Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice in less than 30 years
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
[1] https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/scie...
s/One estimate of global water distribution/
[Edited to remove sarcastic editorial comment]
Anthropogenic emissions dominate climate change, and will for the remainder of the athropocene. The jury is in.
You are the one lacking heliocentrism. You think the climate revolves around human activity.
I'm sure NASA or some other credible scientific organization must have reported on this highly intriguing idea. Link?
Insolation-driven 100,000-year glacial cycles and hysteresis of ice-sheet volume
"Carbon dioxide is involved, but is not determinative, in the evolution of the 100,000-year glacial cycles."
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12374
Here's a good talk from NASA JPL last year stating we still have a very poor model for changes in cloud cover over time and the dramatic effect clouds have on climate :
The Holocene Asian monsoon: links to solar changes and North Atlantic climate
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15879216/
Synchronous 500-year oscillations of monsoon climate and human activity in Northeast Asia
"This ~500-year cyclicity in the monsoon and thus environmental change triggered the development of prehistoric cultures in Northeast China. The cyclicity is apparently linked to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, against the background of long-term Holocene climatic evolution."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739325/
Impacts of the north and tropical Atlantic Ocean on the Antarctic Peninsula and sea ice
"We suggest that the north and tropical Atlantic is important for projections of future climate change in Antarctica, and has the potential to affect the global thermohaline circulation6 and sea-level change3,12."
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12945
Etc, etc...there's probably thousands of studies on the AMO, PDO, NAO, ENSO, etc. On pubmed, Nature, etc. I highly recommend taking a look at some of those.
Yet the first link your provide in response to my query is discussing cycles with periods of 100,000 years, with no mention of anything related to the modern climate change events (at least, nothing in the abstract).
... What’s the deal? This is a complete non-sequitor.
> And the oceanic cycles absolutely dominate climate change.
And then goes on to provide you studies about oceanic cycles that stand unchallenged.
It was a misleading change of topic.
The greenhouse effect as described involves CO2 as a gas blocking a narrow band of IR solar light from being re-emitted into outer space. This is a probabilistic process, as gas molecules are in constant motion as are photons. As you increase the concentration of CO2, the effect becomes saturated, since the gas is already stacked in three dimensions. So there is less IR energy to absorb that isn't already being captured.
Clouds and atmospheric H2O have a much higher impact on climate. These are driven by oceanic patterns (which themselves are caused by geologic and solar forces).
...
>There isn't even that much carbon on planet earth
I think there is. I believe it's generally accepted that on the order of 20,000-100,000 times the atmospheric CO2 is found in rocks on Earth. Not even necessarily including the mantle.
"The amount of carbon in the atmosphere as CO2 is only .00095% of the total carbon on Earth."
https://projectvesta.org/wiki/long-term-carbonate-cycle/
"...the atmosphere, storing 735 gigatons (0.001%) of the world’s carbon as carbon dioxide (CO2)...and 62,000,000 gigatons (99.9%) in sedimentary rocks (e.g., limestone and dolomite)"
https://biocyclopedia.com/index/algae/biogeochemical_role_of...
I didn't really think this was obscure.
Regardless of the cause, I think both of you would be doing well to think about how to produce food and energy and breathable air in a warming and ever industrializing world, and how much government intervention is needed (if any).
That's true by definition, since the anthropocene is defined as the geologic era where humans have had a measurable effect on the geologic record.
The anthropocene may or may not actually exist for future species' geologists. One fairly likely scenario I can imagine is that global warming leads to mass migrations, which lead to nuclear war, which lead to the deaths of 90% of the human population and the reversal of anthropogenic climate change. Boom, global warming solved...except that'll be cold comfort (literally) for the 90% of us who are dead.
If it happens, it'll probably happen before 2100, which means the anthropocene will last less than 150 years, a blink of an eye in geologic time. Future dino-geologists will observe it as a very thin layer that led to a change in the radiation signature and composition of elements in the earth's crust, as well as a small mass extinction. Come to think of it, that's not all that different from the K-T boundary.
I finally looked it up and a rough estimate appears to be 300 years. So I guess 446 years to melt all the ice sounds generally consistent.
Not to worry, we’ve got some great goals for 2050.
After watching how Coronavirus played out earlier this year, I really doubt if we’re going to address climate change in a significant way. That happened over a few months and many people still don’t get it.
Plan for the inevitable.
How long until civilization as a whole becomes carbon-neutral? What would happen if all future emissions were magically cancelled? Even in that unrealistic scenario, climate change would continue for decades due to the damage we've already done, before stabilizing at a higher temperature than before we started raising atmospheric CO2 levels [2].
It's absolutely worth fighting for environmentally conscious platforms, but it's also a fact that no one country will realistically put a dent in the problem without widespread international cooperation.
[1] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emi...
[2] https://theconversation.com/if-we-stopped-emitting-greenhous...
Carbon neutral would mean that the heating up will remain at current rate.
Even corrupt money cares about costs and lost profits, so that should be a short term effect. Question remaining is whether global civ will collapse first.
³√(28ᴇ15 kg / 916.8 kg/m³) ≈ 31 km
Though even this technique falls down in the face of such a massive number. It works better with lengths < 750m, which are just small enough to imagine inside one's regular environment. Things like yearly production of steel (a cube 616 m on each side) or copper (cube 140 m on each side). It's particularly effective if you like golfing and can recall the distances on a course you've played.
So Antarctica is about 5000km across. That's a lot of ice.
1 tonne of ice is roughly[1] 1 cubic metre.
The square root of 1 trillion (10^12) is one million.
One million metres is 1,000 km, or roughly 620 miles.
28 trillion tonnes of ice would be a slab 1,000 km x 1,000 km, reaching 28 m high, or 90 ft in Freedom Units, or about 9 storeys.
The state of California is about 1,260 km north to south. A jet airliner flies about 1,000 km in 1¾ hours. A car travelling at 100 kph (60 mph) will cover 1,000 km in 10 hours.
New York City is about 1,000 km from Indianapolis, IN, Frankfurt, KY, Columbia, SC, Lansing, MI, or Atlanta, GA, plus or minus about 200 km. Sydney and Adelaide, Australia, are 1,200 km apart. Paris, France, and Vienna, Austria, are 1,034 km apart. Tokyo and Seoul, 1,160 km. From Beijing to Shanghai, 1,066 km.
At the height of the Burj Khalifa, 830m (2,723 ft), the ice block would extend 183 km (113 mi) on a side. At 1,000 m tall, slightly less than Mount Diablo in the SF Bay Area, the area covered wuld be 167 km on a side, about 100 miles. Standing atop Diablo, absent clouds, fog, or smoke, ice would rise to 173 m (567 ft) short of the summit, and extend 50 miles in any direction.
________________________________
Notes:
1. Actually, 1 m^3 of ice weighs about 920 kg, or 1 tonne has a volume of 1.087 m^3. That's well within my slop factor above.
To them it's very related. "Signs of the times" giving people a 'sign of His coming'. 'The sun will darken' (most of Cali the sun is a bit more dim due to all the smoke). Among many other 'signs'. But to throw some water on the fire, depending on your POV every generation since Christ could. say. this. [1]
At the same time. As someone of a similar faith to OC (original comment), I have to mention that I'm gravely concerned that the religious people of the USA are being worked up into a frenzy. It's bizarre to me how common the attitude of the OC is. This has been going on the past year but I'm not sure if it's the pandemic is taxing people's sanity or what but there is an interesting shift happening within the religious community that is actually concerning to me. The UAE/Israel deal seems to whip up more fervor. Almost like a brainwashing/weaponization of Christianity, albeit this is par the course for American Christianity. My disdain for it remains.
My last point is that the OC is concerned about the future. That is a good thing. Start from there. Don't debate that 'Jesus isn't real' or some other else that's a non-starter. Instead, find the common ground. They are concerned about the changes. THEY SHOULD BE! And encourage them to be apart of the solution. We have one planet. Whether Jesus comes back or not, we aren't treating this planet well and it's obvious to all of us. Let's work on a solution together.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap...
The religion themselves are pretty much politics with their leaders enactic laws, policies and even motivating their existence/rank using the religion itself.
E.g: "our people was chosen to be in a covenant with god and he chose me to lead you so do as I say because he only talks with me!".
I think it's the time to leave superstitions and religions behind and use some facts/measurements and reason to fix things up(i.e climate change) without to wait for someone else from sky to fix them up for us.
So, when the planet is on the brink of going in flames, you choose division instead of commonality. You're choosing to focus on where you disagree than where you have agreement.
> to wait for someone else from sky to fix them up for us.
This is a false perception. Because lcall just said he's trying to "do his part" [1]. They are hoping for a solution, even if you disagree with it being possible.
Again, I want to reiterate this. We have one planet. One. We have one shot at fixing our problems. Are you trying to compound the problems by arguing about someone you believe is a "superstition"? That's effectively what you're doing.
I say this not entirely to you. Many people in the tech community think the way you do. And I'm making a public comment, in hope, that others learn from the clear destructive mob mentality that people engage with. Are you trying to be "right" or are you trying to get more people to solve this very difficult problem that affects everyone?
[1] - "I wholly agree that we should do our best to be clean, care for this wonderful planet, and I try to do my part (conserving, recycling, avoiding pollution, etc)." -lcall
I wholly agree that we should do our best to be clean, care for this wonderful planet, and I try to do my part (conserving, recycling, avoiding pollution, etc). I think another key is that we need to act in ways that enable trust in each other, and to be honest at least, which seems remote (globally speaking). I do get the idea that you and I with others could work together, finding areas of agreement, and doing our best. I don't think we can "fix" climate change while rejecting the counsel of the planet's Creator, but we can still try to be good and honest with each other -- that is exceedingly worthwhile in itself. Thanks again.