of the US federal government right now) trying very hard to convince people that climate change is a fraud, and using tactics just like this to do it.

> That comment didn't understand that floating ice doesn't increase water levels when it melts. That's either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice.

Your misunderstanding of the knowledge of an average person is either a deliberate attempt to confuse, or something so clueless that it's indistinguishable from malice.

See how unproductive such comments are?

But seriously, how many people do you think actually understand buoyancy? A simple explanation that floating ice displaces an equal amount (mass, not volume) of water would be both more civil and more productive.

The actual replies that comment got are completely benign:

"Sea ice melting doesn't cause sea level increases."

"Arctic sea ice thickness and volume are decreasing too."

The word "denialist" only came up when someone tried to explain to this person why they got downvoted. And it doesn't even accuse the commenter of being one, it just says that their argument is along those lines, and explicitly admits the possibility that it's unintentional.

The quote you dislike didn't come out until some other person posted a comment trying to defend the "denialist" side, and incidentally using a dishonest summary of part of the article to do it.

I really don't see what you want here. What you say should have been done seems to be what was done.

Edit: also, how many people do I think actually understand buoyancy on HN? All of them.

Why did you leave out the top voted reply?

> So, you seem flummoxed by the downvoting. I'm not sure it's warranted, but here's an explanation so you don't run into it in the future:

> Most climate change denialists don't know how science works. Or, if they do, they cynically prey on the public's ignorance. I'm not up to date on sea level data, but even if what you say is true, you didn't just disprove climate change and proved that scientists are a bunch of conspiratorial UN socialists.

The most popular reply to that comment here was basically saying "asking questions is denialist, don't do that."

I didn't leave it out. I devoted an entire paragraph to it.

Characterizing it as "asking questions" is completely off base. The flagged comment asked no questions. It merely made statements, all of which were wrong or worse.

I'm starting to wonder if you're engaging in this conversation in good faith.

You left out the actual words of that comment (while quoting two others), then you accused me of not acting in good faith.

This topic has brought the level of discussion here to record lows.

Reply to your edit:

If characterizing it as asking questions is incorrect, I apologize. As I said, I haven't seen the actual comment (because someone flagged it, apparently without good reason).

Perhaps I should say "raising counterpoints is denialist, don't do that". To me, that's equally unacceptable here.

"This topic has brought the level of discussion here to record lows."

At least we can agree on that, but IMO the blame rests entirely with the people who go out of their way to defend people posting nonsense in an attempt to discredit the entire idea of climate change.

No serious discussion can forbid disagreement or punish people for not understanding everything already.

"Raising counterpoints is denialist, don't do that" should be the recipient of the flags.

Ok, so this question has been asked before, but here goes!

What are we going to do about it?

I hear people say it's just too late to stop a catastrophe, but I find it hard to believe.

Most likely not much we can do now. Add to that the fact that the government of the most powerful country in the World straight up denies the science.

There's always something we can do. If we can't prevent the problem from happening, we can try to slow it down, mitigate its effects and eventually reverse it. Can't imagine a worse reaction now than just giving up.

Most likely what will happen is the rich will create gated cities and private armies and leave the rest to fend for themselves.

The environment must become a political issue. There will be people on both sides of the argument. It has to be about more than science.

It's not too late to stop this. But if you try, some people who will be dead before the worst happens and so won't suffer or pay for the consequences, and who can profit in the short term by punting the problem into the long grass will fight to prevent you from doing so.

In order to stop it, roughly $10 trillion dollars worth of fossil fuel assets will need to be left in the ground. As a historical parallel, the economic value (inflation adjusted) of the slaves in the southern US before the civil war was $10 trillion dollars.

The people who owned those slaves opted to fight the most destructive war the planet had seen at that time rather than give up their property.

Have you noticed that nearly all the big names pushing Brexit are climate change denialists? That Trump claims it's a hoax and chose as his Secretary of State the head of Exxon that discussed climate change on a seperate email alias which the company then "lost" when asked to provide them in a court case?

It's not looking good, but it's not a technical issue.

Would you stop people from driving; heating and cooling their homes; watching TV and using computers; eating food grown with fertilizer made from fossil fuels?

Energy makes life better for everyone, not only for people who profit by selling it.

Predictions suggest actually dealing with climate change will save trillions of dollars per year. That's why all the sane and sensible people support it.

If you're the one proposing that we just throw all that money away, then you're the one that needs to answer questions about depriving people of material wealth.

You didn't answer the question. How would we "deal with climate change" now without making the sacrifices people aren't willing to make?

My original point was that people not wanting to make sacrifices was why we're probably doomed as a civilization.

But, they will inflict greater losses on other people by doing so. Overall, dealing with this issue is the cheaper option and cheaper = less sacrifices. So your question is equivalent to "How can you stop running up the credit card bill if that will stop us from spending money right now" and acting like I'm the irresponsible crazy person.

I've accepted that if the worst predictions are true, we're doomed.

No one is willing to make these sacrifices. How much energy are we wasting having this discussion here? How much energy is wasted on computers and entertainment and machine learning and bitcoins and other popular topics here?

How much energy do celebrity environmentalists and "green" politicians waste flying around the world?

Has any Democrat proposed making serious sacrifices to stop climate change?

It seems to me that there are always two sides in this argument: one denies climate change, the other expects it and changes nothing.

So, there are a few interesting nuances here.

First, we've already passed 400 PPM CO2, and it's very hard to imagine we won't hit 500 PPM. It's entirely possible we'll hit 600 PPM. It's very crucial how much warming is really associated with these various CO2 levels - and that is not known to a high precision at this time.

If energy technology is developed as it should be, with solar, nuclear, wind, and geothermal continuously being improved, CO2 emissions will fall off pretty quickly over the next few decades. It seems likely this can be done with constantly increasing quality of life.

The real issue is how will we mitigate the peak atmospheric CO2 concentration if needed? I would argue the only sane approach is aggressive investment into science and technology. Mitigations may have to include many things, even up to the scope of orbital sunshades.

This is a straw man argument (use fossil fuels or lose all benefits of modern life. We can still enjoy these benefits by switching to renewables, or power.

The naive nature of this comment seems pretty synthetic, but I'll give it a grown up response:

One answer to preserve GDP while shifting to carbon neutral renewables is to increase the cost of fossil fuels through the use of a Carbon Dividend. This consists of three points 1. Taxing carbon fuels at the wholesale market. 2. Providing a dividend to every citizen of the U.S. (mitigates the impact on low income families, estimates range about $4k / person) 3. Provide an adjustment tax at the border punishing other countries like China that do not institute their own Carbon fee structure.

This is a market based solution advocated by James Baker & others within the conservative establishment to help our society accelerate the shift to carbon neutral power. Currently a group of 17 house republican representatives support the measures.

More information can be found by researching / participating / volunteering for the citizen's climate lobby - http://citizensclimatelobby.org/

"Use renewables" is the naive answer here.

It's going to take decades to replace the world's energy infrastructure with renewables at a natural pace. Trying to do so more quickly would waste a lot of energy and that would also release more carbon.

To stop climate change, we'd have to make larger sacrifices than that.

I know this is a massive side-track, but...

How was the American Civil War the "most destructive war the planet had seen at that time"? It had nothing like the scale of casualties of eg. the 30 Years' War.

You're correct, possibly I misinterpreted an American-centric statistic I heard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll

Still very bad, but not genre defyingly bad on a global scale, even at that time.

Yes, when thinking about the events of the mid 19th century it's useful to remember that the United States of that time wasn't the global superpower of today, but just another middle power among many.

If you really want destructive, check out the An Lushan Rebellion or the Taiping Rebellion. The former killed millions, perhaps several tens of millions, back when the world population was only 200-300 million. The latter was roughly contemporary with the American Civil War and killed 20-30 million people.

I'm just back from Antarctica, and chatted with a number of scientists from McMurdo & Vernadsky stations - while stood outside wearing shorts and a shirt (apparently this is not normal Antarctic apparel, but it was hot), and their outlook is dour. They're not talking in terms of prevention or reversal, rather, mitigation - how can human life survive in a vastly changed biosphere?

Animal behaviour was all sorts of weird too - Orca and humpbacks in abnormally large groupings (hundreds of individuals), salps flourishing in the water just below the rotted away feet of glaciers, penguins nesting and mating at exactly the wrong time of year.

The only way to lessen the disaster will be to subvert existing systems to the purpose - make it financially rewarding to leave oil in the ground, to use renewables, to not burn down forests for short-lived ranch-land. Doing this on a global scale can only be achieved through capitalism - it's the one constant across borders, as its increasingly clear governments either cannot or will not respond to this crisis. Don't ask me for specifics - I haven't figured that much out yet, but it seems to be the only viable pathway.

I have a friend who works for Exxon material science division. His goal in life is to find "the next oil", obviously Exxon is willing to hedge its bets and fund some alternative energy research so they can position themselves if a new breakthrough is discovered.

Here is the problem: Oil is currently the most energy packed material that humans easily have access to. And its not even really close, wind / solar / etc are not just 40% less efficient, more like orders of magnitude.

I think the demonization of oil may be causing more total CO2 than just burning it. A craze starts which convinces everyone to buy electric cars - except those rare earth materials for the batteries are really hard to find. They require millions of tons of mining to gather enough a usable quantity for one electric vehicle.

How does all that mining get accomplished? Certainly not in a CO2 friendly manner. Where does the electricity come from to charge those batteries?

Many reasonable people in the energy industry are eager to find a "better oil" but realize that rushing off into hysterical tulip manias is probably doing more harm to the enviroment than just using the 'cheap / easy' oil that we have.

The viable alternatives aren't so simple as replacing one product with another that's just as energy dense. They involve things like biking instead of driving, not making frequent trips across the country, spending less time doing busy work and more time taking care (cooking, mending, gardening, walking, studying, adapting).

The global economic norms are predicated on a simplified models of humans, in which we are needy, pathetic little hungry creatures who must be managed and trained, sorted and extracted.

But really, we are 8 billion capable, creative individuals who, free of our doubts and demons, could really make the world more livable for ourselves and each other. Do you realize how many capable hands are among us? I see it clearly on a good day. We need to realize it, and I believe we will, but probably not without some fire.

I think those claims about total CO2 have been repeatedly debunked in the past. And materials are readily recyclable anyway even if they are energy intensive to, source.

But really we are in a transitional state. And the constant search for the "next oil" could have serious opportunity costs.

For people who haven't read this article -

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a36228/ballad-of-the-sa...

Climate scientists are depressed because of the results they are seeing.

Wow, this is was a really interesting, albeit sad read. Thanks.

Howdy! I work in cleantech, and I guess it's that time again for a what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it post :)

To start, here's my favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!"

So what can you do about it?

Work at a new energy technology company! We are currently growing exponentially[1], and we need as many smart people as we can get. There are lots of companies hiring software engineers.

How do I find a job fighting climate change?

I'd recommend browsing the exhibitor and speaker lists from the most recent conference in each sector (linked below).

    * Energy Storage[2][3]
    * Solar[4][5]
    * Wind[6]
    * Nuclear[7]
    * Electric Utilities[8][9]
    * Electric vehicles[10]

Also, if you're in the SF bay area, I'd recommend subscribing to my Bay Area Energy Events Calendar[11]. Just start showing up to events and you'll probably find a job really quickly.

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/22/energy-is-the-new-new-inte...

[2]: http://www.esnaexpo.com/

[3]: https://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/u.s.-energy-stora...

[4]: https://www.intersolar.us/

[5]: http://www.solarpowerinternational.com/

[6]: http://www.windpowerexpo.org/

[7]: https://www.nei.org/Conferences

[8]: http://www.distributech.com/index.html

[9]: https://www.greentechmedia.com/events/live/grid-edge-world-f...

[10]: http://tec.ieee.org/

[11]: https://bayareaenergyevents.com/

Great job! It's nice to see someone being proactive rather than simply complaining.

It's also good to see nuclear power included in your list.

The fact is that if energy technology is developed as it should be, market forces will lessen CO2 emissions, and nobody will have to "sacrifice" anything.

We're well past the point where nobody will have to sacrifice, regardless of how energy technology and markets develop in the future. Without anything short of international scale geoengineering projects (aka a miracle), sea levels will rise at least several inches over the next century, which translates to several extra feet during storms and surges. Already cities like Miami are seeing the consequences and most of the people living in vulnerable regions will not have the capital or infrastructure to easily move inland. Meanwhile, agricultural industries like in Italy and France have already begun to move northward, which will disrupt food supplies for hundreds of millions of people. There is strong evidence that this disruption has already begun to happen in the Middle East, except at a larger scale than the desertification of the Fertile Crescent or any other agricultural shock in recorded civilization.

Slowing down our CO2 output will give millions of people more time to adapt to a changing environment but lets not kid ourselves. We're decades past the point of no return and mitigating the effects of climate change on our societies will soon become just as important as reducing our GHG output.

I think our definition of "sacrifice" is different. I'm referring to a systemic drag on the standard of living going forward, due to reduced energy availability. Abundant, cheap energy is crucial for the best outcome going forward.

I concur that international scale geoengineering will be required if the worse of the current estimates for CO2 induced warming are correct. So, we had best proactively prepare for that, just in case.

As to current sea level rise and other climate change related effects, it's actually currently impossible to definitively separate the human signal from natural variability. We'll know more over time, of course.

It'll be interesting to see if the upcoming Grand Solar Minimum will do anything to lower global temperatures on decadal timescales.

For anybody in the RTP (NC) area, looks like some local energy events can be found here:

https://rtec-rtp.org/events/

We do nothing about it because it's a natural cycle.

What's so natural about extracting large pockets of carbon deposits (which took millions of years to form) and releasing it into the atmosphere over an extremely short period (~150 years)?

Ok, so this question has been asked before, but here goes!
What are we going to do about it?

I hear people say it's just too late to stop a catastrophe, but I find it hard to believe.

It is probably not too late to stop a "catastrophe," but it is too late to stop climate change. It is my understanding that even if we were to stop putting more CO2 into the atmosphere immediately, temperatures would continue to rise for a few decades due to the CO2 that is already there. The only way to fight that would be massive investments in carbon capture and storage. Realistically, we are going to experience significant climate change over the next 50 years.

That doesn't mean nothing can be done, of course. By reducing or eliminating greenhouse gas emissions, we can slow the rate of change. By investing in carbon capture technology, we can slow and perhaps one day reverse the change. We also need to look into ways of mitigating the effects of the change that is coming.

Excellent article on that topic by Brad Plummer at Vox:

http://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/3/23/15028480...

One thing I've always found interesting is that technically, by definition, we're currently in an ice age:

  "By this definition, we are in an interglacial period—the Holocene—of the ice 
  age that began 2.6 million years ago at the start of the Pleistocene epoch, 
  because the Greenland, Arctic, and Antarctic ice sheets still exist."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age

Watched "Chasing Ice", 2012, last night with my wife. It was her homework assignment. What a film! Great watch for anyone here who has not seen it. Its half climate change documented via changes in ice, and half behind the scenes look at how they made those. How to mount a camera in the arctic.

Thinking about the Fermi paradox and the great filter, I think due to humans being too selfish we will may be someday end up not making it through.

Earth is the only habitable planet by a long shot and we are still treating global warming like a mad man's story.

The current trump administration gives a strong vibe that they'll exploit the planet for their full term and leave the bigger problems for the next president to sort out.

Personally tired of hearing the word 'record'. It's pretty obvious that every year is going to deliver new records. Why don't we/NASA start reporting on the effects. Then the denialist argument becomes moot. Perhaps the human effects too. Perhaps that will make this more real to the idiots who question the science.

Comments about climate are so censored here. Bottom is full of flagged out comments with replies. It's like reading CIA doc with half page black.

Only one user's comments are flagged, and it's a new account with no other comments.

And their comment was based on a false premise (that melting sea ice causes an increase in sea levels... it does not).

While ones argued him (why then, if it's total trash?), the others censored him out.

Only the throw away accounts like yours.

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