Himalayan glacier melting doubled since 2000, spy satellites show
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Observed maximum thaw depths at our sites are already exceeding those projected to occur by 2090 under RCP 4.5.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019...
Climate change on the subcontinent is going to make that seem like a tiny dribble.
And this is with just one degree increase of average global temperatures. Politicians do nothing to limit heating to two degrees or less, as per the Paris agreement. Global GHG emissions are still rising.
(for sure the money spend on the wars would have been better spend on green tech, but ... I think the amount of money to change the whole industry to preindustrial exhaust levels ... is a bit higher)
Wind power: ~1500 Euros per kW (solar is similar)
1 kW of Wind power produces at most 8760 kWh per year, lets add some inefficiencies and say 3000 kWh per year. So you'd need 5 billion kW of wind power
So you'd need 7.5 trillion Euros. The Iraq war cost about 1.1 trillion dollars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War).
Given that this is just napkin math, it is surprisingly in the same ballpark.
There are some more contributers to CO2 than plants. Also, cars? Also, energy storage?
Also non scaleable of wind?
...
So yes, it was just napkin math. Not helpful.
Energy storage raises cost a bit, but not too much, depending on the quality of the electric grid. You don't very much storage if your grid is good because it's always windy somewhere. Excess energy can be converted to Methane via power-to-gas and stored in the existing strategic gas storage facilities.
Better informed people than me wrote long papers about this, and also looked into scalability issues. It's a bit hard to reproduce in HN comments.
And I am all for a green Energy base. And there are countless other options than just methan or hydrogen for storing energy around or in develepoment.
But it is still hard and expensive. Did you factor in redesigning of the energy grid? Renewables need much more flex .. the current system is designed for huge plants, giving constant energy, not many small ones fluctating. Did you factor in, replacing all gasoline engine in cars? Did you factor in designing and replacing airplane engines? (And with what, running then on hydrogen? maybe. Would be awesome, but the tech does not exist yet)
And even if we achieve 100 renewable ... there are still lots of industrial processes that release CO2, like concrete production, that reaching preindustrial CO2 levels is a very, very hard and therefore expensive challenge. So maybe be careful with your claims.
> The scientists combined declassified US spy satellite images from the mid-1970s with modern satellite data to create the first detailed, four-decade record of ice along the 2,000km (1,200-mile) mountain chain.
> The spy satellite photographs used in the research had lain unused in archives for some years. But a computer tool developed by Maurer and colleagues enabled these 1970s photos to be turned into 3D maps.
You can be damned sure they monitor some natural resources, like oil. Water's probably on the list now, too.
A while ago I was certain that we could need more hydroelectric power stations... well, if the rainfall can replace melt water...
NOAA indicates that the global ice levels are increasing, and ice is growing in areas that previously did not host such a large amount of ice before, ie, the ice is moving to new locations as the climate changes.
This is mostly related to the increase in variability of NAM and SAM (as in, the increasing change of the jet streams from their usual positions) due to decreased solar heating of the Earth.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/solar-activity-forecast-fo...
NASA has predicted that the solar cycle starting this year, or the next cycle, is highly likely starting another grand minimum and will last for at least the next few cycles; this is the lowest activity in 200 years (or since the previous grand minimum).
The previous grand minimum was the Dalton minimum, and lasted from 1790 to 1820, and lasted 30 years, and was considered mild based on what we know of previous grand minimums. During the Dalton minimum, the "Little Ice Age" occurred, which lead to massive crop losses in Europe and North America, including unusually long and wet springs that delayed the planting season (just like this year).
So, I'm going to consider this Guardian article at least partially debunked. Although this is a disaster for the Himalayan region, NOAA and NASA's interpretation of the data does not favor the rather opinionated and biased language in the article.
Ie was there snow on the ground in a given area. Snow that melts come spring.
This isn’t ice. Is there something in your link that suggests ice is growing? The sea ice portion showed it to be shrinking.
You’re claiming new glaciers are forming somewhere, basically.
Your timeline of the Maunder minimum is completely wrong. This doesn’t lend confidence to your interpretation of the NASA report: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum
Your link does not appear to actually indicate that.
> ice is growing in areas that previously did not host such a large amount of ice before
That's not as good news as you think.
https://qz.com/1249126/a-new-study-on-increased-snowfall-in-...
> It may sound odd to hear news of more snow during a time when scientists keep uncovering more evidence that polar ice caps are melting, raising sea levels around the world. But it makes sense, and it’s not a good sign for the Earth. Warmer temperatures mean more moisture in the air, which creates better conditions for snow over Antarctica. So really, this is a sign of the same climate problems causing droughts, storms, and floods.
> A 2012 study published in the journal Nature suggested more snow correlated with an increase in the rate at which ice breaks and floats away.
Large portions of Antarctica are desert because it's too cold to snow there year-round. Snow in those regions is not a good sign.
"Major limitations in the spatial and temporal coverage of sea ice thickness, which prevent a consistent record of long-term change and variability".
https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/styles...
Graph illustrates uptick in ice thickness, a reverse in the trend over the past ~20 years. Graph does not include even more recent data, unfortunately (it continues going up).
First link: "Reconstructions using numerous observational sources show a 65% decline in annual mean sea ice thickness in the central Arctic since the 1970s."
Second link shows a single year's datapoint being higher than the trend line.
Given this, I'm not inclined to just accept your assertion that the Cryosat-2 data continues to climb. I did some Googling to find the more recent data from ESA and http://www.cpom.ucl.ac.uk/csopr/seaice.html?show_cell_thk_ts... indicates it hasn't.
edit: Sorry, the above chart is sea ice thickness. Your chart shows sea ice volume. ESA makes volume available, too. Same issue - the ongoing data doesn't show the 2014/2015 spike continuing. 2016-present appears to return to the recent average.
http://www.cpom.ucl.ac.uk/csopr/seaice.html?show_cell_thk_ts...