Greenland Melting Fastest Any Time in Last 12,000 Years | Hacker News Reader

Greenland Melting Fastest Any Time in Last 12,000 Years

scientificamerican.com

156 points_zhqs46 comments

They say if the whole thing melts, it's 24 feet of rising waters worldwide. But they don't project the odds of the whole thing melting, and don't share what they sense will melt at current rates.

> Ultimately it's up to us how much ice actually melts. "Humanity has the knob—the carbon knob, and that knob is going to influence the rates of ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet."

Do you have a source for that number?

Check the contributions section here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise or just cmd+f for "24 ft"

Very nice, thanks. So Greenland's area is about 2 million km^2 and the area of all oceans is about 360 million km^2, so the average thickness of the ice on Greenland is roughly 24 feet * 360/2 = 1.3 kilometers. That's an unimaginably huge amount of ice! Apparently the thickest point is 3 km! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet

Here's a direct link to the study: https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/10/1551/2018/essd-10-15...

Relevant quote:

> Almost all land ice (∼99.5 %) is locked in theice sheets, with a volume in sea-level equivalent (SLE) termsof 7.4 m for Greenland and 58.3 m for Antarctica. It has beenestimated that approximately 25 % to 30 % of the total landice contribution to sea-level rise over the last decade camefrom the Greenland ice sheet

7.4 m corresponds to 24 feet so their claims are accurate.

Also, 58.3 m.... that's shocking. Predicted sea level rise until the end of this century is well below that but imagine the massive effort needed to deploy 69 m tall walls at our coastlines... scary as hell. Likely we'll just give up a lot of land.

High seawater is honestly a minor issue compared to the rest if our climate heated up enough for the entire antarctica to melt...

Sea level has the advantage it is happening here, it is measurable and has a predictable financial impact. Not saying this is the proper way to look at it but it is a way to get it through to some people who may see their grounds flooded in their lifetimes. Actually it it already matters now if the next generation buyers believe the place is going to be flooded during their lifetimes. The more certainty we get the more it will impact prices and insurance. People do not ignore those and there are plenty living close to the sea. Again it is a lagging and not proper way of looking at it but we need to reach people who are not able to absorb more complex stuff.

If there was a 216ft sea level rise we'd still have a lot of land globally, but it would be quite devastating to the US, especially along the east coast. Florida would literally vanish beneath the waves. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-s...

Hey, didn't you know, there is an ice age coming ....

In 1970, The Boston Globe ran the headline, "Scientist predicts a new ice age by 21st century." The Washington Post, for its part, published a Columbia University scientist's claim that the world could be "as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/failed-climate-change-predi...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSDLRm3jhc8

Good thing for plants on Greenland?

Just a comment from the late great George Carlin in regards to environmental issues like this;

"Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet... nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine... the people are fucked! Difference! The planet is fine! Compared to the people, THE PLANET IS DOING GREAT: Been here four and a half billion years! Do you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years, we’ve been here what? 100,000? Maybe 200,000? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over 200 years. 200 years versus four and a half billion and we have the conceit to think that somehow, we’re a threat? That somehow, we’re going to put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us: been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drifts, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages, and we think some plastic bags and aluminum cans are going to make a difference?

The planet isn’t going anywhere... we are! We’re going away! Pack your shit folks! We’re going away and we won’t leave much of a trace either, thank God for that... maybe a little styrofoam... maybe... little styrofoam. The planet will be here, we’ll be long gone; just another failed mutation; just another closed-end biological mistake; an evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas, a surface nuisance. You wanna know how the planet’s doing? Ask those people in Pompeii who are frozen into position from volcanic ash how the planet’s doing. Wanna know if the planet’s all right? Ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. How about those people in Kilauea, Hawaii who build their homes right next to an active volcano and then wonder why they have lava in the living room?"

BTW, you people that keep down voting me because I don't agree with your position, trying to shut me down, stopping me from expressing my opinion, you guys, are fascists.

Don't believe me about climate change scaremongering, here is a long list over the past 50 years of failed environmental disasters....

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyp...

Please don't source your worldview from a comedian. The snark can be temporarily comforting, but just remember that it's a distraction. Carlin is deeply wrong about the effect we can have on the biosphere. You simply can't simplify the problem without losing all meaningful nuance.

Fair enough. But did you have a read of the failed climate predictions over the past 50 years? It's hilarious.

I'm not sure that Carlin is saying what you think he is saying. He's not saying there won't be climate change.

He's just saying that climate change is going to destroy humanity. It won't destroy the planet, per se.

It's pretty clear what he is saying; which is that humanity will have little if no impact on the Earth.

He is not talking about climate change and the people panicking about possible 25m sea level increase.

Read the full transcript;

https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2019/08/22/george-carlin-savin...

> It's pretty clear what he is saying; which is that humanity will have little if no impact on the Earth.

> He is not talking about climate change and the people panicking about possible 25m sea level increase.

> Read the full transcript;

> https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2019/08/22/george-carlin-savin...

"The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself cause that’s what it does."

Pretty sure he's stating that humans are a destructive force to the Earth and ourselves, but that only we will cease to exist because of it.

He's saying humans are insignificant in terms of the lifespan of the planet and all the creatures that came before us. He is saying the Earth doesn't care for a bit of plastic we have created as it will be incorporated into the Earth. He is saying that the Earth has faced far greater threats than this 2 legged ape and will be here long after we are cleansed from it. He is saying that our arrogant attempts to "save the planet" are ridiculous.

Why is that so difficult to understand?

The attempts are not to save the planet, but to reduce our impact to ensure we don’t go extinct and don’t significantly damage the environment. Your use of adjective like “arrogant” just displays your bias and willingness to use the worst possible interpretation of other people’s words. That’s not a way to come to understanding, quite the opposite.

Sounds like you are under the illusion that human beings are a species worth saving, but if you look at the destruction we have caused over the past 100k years, you can make an argument for the opposite, especially in the past 200 years since the industrial revolution.

Human will not change. We will cause destruction no matter where we go, no matter the planet or galaxy, we will destroy it and move on. Even with all our technological advances, we are causing more destruction than ever.

Humans unsettle the balance of nature, we are the problem.

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus."

He's certainly obfuscating his personal beliefs with comedy, but sure. The thing is, there really isn't a meaningful difference between the destruction of the human race and the destruction of the natural world. That is to say, the reversion of the earth from a vibrant biosphere to an uninhabitable protoplasmic rock isn't the same thing as humanity disappearing in an instant. The problem with Carlin's logic is that sans humans, there isn't even anyone/anything left to even make the value judgement about whether Earth is an outstanding planet; this in conjunction with the fact that we're not facing an isolated disappearance of our species and leaving everything else constant. The way we're going, all the cute animals are coming with us.

Which ones?

From papers, please, no from media

In the newspaper articles they make references to the research. For Example in the first paper from 1975 it is Paul R Erlich who is the researcher.

If you want, you can track down the paper. It may be difficult though.

Edit: In 1968, Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich wrote a well-publicized book entitled The Population Bomb . Ehrlich predicted widespread famine and disaster unless population growth was reduced to zero in America and throughout the world by compulsory methods if necessary.

Edit: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/173/3992/138.abstract

> Carlin is deeply wrong about the effect we can have on the biosphere

> Don't believe me about climate change scaremongering

You both missed the point of this bit. If the planet warms 5C and we are all baked to a crisp, we had an effect on the biosphere AND climate change was correct. Carlin's point is that in a astronomical, deep-time sense, it's not the "PLANET" that's in trouble, it's the human race.

There may have been life on Mars, which may have died due to ignorant people like HashingtheCode, but Mars is still there. Mars is fine. The Martians on the other hand...

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is an industry advocacy group, with ties to Koch, coal, tobacco.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Competitive_Enterprise...

Their "scientists" have no relevant credentials and are actually "public policy advisors", and usually spread their opinions across multiple unrelated fields (which happens to coincide with whatever disinformation they're trying to spread).

I recently encountered them on Reddit, where people were trying to say the Australian bushfires were just caused by arsonists; these people are from the US and have no idea what's going on in Australia (how did they uncover evidence of arson before the local police?), there was absolutely no evidence for arson, and it didn't explain why it spread so far & rapidly.

Please make sure you get your information from credible sources; as in, sources without a vested interest in industries that have a long history in disinformation campaigns.

> Carlin: Man-made climate change is real and serious and it's not the planet that's going to die, it's the human race.

> Climate change denier: See, like he said, everything is fine!

So.... Greenland was melting faster than now in say, 10,000 BC, right?

yes

Which was the end of the last ice age.

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

Is that the case, or is it that the method used here can't "see" prior to that ice age to predict things based on formation or rock placement, etc?

Yes. Since then humanity has developed agriculture and become reliant on a stable climate to produce the calories need to sustain our enormous population. Sadly human activity has thrown the systems massively out of equilibrium. Such rapid climate change is going to seriously impact your and my lifestyle.

Reading reddit be like https://endlessdoomscroller.com/

:-)

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