The water is coming for Copenhagen; good design could be its best defence | Hacker News Reader

The water is coming for Copenhagen; good design could be its best defence

foreground.com.au

26 pointssohkamyung14 comments

> By the end of this century, it’s predicted that Copenhagen will experience 25-55 percent more precipitation in winter months, while the city’s typically wet summer months will see up to a 40 percent reduction in rainfall.

Err... By the end of the century, it's also predicted that sea level will rise. If Greenland melts in any significant manner, which given the current heat wave in the Northern Greenland it very well might, increased precipitation seems to me like it'll be Copenhagen's least of problems.

Yeah, I read that for most of Earth's history, there were no polar ice caps. Our current ones are only a relic of the most recent ice age. And the next ice age is not due for 90,000 years.

Indeed. But there were 0 humans during most of Earth's history, so it's not really a relevant point. The entire Mississippi valley used to be under a shallow sea, but this is also an irrelevant fact for the Quaternary Period.

The next one being due in 90kyr thing is pretty false, you can't just pick your favorite Milankovitch cycle and say that this is the important one for climate, as the shorter period cycles are important too, along with other things like the thermohaline circulation. But hey, I'm guessing you actually don't know what the words I'm using even mean, and are just parroting things you heard from other unknowledgeable sources.

John McPhee stated, rather breezily, in The Annals of the Former World, that the next ice age is due in 90K years. He did mention there were three or so cyclical events that have to line up.

I think, with all your animosity, you might be making a lot of assumptions that I have some agenda with my comment. Is your brother-in-law a climate change denier?

And about the rest of your comment: Is that how you normally talk to people? That must go well...

One more thing: I can’t imagine a top five goals list for humanity that doesn’t include existing as a civilization through a few more ice ages. I mean, sure, the economic lifetime of Copenhagen’s buildings might not extend that long, but I think it’s relevant.

It's more that in offline life, I have to deal with lots of people who have crazy theories about climate, and I tend to see HN as a kind of safe space where I shouldn't have to deal with uninformed people offering barely-on-topic opinions. Your justification... kinda qualifies. If you don't understand something here, follow community norms and ask a question.

The next ice age isn't really "due" anytime. Yes, there are orbital parameters which create a long-term varying climate. But you could also argue that it's due right now, as the Yellowstone Caldera is seems to be behind on its eruption cycle.

But none of that has to do with Greenland melting, which is mainly a geological/hydrological process at this point. It's climate-adjacent, for sure, but the questions are mainly how much will melt, how fast, and how much will the land rebound once shedding weight.

And further, this all has even less to do with flooding in coastal areas, as most of the sea level rise will come from simple thermal expansion. (Honestly I'm more worried about Greenland as a albedo change positive feedback effect than the meltwater.) And that's a typical technique of climate deniers -- reframe the debate in terms of something simpler, and then make a sweeping generalization based on that. You set off my filter for that -- sorry that it was a false positive.

> But hey, I'm guessing you actually don't know what the words I'm using even mean

I can't believe this comment wasn't reprimanded. This is one of the least civil things I've seen someone here say in the last month. This type of response does not belong here.

I guess anything goes as long you're on the correct side of an argument. Fucking hypocrites.

If you think I'm wrong, there's a [flag] button for a reason. I do agree it was an overreaction to what I perceived as whataboutism, though, and I'm sorry for that.

For a significant period (about half) of Earth’s history there was little or no free Oxygen. Happy as I might be to see you argue that O2 is just a recent and superfluous thing, preferably from inside a hermetically sealed vault, you might discover at least one of the flaws in your “reasoning”.

I just stated what I read. Are you worked up about something else? I can get that you might be used to arguing with climate change deniers. I’m not one of them and I’m not even sure what part of my statement should be described as “reasoning”.

Yeah sorry, you hit the nail on the head. Sorry for being an ass.

Source? Reasoning? Data?

Uhh, the very next sentence in the article is:

> Floods pose a serious threat to those living in the city, with 61 percent of residents having already experienced water damage to their properties. While rainfall poses a threat from above, rising sea levels threaten the city’s inner islands, which could easily be damaged by flooding if canals overflow.

And further on down the article specifically addresses this point:

> After 2050, cloudbursts will no longer be Copenhagen’s main concern – instead, the city’s greatest threat will come from flooding from the sea. Copenhagen is implementing dramatic landscape transformations to prepare for rising sea levels (the global total to be predicted as high as 2.7m by 2100),

Do you mean like in Reptilicus when they brought back frozen soil from Lapland?

They managed to save København that time...

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