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Comment by revscat | Hacker News Reader

This site tends to default to a “remain placid” attitude and flag/downvote energetic replies, but if this isn’t worth abject panic and appropriate action then I’m not sure what is.

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The issue with this site is its total belief in tech as a solution. You will have plenty of people here saying "there's no need to change your lifestyle, some tech billionaire will solve it".

I also think the wealth of most people here means they think they will be insulated from the problems caused by climate change.

Just my 2p.

Abject panic and appropriate action sound mutually exclusive, so if remaining placid is the alternative to abject panic I'm voting for placidness.

Well, don't you think it's a little cruel to scare the children just because the house is burning down around them? /s

And what energetic appropriate response would you do for a phenomen that is as rare and poorly understood as this?

Please notice that the link between this sudden 4sigma increase in surface temperatures and a small long-term continuous increase in atmospheric infrared absorbing gasses is at best extremely strained.

On what planet is a 50% increase small? The CO2 we've added to the atmosphere is trapping an almost unfathomable amount of energy in the climate system that wouldn't be there otherwise.

Theres more CO2 in the atmosphere that here has been in millions of years. Global average temps are higher than they've been in more than 100,000 years. The oceans are 25% more acidic. This is an out of control science experiment with the thermal and chemical properties of our at atmosphere and oceans.

CO2 is not even close to being the main infrared-absorbing gas in the atmosphere.

The point is that this anomaly is unlikely to be mainly due to the recent warming trend.

CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas in terms of climate. You're on that water vapor crackpipe, but water vapor has a residence time of only 72 hours. It doesn't drive warming and cooling. It only works as a feedback for other things like CO2 that do. You should really just let this outdated climate denial bullshit go. It's embarrassing.

CO2 is not the main infrared absorbing gas in the atmosphere. That is the point. Residence time does not mean anything with regards to that.

Increased concentrations of CO2 may still be responsible for some warming, but that does not change that fundamental fact.

It would help if you defined your terms and context here.

Water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and other trace gases in Earth's atmosphere absorb the longer wavelengths of outgoing infrared radiation from Earth's surface.

Methane absorbs more infrared (per fixed amount) than C02, sure, but overall there's less methane (currently) and so the current volume of C02 in toto absorbs more infrared than the current methane volume.

Also relavent to the discussions is the relative rates of change .. the C02 concentration in the atmosphere has been less than 1900 levels for millions of years and has only recently in the past century climbed upwards in concentration by significant amounts .. leading to increases in water vapor and mthane levels.

CO2 is the reason the planet is hotter than it's been in 100,000 years and climbing rapidly. It's the reason the oceans are 25% more acidic. It's the reason sea level rise is accelerating. It's the reason there's 7% more water vapor in the atmosphere. It's the reason there's 2% less oxygen in the oceans.

panic fatigue? it has been at least ten years, more for many here.. that "urgent" is an appropriate word. The "control and stall" groups just get more money and more time, not less it seems here in the USA.

Non-anthropomorphic climate change can take centuries or millenia to happen. So that people are concerned about things changing on the scale of decades seems understandable.

Sometimes running in circles screaming is the only remaining realistic course of action.

All of the "serious" people who are "panicking" while refusing to actually amend their life or act in a reasonable fashion is a large part of why people have disengaged.

I know. Clearly CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas and the planet isn't hotter than it's been in 100,000 years because Al Gore and Leonardo Decaprio are hypocrites. I know thats how I decide my priorities is by gauging the hypocrisy levels of celebrity activists.

Not sure what you are talking about.

Does any of this correlate with the solar cycle at all? Is that even a field people look to?

Yes - it was a popular AGW denialst go-to in the early 2000s until the increasing temps continued completely independently from the 11-year solar cycle. It's been pretty thoroughly debunked now, e.g;

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0293-3

Thanks for the paper. Interesting analysis.

I guess my thinking is more along the lines of the right sun spots and solar events in the right places - i.e. with enough energy directed in the right plane to affect earth systems. Maybe it could be fruitful to explore radio blackouts caused by solar storms - to see if correlation with temperatures could exist. That could falsify or verify such a correlation and further analysis as well. Just a thought

yes. weather people are aware of the sun. but thanks for pointing it out lol

Solar irradiance has been declining for 35 years. Which is one way we know it isn't the sun.

Also the troposphere is warming rapidly while the stratosphere is cooling. Which is only something you expect from greenhouse gas related warming.

Also night time temps are increasing faster than daytime temps. Another fingerprint of greenhouse gas induced warming.

Also the earth is hotter than it's been in 100,000 years and scientists predicted that greenhouse gasses would cause exactly this much warming with this level of greenhouse gasses 50 years ago well before it was obvious what was going to happen.

So yeah. Not the sun. Good question though.

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