Arctic Has Entered 'Unprecedented State' That Threatens Global Climate Stability

What's non-intuitive about climate science is that the climate is a non-linear system.

You may have heard of the "Butterfly Effect". It comes from ideas set out by MIT Meteorologist Edward Lorenz. In his seminal paper "Deterministic non-periodic flow" (1963), he set out a model of atmospheric convection and showed that temperature and fluid motion interact very non-linearly as one feedbacks into the other. This means a small change in one, can have little impact in the other. But doing another small change in one can cause a feedback loop which creates a huge effect in the other. In his words, "one flap of a seagull's wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever".

The scary conclusion this leads to is that the climate doesn't always change gradually. After decades of gradual change from temperature increases, it can hit a tipping point where a feedback loop occurs leading to very rapid change, very suddenly.

And unfortunately we don't know exactly where this will occur. Many climate scientists believe we're already there.

The "slowly boiling frog" is a good metaphor for failing to perceive a threat when change is gradual enough, but according to Wikipedia it is not real:

> Modern scientific sources report that the alleged phenomenon is not real. In 1995, Professor Douglas Melton, of the Harvard University Biology department, said, "If you put a frog in boiling water, it won't jump out. It will die. If you put it in cold water, it will jump before it gets hot—they don't sit still for you." Dr. George R. Zug, curator of reptiles and amphibians at the National Museum of Natural History, also rejected the suggestion, saying that "If a frog had a means of getting out, it certainly would get out. [1]

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

The problem is predicting which places will suffer from drought as weather patterns shift. You could be surrounded by fresh water and safe from rising sea levels but crops will still fail if it doesn't rain enough.

I feel that will lead to more FUD about scientists crying the sky is falling if any predictions are incorrect. I feel it'll also hinder efforts with a "welp, guess we already lost so we can stop trying" attitude.

It's probably more complex than that, with more geopolitical factors involved. Right now, for example, Russia's political economy is limited by access to year-round deep water ports. China's relationship to Tibet is shaped by the fact that Tibet is basically China's watershed. The bread basket of the United States is just a bunch of fertile soil, blown off the Rockies, that happens to have landed underneath fantastic weather for corn, or wheat, or what have you. When any of those change, we're all going to become much more intimately familiar with the phrase "balance of power."

It's not going to be a case of moving near fresh water. It's going to be a case of getting tolerable living conditions subject to the political apparatuses and distribution networks that develop in response to the power structures that develop as the planet changes underneath the map and the map changes underneath our feet.

Good luck!

I don't support CO2 pollution, but yes, the period of the Younger Dryas experienced global shift of 2.5 degrees celsius within hundreds, or perhaps possible singles of years, of presumed natural causes.

> http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/revisi...

"When" is also a big question. Or what else is occurring "when" the when occurs. Or even how accurate the models are this time around. Yes, there are big questions.

Folks seem to talk as if doom is imminent, where to buy property inland to survive. Mad Max talk. That's ridiculous.

I remember going home from a college class in 1990 and breathlessly informing my folks that yes, global warming was occurring, it was imminent. 30 years later its obvious that what was predicted hasn't happened. Not even close.

Not denying the science, don't make any mistake. But I'm not a huge believer in imminent catastrophe anymore. If what they say is going to happen happens it's generations, not decades we are likely talking about. Not that this makes it any better, not that we shouldn't do something, not that what scientists overwhelmingly believe won't come to pass.

But the hysteria has been overblown, I've seen it. Maybe it isn't this time but cherrypicked appearing video with scary music doesn't really convince me at this point.

As with everything, there will be winners and losers. If predictions hold, the northern hemisphere is going to be the big winner as the northern hemisphere ( primarily siberia, alaska and much of canada ) hold significant amount of inaccessible land that will become available. But just as importantly ( or even more importantly ), if the arctic passage along siberia and the northwest passage opens up, it will be an immense boon to the world economy and trade as it will shorten shipping by 30% or even more. And of course the resources ( oil, minerals, etc ) locked in the arctic will become accessible.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-09-04/who-controls-northwes...

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/10/21/russia-builds...

Don't believe the propaganda or hype online about the world ending. There will be disruption but there will also be opportunity. The media loves to hype "end of world" nonsense for clicks. In my relatively short period of time, I've lived through so many "end of world" media hypes that it is hard to take them seriously anymore.

Countries, banks, businesses, etc aren't planning for the end, they are fighting over new opportunities in the coming decades.