Scientists discover dead plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice
phys.org
phys.org
The real "so what": It shows that even without human-induced climate change with lower atmospheric C02, Greenland was completely without ice "just" a million years ago (not enough time for the position of Greenland to significantly shift).
Greenland is 100% definitely going to lose it's ice, given that it's more prone to not having ice than we thought, and unprecedented atmospheric C02. "UVM's Paul Bierman, 'it can quickly melt, pouring enough into the oceans that New York, Miami, Dhaka—pick your city—will go underwater.'"
The sediments below the western and eastern Antarctic ice sheets should show similar signs of interglacial activity timed to their own transitions to permanent glaciations.
The exact map of ice extent during the Eemian is under debate; the region is notoriously difficult to model as this is directly next to a highly fickle ocean current known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation in the Labrador Sea. As a result, different model assumptions produce different possible maps.
Interesting line.
Do we still have army scientists?
Do your priors really not make you think dead rather than alive in this case? If they found living plants I think they'd be shouting about it a bit louder.
The sagas about this are fascinating, and quick reads. They include the Norse landing on America. Definitely worth your time. Penguin sells a slim English translation called The Vinland Sagas.
>> The discovery helps confirm a new and troubling understanding that the Greenland ice has melted off entirely during recent warm periods in Earth's history—periods like the one we are now creating with human-caused climate change.
What is troubling? That this goes against the alarmist narrative? That this has happened before, and might well happen again even without human activity?
It's like the final episode of that Neil Tyson show where he's looking at tundra eroding in the arctic and they note there are buried leaves and such in there - ignoring the implication that it used to be nice up there.
Does this invalidate human effects? NO. Does it invalidate the idea that we are solely responsible for some cataclysmic outcome? IMHO it suggests both inevitability and that it won't be so bad. I'm more concerned that the warming somehow triggers the next glaciation - which... is there a reason to think won't happen?
When you put down roots and build New York City, good luck picking back up and moving to dry land.
No, people keep acting like life on earth is going to die due to higher temperatures. It will probably just move north. In that sense it's not so bad. It is still disruptive, but not the end of the world.
It's also not unstoppable just by going green.
Yes, some people are saying this.
> It will probably just move north. In that sense it's not so bad. It is still disruptive, but not the end of the world.
Only some life is instinctually nomadic or migratory. Dispersion of species usually occurs on the scale of thousands of years not over the course of decades. It is no exaggeration to say the extinction we are facing could be quite devestating. You can dismiss this by saying that several times the earth's biodiversity has been reduced to single digit percentages of its recent past. This is true but it does not make those periods a time you might prefer yourself or your children to inhabit.
> Understanding the Greenland Ice Sheet in the past is critical for predicting how it will respond to climate warming in the future and how quickly it will melt. Since some twenty feet of sea-level rise is tied up in Greenland's ice, every coastal city in the world is at risk. The new study provides the strongest evidence yet that Greenland is more fragile and sensitive to climate change than previously understood—and at grave risk of irreversibly melting off.
Is "the Greenland ice sheet could melt faster than we thought and raise sea levels twenty feet, flooding every coastal city" not troubling to you?
> Since some twenty feet of sea-level rise is tied up in Greenland's ice, every coastal city in the world is at risk.
The point is that we should expect this to happen anyway, weather we speed it up or not. Once that's accepted, we can talk about moving people instead of trying to stop the inevitable.
* The idea that greenhouse gases like methane and co2 warm the planet, is not controversial.
* The idea that green plants capture co2 and release oxygen is not controversial.
* The idea that over billions of years, a very green earth captured and stored a lot of co2 and held it in the form of oil, coal and gas, is not controversial.
Looking at human activity over a few generations...
* The idea that humans have cut down co2-absorbing forest, burn them, and replaced them with methane emitting cows, is not controversial.
* The idea that humans have mined and burned vast quantities of fossil fuels, releasing their co2 into the atmosphere, is not controversial.
It's super easy to casually cite natural rhythms in glacial periods or shrug and point at "uh, the carbon cycle". Denial is super easy. Just pull point at any sufficiently complex part of climate science, shrug and say "It's probably nothing to do with me!"
But here's a simple question: Do you believe that the human race, by chopping/burning millions of acres of forests and mining/burning trillions of tons of fossil fuels that took millions/billions of years to store, over just a few generations, has made an impact on the climate?
Nope? Yep?
If "Yep", and it's simply a wild coincidence that this dramatic change "was going to happen anyways" and has nothing to do with our perfectly timed co2-releasing activity on the planet... well, that's some fucking coincidence.
There's a massive difference between a few degrees of temperature changing over millenia vs it changing over decades. Evolution and migration can adapt to the former, but not the latter.
Where did I misinterpreted your point?
It doesn’t mean we can’t stop it from happening again.
Even in those slower climate changes in the past, areas suitable for agriculture were often deserts or otherwise unsuitable for human needs.
Humans can adapt to some extent but we are dependent on the ecosystems around us. As we try to adapt, you see floods, fires, drought, disease, starvation. these lead to migration, conflict and war. Even if you survive the changes, it may not be a world that you want to live in.