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Arctic Sea Ice Hits Record Low
Titus Andronicus writes "Angela Fritz and Jeff Masters of Weather Underground analyze this year's record ongoing Arctic ice melt. Arctic sea ice extent, area, and volume are all at record lows for the post-1979 satellite era. The ice is expected to continue melting for perhaps another couple of weeks. Extreme sea ice melting might help cause greater numbers of more powerful Arctic storms, help to accelerate the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and help to accelerate global warming itself, due to the increased absorption of solar energy into the ocean."
Time to buy shares in boats - or just buy boats.
It's here. Let's deal with it.
The Last Starfighter:
Lord Kril: Damage report!
Kodan Officer: Guidance system out. Auxiliary steering out.
Lord Kril: Divert! Divert!
Kodan Officer: She won't answer the helm! We're locked into the moon's gravitational pull. What do we do?
[sound of Lord Kril's eyepiece swinging over left eye]
Lord Kril: We die.
I'm not a global warming naysayer, but are humans solely to blame for this? How much of it would have happened anyway? (I'm thinking of the sun's 11-year cycle and the recent larger-than-normal volcano activity)
One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
It is time to accept that this is happening. Time to make the most of it. There are remote communities that will be well positioned in the Canadian Arctic for incredible economical opportunities.
High Prices for Groceries could become a thing of the past once the ice opens up for longer periods of time.
The Northwest Passage has the potential to become more important than Panama
It may well be too late to stop the warming trend, we will have to make the best of it.
Actually, I think it is all Clinton's fault. If he hadn't been such a tool, Bush never would have gotten elected.
We say "all time low" when really what we mean is "for the past few years we've been keeping record of it". I love sensationalist stories like this. I'm not saying the ice hasn't melted a lot. I'm not saying the earth isn't warming. What I am saying is I doubt its the first in the millions of years of earth's history that it has gotten warm for a period. Then it'll get all cold for a while and everyone will be like "Oh no we stopped global warming too well...".
=D
Discuss.
ah, but that's just it. Clinton's behavior allowed Bush to do as well as he did. If Bush hadn't ridden the anti-Clinton wave, and hence the anti-Democrat wave, his showing would have been so abysmal as to preclude any judicial interference.
The liberals are paying the scientists with government to make this stuff up so they have an excuse to destroy our way of life!! Liberals hate us and our way of life. They don't like us driving SUVs and eating meat. Don't believe their lies!!!
It's a hoax!!!!
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Or melting ice could cause massive algae blooms, pull staggering quantities of carbon from the ocean and perpetuate our 800,000,000 year old oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere.
Nah. There can't be any mechanisms in the biosphere to prevent the Earth going Venus. It has been surviving by pure luck all this time until we came along and ruined it.
If you are measuring for only 35 years, a 35 year low does not mean only 35 years. It means at least 35 years.
But take a look at the data. It looks like a death spiral. The trend from the data is undeniable. Calling the current extent a record low sort of misses the point because the current amount of ice is a tiny fraction of what it was two decades ago.
Don't blame me, i drive a hybrid!
And a dumb fucking electorate gave the cowboy the chance.
If we need to start blaming someone, blame the American people. They are dumb as shit and they elect idiots who don't give a shit about the planet. Given a choice between cheap gas for the SUV or a future for their grandchildren, what do you think they will pick?
Satellite records of sea ice extent date back to 1979, though a 2011 study by Kinnard et al. shows that the Arctic hasn't seen a melt like this for at least 1,450 years
William Ewing (Columbia Univ), back in the '50s, said that he had evidence of a 60-year freeze/thaw cycle for the Arctic Sea. Evaporation from an ice-free Arctic Sea fed snow falls on Siberia, Canada and Greenland resulting in glaciers sending floes into the Arctic Sea. As the Sea got covered up the evaporation slowed and so did the glaciers. Rinse and repeat.
And a dumb fucking electorate gave the cowboy the chance.
If we need to start blaming someone, blame the American people. They are dumb as shit and they elect idiots who don't give a shit about the planet. Given a choice between cheap gas for the SUV or a future for their grandchildren, what do you think they will pick?
Yeah, we shouldn't give that stupid electorate a chance to interfere with what we say is right, and....
Heyyyy, wait a minute!!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
As the Arctic Ocean summer ice declines there is developing evidence it is having an effect on the northern polar jet stream, slowing it down and causing the meanders to get larger. This has the effect of bringing colder weather further south and warmer weather further north and slowing down the speed at which the weather moves through. That would explain why a few years ago when Florida was having freezing weather Greenland was practically balmy.
As earth heats up, cooling mechanisms should increase. It's not instantaneous of course. Until the cooling mechanisms outpace the heating mechanisms, ice is going to keep melting year after year. The speed ice melts probably has more to do with surface area, ice depth, and cloud cover more than ambient temperature.
Yes but it is identical to three and a half decades ago.
I can equally say that two decades ago there was a unusually high amount of sea ice.
All of us, sooner or later.
A couple billion prematurely, mostly children and elderly.
Remember world population is going to be significantly lower than today by the end of the century. There are two main ways to achieve that: war and famine.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
*Black Sabbath starts playing*
So, if it's happened sometime since the beginning of the planet, it's a situation we shouldn't worry about? Wrong. For the first 4 billion years, the planet was pretty primitive, and no state to support human life. In the remaining half-billion years there have been numerous extinction events.. Five of them have been labelled major extinction events where 50 to 80 percent of all macroscopic genera went extinct. If we screw up this planet sufficiently, we might well be looking at the so-called "sixth extinction" which could be worse than any of them.
No big deal? We depend on other species to get clean water and eat. Or do you think food and clean water is made in factories?
Of course, shit happens, and humanity will probably go extinct eventually. But this looks to be happening in the next century or so. Maybe you don't care whether your species outlives you, but some of do.
Poor guy, your dick isn't long enough to reach your anus.
Yes but it is identical to three and a half decades ago.
Where did you get that? Did you pull it out of your ass?
Citation please.
If you look at TFA, the record low that was just surpassed was set between 2006 and 2009. The records only go back to 1979, but the previous record low was not set in 1979; rather, the trend has been downwards ever since the satellite observations began.
Just a reminder to all the "skeptics" here: There are plenty of climate markets on Intrade. If you think the anthropogenic influence is overestimated, you can make quite a bit of money betting against the prevailing opinion there.
For some reason, "alarmists" seem a lot more willing to put their money where their mouth is than "skeptics". So far, they have also won a lot more on it.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Hi there,
First of all there is some doubt about the data on the Artic Ice shrinkage. The new ice recording tool MASIE from the NOAA does not seem to show any record low. Neither does the multisensor IMS measurer. So it seems it really depends at what thermometer you are looking...
Second of all, let's look at Antartica. the ice coverage seems to be above average (from the NATICE data). Funny the media is not talking about it...
The point here is not to deny climate change. It is to point out that the media coverage is skewered towards sensationnalist dramatic announcements and we do not get all the facts of the debate. And no good rational decisions come from a debate fuelled only by sensationnalistic coverage like this.
Yeah, what's the big deal anyway? So some millions of people will die, and some billions will starve. Cap it with couple of nuclear wars because India and China will need to invade neighbours in the midst of rice riots. Some cities wiped by severe storms (those seem to be on the rise with warming). Maldives go underwater. All of this because oil and coal companies must maximise their profits no matter what, and so do politicians. I assume you have a nice bunker somewhere high above the sea level with enough food and porn stashed for the next 200 years?
`grep' is the command, it goes first.
Also, enclose the multiple words you want to grep for in quotes, unless you intend to grep multiple files...
Ultimately it's the people's fault, IIRC the only thing that they were concerned about at the time was the presidential penis.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Remember when there was a problem with acid rain?
Sulfur dioxide restrictions were implemented flexibly by a cap and trade system. The economic impact was obviously manageable, and the problem got addressed.
It's instructive to look at the political history of the idea of using market forces to distribute the effort of pollution reduction. Look up whose idea it was in the first place.
He actually proves the GP's point.
Per Capita (which is the graph he links to) shows the US trending down, and China trending up. That's nice, but considering that China has a population of around 1.3 billion versus the US population of around 305 million, even a moderate trend upwards has to be multiplied by over 4.
All of the other CO2 graphs show that China has put out more pollution than the US for a very long time. However 3 of them show that like the US, China too has been reducing their pollution as well. The only one showing an upward trend is the graph showing the kg of CO2 per kg of oil energy equivalent use.
captcha: illusion
I swear someone, somewhere has a really weird sense of humour.
If anyone doesn't get it:
Less sea ice > more air moisture > more snow.
So yes, global warming would cause the winters to be harsher in snowbound areas.
If you are measuring for only 35 years, a 35 year low does not mean only 35 years. It means at least 35 years.
But take a look at the data. It looks like a death spiral. The trend from the data is undeniable. Calling the current extent a record low sort of misses the point because the current amount of ice is a tiny fraction of what it was two decades ago.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-paper-finds-deep-arctic-ocean-was.html ... 1–2C warmer than modern Arctic Intermediate Water." This finding is particularly surprising because it occurred during the last major ice age.
New paper finds deep Arctic Ocean from 50,000 to 11,000 years ago was 1–2C warmer than modern temperatures
A new paper published in Nature Geoscience finds "From about 50,000 to 11,000 years ago, the central Arctic Basin from 1,000 to 2,500 meters deep was
Deep Arctic Ocean warming during the last glacial cycle
T. M. Cronin, G. S. Dwyer, J. Farmer, H. A. Bauch, R. F.
Spielhagen, M. Jakobsson, J. Nilsson, W. M. Briggs Jr &
A. Stepanova
Nature Geoscience (2012) doi:10.1038/ngeo1557
In the Arctic Ocean, the cold and relatively fresh water
beneath the sea ice is separated from the underlying warmer
and saltier Atlantic Layer by a halocline. Ongoing sea ice
loss and warming in the Arctic Ocean have
demonstrated the instability of the halocline, with
implications for further sea ice loss. The stability of the
halocline through past climate variations is unclear.
Here we estimate intermediate water temperatures over the
past 50,000 years from the Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca values of
ostracods from 31 Arctic sediment cores. From about 50 to
11 [thousand years] ago, the central Arctic Basin from
1,000 to 2,500m was occupied by a water mass we call
Glacial Arctic Intermediate Water. This water mass was
1–2C warmer than modern Arctic Intermediate Water,
with temperatures
peaking during or just before millennial-scale Heinrich cold
events and the Younger Dryas cold interval. We use
numerical modelling to show that the intermediate depth
warming could result from the expected decrease in the flux
of fresh water to the Arctic Ocean during glacial conditions,
which would cause the halocline to deepen and push the
warm Atlantic Layer into intermediate depths. Although not
modelled, the reduced formation of cold, deep waters due to
the exposure of the Arctic continental shelf could also
contribute to the intermediate depth warming.
Paper finds Arctic sea ice extent 8,000 years ago was less than half of the 'record' low 2007 level
A paper published in Science finds summer Arctic Sea Ice extent during the Holocene Thermal Maximum 8,000 years ago was "less than half of the record low 2007 level." The paper finds a "general buildup of sea ice from ~ 6,000 years before the present" which reached a maximum during the Little Ice Age and "attained its present (year 2000) extent at 4,000 years before the present"
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/08/paper-finds-arctic-sea-ice-extent-8000.html
A 10,000-Year Record of Arctic Ocean Sea-Ice Variability—View from the Beach
Svend Funder1,*, Hugues Goosse2, Hans Jepsen1, Eigil Kaas3, Kurt H. Kjær1, Niels J. Korsgaard1, Nicolaj K. Larsen4, Hans Linderson5, Astrid Lyså6, Per Möller5, Jesper Olsen7, Eske Willerslev1
+
ABSTRACT
We present a sea-ice record from northern Greenland covering the past 10,000 years. Multiyear sea ice reached a minimum between ~8500 and 6000 years ago, when the limit of year-round sea ice at the coast of Greenland was located ~1000 kilometers to the north of its present position. The subsequent increase in multiyear sea ice culminated during the past 2500 years and is linked to an increase in ice export from the western Arctic and higher variability of ice-drift routes. When the ice was at its minimum in northern Greenland, it greatly increased at El
http://www.webcitation.org/6AKKakUIo
There was almost a million km more ice over last winter than there was in the previous low year of 2007.
There was also an exceptionally strong summer storm this year in early August (the time when ice is thinnest) that led to a lot of ice breaking up - hence the relative ice low.
http://earthsky.org/earth/powerful-summer-storm-in-arctic-reduces-sea-ice-even-more
Result is an at least 30 year low, but it is pretty consistent with the 60 year AMO/PDO ocean cycle:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif
So it doesn't actually look like this is a "death spiral" at least in the short term, more like a bit of seasonal variability in an otherwise 5 year upwards trend.
So, in conclusion, satellites are melting the ice.
Alas, no mod points. +1 in spirit anyway.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Humans could have no greater nor swifter impact on the CO2 balance than the evolution of white-rot fungus. That fungus ended the carboniferous era by evolving a species that could metabolize cellulose. Before then dead trees just sat until they could become coal. When this fungus evolved though, it quickly encompassed the Earth and consumed all of the cellulose available to the depths it could reach, releasing untold billions of tons of C02 and methane into the air before it ran out of readily available cellulose to consume. And that's why coal seams have well-defined borders. White-rot fungus is also why there will be no more coal. Life has found a way to prevent it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Drainage to river can cope with heavy storms - check
Able to supply food needs using mixture of conventional growing and hydroponics - check
Politically stable area which is a net food and energy exporter - check
Now I just need a few machine guns and a minefield and I'm all set to watch the fun.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Isn't cap-and-trade a rather soft way to change things? What would you have instead? How would you make people paint their roofs white? By jailing everyone who haven't done so before some set date in a huge police operation? Or just setting up some roof-not-white-tax? Remember that a government always has a limited choice of methods, and that humanity will almost never just automatically move as one to achieve these kinds of things.
The only options I can think of right now are Carbon Tax, and limiting (extra) emissions by making them a criminal offense.
I also think your numbers on the impact of white-painting are wrong, but I'd be glad to see evidence for them!
The biosphere is to a degree self regulating because it has evolved that way. But there are no written guarantees that this will be true tomorrow.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Why would you complain about China? Their per-capita CO2 emissions are still lower than that in USA. US emissions are detectable in Manchuria. So what?
Come on, am I supposed to take seriously someone who is supposed to have read a scientific paper but can't spell one of the key words?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I don't know the original source of your sea ice anomalies graph, here's the noaa one:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/nh-seaice/201207.gif
2007 was not particularly bad, and it's clear there's a strong trend to the ice melting 2012 being the worst.
Looking at your temperature graph, the 100 year trend is up, the whole data trend is up, the 20 year trend is up, the 40 year trend is up, HOWEVER, if we take the 65 year trend, (which includes the drop from the second world war destruction), we get a downward trends. But why did you choose the 65 years trend? That clearly includes the peak around 1939 for the war buildup, without that peak, even that trend is up!
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif
I don't know, are you hoping nobody will actually look at the links you provided? Because I don't see how you can come to that conclusion even from the links you provided. The shrinking ice is within the trend, and it's a clear trend of warming/shrinking.
So, in conclusion, satellites are melting the ice.
Darn, I thought the ice was causing the satellites.
If you want to see basically all the current graphical data available on sea ice in Arctis, you want Arctic sea ice graphs. Take a look!
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Why is everyone so obsessed with bundling cause(s) and the need for solutions into one argument?
Regardless of whether or not global warming is cyclical, man-made or otherwise, surely there can be no argument against the benefits of reducing global CO2 emissions?
- John
Skeptics or no skeptics, harm is still done by human activity. It's just that talk and speculation here is pointless. We can't really do much about it, when CO2 emissions exceed even pessimistic estimates, governmental decisions increase CO2 emissions, nuclear power is removed and replaced with coal power plants. In my mind, the race to limit CO2 emissions is lost, now someone had better figure out how to remove it from the atmosphere...
Take a look at this article about Germany's electricity situation. This is a country where greens have had good success with getting rid of nuclear power, and riding the Fukushima wave. They are starting 25 new coal power plants that are even hyped as "clean" (because they have "high" electrical energy efficiency of 43%).
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/08/31/germany-insane-or-just-plain-stupid/
"We usually give the Germans credit for being rational, but this coal plant will emit over one million times more carbon this year than all of their nuclear plants would have over the next 20 years, and cost over twice as much to run as any one of the them."
There is also some speculation what this rise in the cost of electricity will do to the renewable-support...
It's hard to derive much meaning from CO2 pollution numbers per country, when the fact is that goods move between USA and China. I believe net transport is from China to USA. Many things are manufactured in China. So part of CO2 emissions in China is directly attributable to US.
Well great. We can assume that human beings can't affect the environment any worse than a fungus that altered that altered the ecosphere beyond all recognition. Hey, that makes me feel a lot better.
BTW, my Googling about WRF (I do thank you for telling me about it) gives me a rather more ambiguous picture than the one you offer. Most science stories describe it as "an interesting theory" but not yet universally accepted. I admit that it's a really plausible theory, but not one you can cite with such religious certainty.
The issue is timing dumbass. Opinion will change when the facts beocme more obivous, it is just hard to say when. And in the meantime "consensus" opinion is what will move the market.
They're in it together.
rewriting history since 2109
Mitt Romney doesn't give a shit.
Instead of speculating on the basis of miniscule data, you're better off just shutting up and burning less stuff - which, incidentally, is exactly what needs to be done because we're a) running out of stuff to burn in some areas and b) we finally start bringing a few billion people from abject poverty into reasonable (though still very poor) living conditions who will need stuff to burn.
Such markets work well for short term effects, it's too early to say who's winning on the longer term.
How about investing money and knowledge to try to fix this problem? It's really incredible that people after thousands of years cannot find:
Skeptics are valuable.
But they can be a major problem when it comes to taking the right decision at the right moment. And that's what most of them tend to be, actually, having doubts for no scientific reason.
30 second research and google would have told you this has been eliminated as explanation , what, a million time now ? Even in year of big eruption volcano don't even scratch the quantity CO2 we emit as human. As for sun it has so long been eliminated. Why do people ask question which are easily answered by a cursory google search (and I am not even speaking of reading peer reviewed article linked as primary source in case one don't trust real climate or whatever).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Given a choice between cheap gas for the SUV or a future for their grandchildren, what do you think they will pick?
A future world in which their grandchildren will have twice as many SUVs that are twice as big as the ones today and armored/armed as well, that they'll use for the new Lib/Prog/Green-hunting season.
History demonstrates that herd sizes of Libs/Progs/Greens must be kept well-culled, as over-population results in corruption, decay, and collapse of any society they inhabit or interact closely with.
The future is bright.
If you think the anthropogenic influence is overestimated, you can make quite a bit of money betting against the prevailing opinion there.
If only it were that easy. Even suspending disbelief and assuming that all the climate change data was faked by evil gnomes working in Gore's basement and the truth will come out any-day-now(R) there is still too much truth in the saying that the markets *can* stay irrational longer than one can stay solvent (while betting against said irrationality).
Now, that said, the climate markets will indeed see the truth any-day-now(R) so by al means those who *know* the reality of no global warming should go and trade on that info and show them liberal hippies how real americans make money.
--
[Disclaimer: assume invisible sarcasm tags as needed, as visible ones would spoil the effect]
I just knew that (satellite) TV was bad for us.
Yeah, he's a moron, if that wasn't already obvious.
"I just imagine how far would have gotten if all the money spent on Iraq/Afghanistan wars would have been invested on research like space exploration"
It would be better to fix all the crumbling roads and bridges and bury the electricity and data cables underground like a civilized nation.
It was not cellulose, it was the evolution of lignin.
For some reason, "alarmists" seem a lot more willing to put their money where their mouth is than "skeptics". So far, they have also won a lot more on it.
Because skeptics are um skeptical. There are many of us who don't adopt a position of belief on this subject. Its clear the climate is changing. Its also clear there is lots we don't know about how the system works, and its not entirely clear where things are headed and its even less clear that its man made.
I am not saying it is not man made. It very well might be! I don't want to put money down that its not. I also don't want to adopt economically ruinous measures; on the possibility it is. I want to let the scientists do more science. That is really not an extreme position. Especially when its already to late to fix the problem by 'controlling emissions' if our current level of understanding does turn out to be mostly correct. The focus should be on enhancing our understanding of the climate model and figuring out how we might directly and actively control it.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Contrary to what symbolset says though, I think that the impact of white-rot fungus was quite the opposite of "releasing untold billions of CO2 into the air". It seems much more likely that what happened is that, by preventing coal production through tree fossilization, it halted the massive sequestration of CO2 that was going on during the Carboniferous era. This led to an equilibrium, since the coal that had been produced wasn't going anywhere, and WRF was preventing new coal from being produced - most of the CO2 sequestered in new trees was being sent right back into the atmosphere via WRF.
In the past few hundred years though, with the advent of man burning coal, we could easily be upsetting the equilibrium. Humans are, after all, just another species that evolved. If the evolution of trees can lead to a massive decline in CO2 levels due to fossilization, and the evolution of WRF can lead to an equilibrium by preventing further fossilization, there's absolutely no reason to believe that the evolution of humans couldn't lead to a breaking of the equilibrium and a massive rise in CO2 levels.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
The problem is that change happens, but the speed it happens with. It's like stopping your car - if you apply the brakes gently, you hardly feel a thing, but if you hit a road tree, well, you still won't feel it, but for other reasons.
Yeah, I had the same thought after a while. So rather than being limited to reversing the effects of the fungus (which themselves must have been pretty extreme) we're able to release all that carbon that's been sequestered for the last 260 billion years. Pretty nasty.
Anyway, it's all nonsense. The articles I've been reading don't say that coal formation started when trees evolved and stopped when white rot fungus came along. Coal formation started when algae first appeared and continued (with various breaks, presumably due to extinction events) until the present day. All the WRF did was slow down (not stop) coal formation from lignan-based plants.
I wonder what climate denier blog he's parroting. Typical stuff: bad facts, bad logic, and a result that doesn't even support his thesis
I do miss the days when scientific cranks stuck with harmless stuff, like proving that Earth was settled from Mars, or that pi is a rational number.
I work on coal-bearing forests in the Carboniferous (yeah, yeah, saying "in" is standard geology terminology -- I don't *actually* have a time machine), and this is the first I've heard of any type of fungus being responsible for that much change. There is a big change globally in climate as you go from the Carboniferous Period (named such because of the abundance of coal) into the Permian Period. The climate generally becomes more arid. But this is thought to be related to the development of Pangaea and the whole-hemisphere ocean on the other side of it, Panthalassa, not some transformation of forest terrains due to evolution of a new fungus. For that matter, there *are* coals in the Permian, but they are located in places such as India and Australia that people may not be as familiar with. There is also plenty of coal in rocks of all ages from the Carboniferous onward, although it's global abundance does wax and wane with global climate. For example, coal is particularly abundant in the Cretaceous Period and in the Eocene, both times of "greenhouse" conditions. It's less common in, say, the Triassic, which like the Permian has more widespread arid conditions (Pangaea was still breaking up). Coal is forming today as peat in many parts of the world. I have no doubt that the evolution of fungus that could metabolize cellulose was an important event, but it did not result in the end of coal.
*groan* Why did I not read my post before I pressed "Submit"? It should have said "The problem is not that ...", obviously.
Actually, I think it is all Clinton's fault. If he hadn't been such a tool, Bush never would have gotten elected.
You're being shortsighted. There's a butterfly in Mongolia I'm really pissed off at right now.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
The reason it's too late to fix anything is exactly because of people like you who have this mindset.
The earth is estimated to be 3.8 BILLION years old. Something observed since 1979 would be a "record" based on 0.000000009% of the life of the planet. No wonder climate science has such a bad reputation if such silliness makes its way into discussion. ANY discussion of numbers in units smaller than the shortest cycle of observed change is unscientific. Great Scott, we're developers and hardware makers. We, of all people, should know about a minimal statement of requirements.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Your house is on fire. You know it is on fire, you can see the flames and smell the smoke.
You do not know if it was started by an arsonist, or perhaps by lightning or an electrical problem.
Do you wait for the scientists to find out what started the fire before calling the fire department?
By that time the house will be burned down
I myself think we are looking at it all wrong. I think it is man-made, all the evidence points to the earth never having had such a rapid increase CO2 and temperature. Regardless of the source of warming though, we both agree that it -is- warming, and at an alarming rate.
Shouldn't we expend resources to stop it or reduce damages from it, regardless of our belief? If you are of a christian bent, God made us stewards of the earth. To care for and manipulate as we need, but in that process we should respect it.
I myself am no longer christian, but I do not understand how 'christian' people can so readily rape the world that they believe god has given them.
Silence is a state of mime.
Its clear the climate is changing. Its also clear there is lots we don't know about how the system works, and its not entirely clear where things are headed and its even less clear that its man made.
I am not saying it is not man made. It very well might be! I don't want to put money down that its not.
As the comic says, what if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
And which cooling mechanisms are these? According to TFA, melting the polar icecap actually removes an important cooling mechanism. Other mechanisms, such as the ocean's ability to abosrb CO2, are pretty much maxed out. Do you have a planet size air conditioner nobody else knows about?
With substantial removal of ice cover from land areas, we get increased erosion from previously inaccessible terrain, leading to increased amounts of certain minerals available in the ocean, which remove CO2 through carbonate formation. Another major mechanism for CO2 removal is the occurrence of global oceanic anoxic events, which leads to massive oceanic burying of organic carbon (there is some speculation that anoxic periods were responsible for the formation of some major oil deposits, as well as some extinction events).
Of course, geological mechanisms such as this function on geological time scales, so I wouldn't expect these effects to kick in on any timescale observable by our human civilization.
blah blah blah MIGHT CAUSE blah HORRIBLENESS blah CATASTROPHE blah AWFULNESS
Or ... it MIGHT NOT
When they say 'MIGHT', what exactly is the probability they are suggesting? Pretty much unknown ... like most climate related FUD.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Given "Less sea ice > more air moisture > more snow" which in turn leads to "more snow > more sea ice > less air moisture > less snow". Eventually back to dryer winters in snowbound areas. It is called a feedback loop.
Just in case anyone does not understand feedback loops.
I read the science paper too. It's a hypothesis (not a fact), an interesting one to say the least, and it has also been suggested before. Anyway, it was about the evolution of a specific family of genes, in the white rot fungi lineage (subphylum Agaricomycotina, phylum Basidiomycota), not the evolution of some specific species.
No! No! No! I won't! I won't! I won't! La La La La! I can't hear you!
You are welcome on my lawn.
We weren't around for 4.4999 billion of those years... Not sure what you mean by "our". So because it was worse before, that makes it OK now? Let me guess, you think you'll live on Mars if it gets too bad here on this rock??
No it's more like, your house is 20 degrees warmer today than it was 8 months ago in the depths of winter. Clearly this is your fault and with that trend, by 2020 it will be uninhabitable! You better dedicate half your income to air conditioning so that the average temperature in the summer equals the average temperature in the winter, because you picked an arbitrary point and never want it to change from there.
I also don't want to adopt economically ruinous measures; on the possibility it is.
Economic ruin due to preventing AGW is a red herring. We are not dependent on fossil fuels, or at least we need not be. There is no need for us to be. We are told that there is in order to manipulate people into being parrots for what you are squawking. The idea that not poisoning the earth is somehow inherently tied to having a high-tech civilization is a laughable one at best, but as long as many people repeat the lie you're repeating, there's little room for laughter. Only tears now, as we poison the environment in which we live. One of the basic tenets of life is that you shouldn't shit where you eat.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
White-rot fungus is also why there will be no more coal. Life has found a way to prevent it.
Today we have numerous fungi which attack both lignin and cellulose — not in the same organism, as the fungi which grow on trees are characterized as one or the other. But can all of them survive in all conditions? I can imagine some events which might result in the burying of lots of organic matter all at once.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And 3....2......1 - You're cited as a source in Conservapedia.
Only on /. can someone point out the flaw in the logic of an article and be modded flamebait. If I had mod points, I'd give you an Insightful!
A lot of water mixing into the ocean will cause moire damage to the already imbalanced ecosystem, pollution, global warming and sea traffic may one of the factor behind this.
Our war against the oppressive arctic ice is nearly at an end.
The focus should be on enhancing our understanding of the climate model and figuring out how we might directly and actively control it.
Because a pound of cure is better then an ounce of prevention. Right?
Because skeptics are um skeptical. There are many of us who don't adopt a position of belief on this subject.
But those who call themselves skeptics have almost universally adopted a belief on the subject. That their 1-3 climate scientists are correct about climate science -- even thought they are creation scientists, but skeptics don't think about that.
As for those cries of economic armageddon from the ostensibly rational skeptics: they are also not founded in any reality. We have had various carbon trading and/or tax systems in place. In America. In Germany. The evidence is in, and just like the economists said, the net effect on the economy is negligible.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Humans could have no greater nor swifter impact on the CO2 balance than the evolution of white-rot fungus.
Gee. Let me draw an analogy. I once saw a forest fire. The forest burnt down. Therefore, if I intentionally light a fire and destroy another forest, that forest wasn't really effected by my actions. Because that other forest was destroyed by natural causes.
If you think climate scientists are too stupid to know about such things, then you are too incompetent to recognize how incompetent you are.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Everyone wants *everyone else* to deal with.
No everyone. Just you, and a minority in the world. That's right, we're burning up the world because of the tyranny of a small special interest group and a few loud gullible follows.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Whatever the degree of impact humans have on climate change is, there is no question that the climate changes wildly over time on it's own (it was warmer than it is now when the Vikings expanded to Greenland, and even briefly the North American mainland).
If the goal is to preserve a certain climate range, then the discussion shouldn't be about limiting our impact, but on increasing it (just in a more controlled way). Of course, this leads to all sorts of dangerous possibilities, but at least the discussion wouldn't be futile as is our current "Debate". It kind of reminds me of the two party system. Both sides make some valid points, but in the end they are ignoring the real issues.
Nobody gives a shit. I don't.
If anyone DID give a shit, they be trying to fix the problem rather than trying to take over everything and tax the hell out of everything.
So until you are ready to actually DO something about, you are just stinking up the conversation with your flatulence.
Ok, before I get modded Troll, I'd like to appeal to your critical thinking logical side.
First, while I personally find this a bit saddening, lets ask a couple questions and make some observations.
1. Why is the ice cap cited as such a barometer of global warming?
2. Is the warming necessarily anthropogenic? Wouldn't it melt even if the warming was entirely natural?
3. What does an ice cap (which floats on water, which is an order of magnitude better conductor of heat than air)
3a. Where does this water get it's heat from? Hint: 75% of our surface is water. Does air affect ocean temps or something else?
3b. What is the heating role of CO2 in water. (ignore acidification)
4. If I showed you a temperature graph which showed temperatures are average while ice area is down, what would you infer?
( temperature graph )
4a. Could the ice pack be affected by say a storm that broke up the ice which facilitated melting?
So while the news is bad, we can't necessarily draw the conclusion that we've been told to draw. Low sea ice has nothing to with CO2. Global warming maybe, but not CO2.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
No, it's like this.
Someone puts a thermometer next to your pot belly stove and notices that the temps keep getting hotter as you add more kids and rooms to your house and use the stove more to cook meals ad warm the house. So clearly, adding rooms to your house and having more kids is causing Global Warming.
If you don't mind I will inherit your post title...
To the point: there are many ways to slice and dice this. Yes, China has a bigger population, but who are you to claim that each and every one of them does not deserve the same standard of living as yourself? You cannot point your finger at China and scream bloody murder when your own pollution is quadruple of the civilized world average. Just compare US to European developed nations, like Germany and France (using the same link, naturally).
So before "imposing trade sanctions on China", as GGP suggested, check the numbers to make sure you are not laughed out of the trade sanctions meeting.
I don't think you understand how markets work. You might be a skeptic and right that the arctic will return, but that doesn't mean you won't lose your shirt by betting that way.That's more of a popularity contest.
I wonder what employer is paying you to sit there and post on Slashdot. Seriously, you are probably some mid-level clerk who fancy's himself a scientist and simply parrots what you read on your favorite blogs.
It's stupid to think that anyone posting on Slashdot has the slightest clue themselves about anyone of this stuff. It's no better than a college foot ball discussion board. Everyone thinks they are coach.
No, it's more like you put 20 thermometers at various locations in your house and took careful measurements once a day for several years, and then compared the data sets year-to-year.
Changes in temperature in one specific location do not model global changes. Climate change models predict that some regions will become cooler on average, while some others will get warmer. But, overall, the average temperature of the planet is rising year-to-year. You can argue about the cause (and there are legitimate arguments to be made on both sides of the man-made vs. natural variation argument) but the data tells the truth.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Just to say up front I'm not in the skeptical camp on this, but the problem with your analogy is that it is leading and implies immediate, drastic action must be taken NOW or all is lost. It's very possible we can adapt to these changes as we focus our efforts on cleaning up our act. Technology got us into our current messes, but it can also get us out, and hobbling ourselves is not a good idea.
So maybe the house isn't really on fire yet, but you demand the fire company deluge it with water, and that destroys your computer with the plans for a better house, or the money spent on repairing the water damage means other improvements are put off.
I myself am no longer christian, but I do not understand how 'christian' people can so readily rape the world that they believe god has given them.
Never been religious myself, ever, but I guess it's the idea that God gave Man dominion over the Earth? Something like that?
Of course the real answer is alpha sociopaths in charge of everything- corporaitons, governments and religions- but that's a different thread. :-)
Even if that fungus is as amazing as the poster claims, which i wouldn't doubt as nature is amazing, what would we do once all the co2 is cleaned up? Press the off switch?
These massive uncontrolled sequestering ideas are scarey.
It apparently has not happened in hundreds of thousands of years, aside from the previous record breaking low in 2007. They are able to tell by various methods of radioactive dating of the air bubbles stored in the ice. In 2007, we had a lot of this 100,000 year old ice melting off, which means this is the warmest the arctic has been since modern humans have evolved. This year, we're breaking that record.
So the conditions of the deep and intermediate water were warmer than now during the last ice-age? What does this have to do with the current melt-off?
Also, has this study passed peer review already or is it in process?
There's a farmer in Virginia who claims his permaculture techniques could sequester all the CO2 emitted by humans since the industrial revolution in less than 10 years. His name is Joel Salatin and the technique he invented is called mob-stocking herbivorous solar conversion lignified carbon sequestration fertilization. In the 50 years the Salatins have been farming this way, they've added 8 inches of topsoil to their land (this is how the carbon is sequestered). Salatin is featured in Michael Pollan's book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Pollan gives a brief introduction to the farm in this video among others.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
What part of "A paper published in Science finds summer Arctic Sea Ice extent during the Holocene Thermal Maximum 8,000 years ago was "less than half of the record low 2007 level." don't you understand?
I'm not taking a stance on the validity of the sentence, but it does pretty much address your concerns.
No, it's more like your house is 20 degrees warmer today than it was 8 months ago, but you have no clear grasp of why on your own terms, and 97% of experts on the subject tell you it is because your house is on fire, but you heard some guy on talk radio said it was because of the changing of the seasons, and that's enough for you to sit on your ass and do nothing because it would be a huge pain to get off your ass and try to put out the fire.
Why do you spam a wall of text you probably didn't understand a word of?
We have a problem now - that there were problems in the past is not relevant - that there were periods where there were no problems in the past is not relevant.
We have a problem now.
We should do something about it.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
You don't have to take a position of faith because there is ample scientific evidence showing that humans are causing the global warming of modern times:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a-Human-Fingerprint-on-Climate-Change.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm
If you are an honest skeptic, look at the full body of scientific evidence. Don't cherry-pick. Be open to all the evidence.http://www.skepticalscience.com/ is a good place to start.
Your house is on fire.
I can see how you might believe that, after years of suppression of academic papers that point out "no, the house is slightly warmer, and we're not sure if it's because we opened the curtains or because it's July."
So, in conclusion, satellites are melting the ice.
Darn, I thought the ice was causing the satellites.
Only in Soviet Russia!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
No, it's more like you put 20 thermometers at various locations in your house and took careful measurements once a day for several years, and then compared the data sets year-to-year. ...and then threw out the ones that didn't fit your political agenda.
They are building new coal fired plants because the renewable energy like solar and wind turbines just plain don't work, they're getting something like 12% the nameplate rating. I wouldn't be surprized that after you add in manufacture, installation, new grid connections, and backup energy sources that renewable cost more CO2 than they could save in multiple lifetimes, not to mention the 14,000 abandoned wind turbines in the US; "free energy" and they couldn't even afford to maintain the collection devices.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
In (Former) Soviet Russia!
William Ewing (Columbia Univ), back in the '50s, said that he had evidence of a 60-year freeze/thaw cycle for the Arctic Sea. Evaporation from an ice-free Arctic Sea fed snow falls on Siberia, Canada and Greenland resulting in glaciers sending floes into the Arctic Sea. As the Sea got covered up the evaporation slowed and so did the glaciers. Rinse and repeat.
And this theory was completely discredited. Hell, it's used by "climate skeptics" to mock the current scientific consensus. You know, that crap about how scientists said we were headed into another ice age? That scientist was Ewing and he never got much of the community to agree with him.
So, while your post was rated informative, I don't have the slightest clue what you think your facts mean.
Talk to the hand, cause Elder Romney don't want to hear it!
Global warming? we don't need no stinking global warming!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
The real reason it's too late is that without getting China and India onboard, the best anyone can do is spit in the wind; We've already met the Kyoto Protocol objectives for the US even without ratifying the treaty,, but somehow that doesn't seem to satisfy anyone.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Basic fact of Nature on planet Earth that isn't going to change: Ice melts in summer, freezes when it's not summer.
Oh noooooooooes ice melts in the summer. It is the end of the world as we know it (well it is one end of the world, the north end) and it will all just freeze again in the winter so what is the big dooms day problem?
None of the co2 doomsday rapture claims in the article can be substantiated. They are just prognostications of people projecting their fears. There is no scientific basis to them. If you believe there is then you're not doing science, you're on the drug of "belief". If you have any actual hard evidence that there are any serious consequences that haven't happened before or any actual scientific evidence showing causation that humans went up there with blow torches or other means of "warming" the arctic then please provide the peer reviewed papers that show causation. Oh and papers that conjecture are not showing causation, you know a paper is conjecturing when they use conditional language like "could, might, maybe, will probably, ...". Thanks if you attempt to do actual science. No thanks if you are spout doomsday rapture nightmares you've incultcated.
Sunshine = Ice melting. Fall, Winter and Spring = Ice Frozen. Fact of Nature on Earth in the arctic and antarctic.
Besides the total ice volume on planet Earth is on a slight increasing trend, fact: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page.
"We are not dependent on fossil fuels"
Wow. Just wow. And to buttress your argument you point to a completely speculative, disorganized, unprovenanced blog.
Go hang out on the Oil Drum for a week to see how staggeringly incorrect you are.
Can we get off of fossil fuels without crashing civilization as we know it? That's a very interesting question. Theoretically we can. We have the technology to create energy from much safer sources. Any practical chance of this happening?
No, not really.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
There's two basic reasons on why we are burning fossil fuels in the quantities that we do. The first is because of the physical properties of these fuels. These fossil fuels are energy dense, easy to store and transport, and can be handled safely by humans with only minor precautions.
The second reason we burn so much fossil fuels is because it is cheap. The article you link to states that we can replicate fuels with similar physical properties to fossil fuels but it says next to nothing about the cost. If the replacement fuels cost twice what the fossil fuels cost it might not mean economic ruin but it will certainly reduce our standard of living. The problem lies in that as of right now these replacement fuels don't cost twice as much but more like ten times as much.
There's another issue with bio-fuels specifically. With bio-fuels we place a very direct connection between our food and our fuel. A drought could place us in the very unfortunate position of choosing between starving to death and freezing to death. I read my history and civilizations have collapsed because of being forced into that situation.
I agree that we don't have to give up economic prosperity to avoid the burning of fossil fuels. What I disagree with is the severity of the supposed pollution that the burning of fossil fuels cause and the means by which many propose we shift away from fossil fuels to alternatives.
The only technology that we have right now that can compete with fossil fuels on cost is nuclear power. Wind power might get there as could bio-fuels and synthetic fuels given some investment in technology and infrastructure. Until we build enough windmills and nuclear power plants we are going to have to continue burning coal. If we shut off the coal power tap now we will never have enough power at a low enough cost to build that infrastructure. We can't build nuclear power plants without burning coal or erect windmills without burning diesel fuel.
People need to come to the realization that the transition away from fossil fuels is going to take decades. In the mean time, as we build these nuclear power plants, we need to keep digging up coal and drilling for natural gas. If we don't keep digging for coal then we just will not have the resources to transition to its replacement. If we don't keep digging for coal we will place ourselves in the position of choosing between starving to death or freezing to death.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Oh dear, that article is so full of obvious bias ... just one small fact, that article happens to happily ignore: you don't apply for, plan and build a (coal) power plant within a couple of month, as the article implies by stating "Germany is building about 25 clean coal-fired power plants to offset the loss of nuclear". All those coal plants were scheduled to be build a long time ago and have nothing to do with Germany trying to utilized 100% renewable energy.
Forbes as a reliable source for ecological ... you tell me.
The winter ice extent is missleading since the ice is gettng thinner. It's not the total ice area, it's also the VOLUME that is shrinking and NOT recovering!
Did anybody follow this link that was posted on the article....?
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/05/799761/death-spiral-watch-experts-warn-near-ice-free-arctic-in-summer-in-a-decade-volume-trends-continue/
Did anybody follow this link that was posted on the article
Uh, did you not read the post you replied to?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Actually the warmists are using everyone's money for their own mouths:
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/carbon-tax-could-raise-1-5-trillion-for-the-us-government-no-wonder-politicians-drool-over-dire-predictions/
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/the-tax-whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken-begins/
The debate focuses on completely wrong things. It doesn't really matter if human activities cause climate change. The human involvement is probably irreversible anyway, and abrupt climate changes are possible even without human interference.
What matters is how we should manage the inevitable climate upheavals. The net result may be positive or negative, but there are bound to be billions of winners and losers. How are we, as humanity, going to help out the losers? Are we going to take from the winners and give to the losers? Are we going to help the losers immigrate to where the winners live? Are we just going to let them rot?
I'm afraid we're going to resort to what we always did: war.
\It's like betting $100 on both teams in the Superbowl, then celebrating when you win.
I don't see that as a problem.
What is the worst thing that could happen if we try to prevent global warming: we have renewable sources of energy, more efficient food production and transportation infrastructure at a cost of investment capital.
What is the worst thing that could happen if we don't do anything: climate instability (for humans anyway) and we all go extinct.
I'd rather bet on global warming as existing and if I am wrong I still win big than do nothing and get shat on no matter the outcome.
Especially when its already to late to fix the problem by 'controlling emissions' if our current level of understanding does turn out to be mostly correct.
"Well, we are going too fast to come to a complete stop before we hit that other car, so don't bother taking your foot off the accelerator."
My webcomic
A new paper published in Nature Geoscience finds "From about 50,000 to 11,000 years ago, the central Arctic Basin from 1,000 to 2,500 meters deep was ... 1â"2C warmer than modern Arctic Intermediate Water."
That's irrelevant to the extent of Arctic sea ice. It only has to do with water at intermediate depths, not the surface temperature, nor sea ice extent. The Arctic surface was indeed colder than today during the glacial period, and there was more sea ice (to the extent that we can reconstruct from paleo proxies).
This finding is particularly surprising because it occurred during the last major ice age.
Not completely surprising. Cooling at the surface induces ocean circulation changes that can warm at depth. For example, the warmer Atlantic water could be forced deeper and warm the Arctic depths. The paper discusses a number of hypotheses for how this may happen.
What part of "A paper published in Science finds summer Arctic Sea Ice extent during the Holocene Thermal Maximum 8,000 years ago was "less than half of the record low 2007 level." don't you understand?
I'm not taking a stance on the validity of the sentence, but it does pretty much address your concerns.
Actually if you read the comment he was replying too, the bit you quoted was referencing a different paper. He was asking about the first bit, which apparently was from a paper published in Nature Geoscience. And he is free to have concerns about the comment he was posting on; apparently you were unable to comprehend it properly when you read it either.
And if it isn't man-made and is a product of natural variation, shoddy statistics? What if man's contribution is merely sprinkles on the shoddy statistics icing on the natural variation cake? Do you really think that if we didn't cause the warming, that we'd be able to stop it? I'm not sure if the warming is still happening, lower troposphere temperature annomaly measured by satellites have been stuck around 0.3 C for quite a while.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Wow. Just wow. And to buttress your argument you point to a completely speculative, disorganized, unprovenanced blog.
If you were a little cleverer you would have noticed that's my blog. It's not disorganized at all, it just doesn't provide an easy means to get to old content. It might not be organized the way you want it, but then, I'm not trying to make money with it, either. It's a hobby. That blog post is basically something I had to keep writing and rewriting for people too in love with traditional Big Energy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
^^^^ What he said ^^^^
I would take issue with the phrase "better world".
It ain't a "better world" if I have to ration my energy use, wait in line to gas up my car, or there are rolling brownouts/blackouts.
It ain't a "better world" if electricity prices "skyrocket" (somebody's phrase as I recall) because we closed down all of the stable, reliable, working coal-fired power plants to rely on flighty wind and part-time solar generation.
It ain't a "better world" if we crash the economy so as to make the Great Depression look like a hiccup in pursuing reductions in so-called "greenhouse gasses" based on an unproven theory that most scientists view as little more credible than Creationism.
Hopefully the Antarctic ice does not melt as well. We should try to convince poor insane Danforth to tell us what he saw out of the planes window.
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
fm6 suggested AGW may cause a worse extinction event than the previous ones (which is the kind of over-hype that skeptics like to use to claim AGW is false). symbolset appears to be responding to this claim, I doubt he is suggesting a slightly-less-severe extinction would be nothing to worry about.
My webcomic
Are you suggesting that reducing CO2 emissions will have some Reaganomic like trickle down effect on real pollutants? Wouldn't it be more effective to reduce actual pollution directly, instead of relying on some Rube Goldberg mechanism to do it indirectly? What about the poor plants, they've been CO2 starved for so long? They really starting to grow now.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The sixth extinction is overhype? It's not universally accepted, but there's a lot of evidence.
Go back and read the thread. I did not bring up the sixth extinction in response to symbolset's post. I brought it up in response to a previous claim that if something has happened before in the 4.5 billion year history of the planet, it's no big deal.
Wow. Just wow. And to buttress your argument you point to a completely speculative, disorganized, unprovenanced blog.
If you were a little cleverer you would have noticed that's my blog. It's not disorganized at all, it just doesn't provide an easy means to get to old content. It might not be organized the way you want it, but then, I'm not trying to make money with it, either. It's a hobby. That blog post is basically something I had to keep writing and rewriting for people too in love with traditional Big Energy.
Perhaps we the rest of us would like policy decisions based on something more credible that someone's hobby.
There's another issue with bio-fuels specifically. With bio-fuels we place a very direct connection between our food and our fuel. A drought could place us in the very unfortunate position of choosing between starving to death and freezing to death. I read my history and civilizations have collapsed because of being forced into that situation.
To be fair, not every bio fuel candidate is a food source, it's just that the simplest path to biofuels has been through the corn industry and it's subsidies, to produce ethanol. There are other potentially economic options that don't tie us to directly burning foodstuffs in engines.
Nor does every heating option require fossil fuels. For starters , simple wood burning stoves have worked for ages.
I contend that he just did not read very closely, missing that the paper he was commenting on was also accepted and published. It just seems like a lazy attempt at poisoning the well, which adds very little to any debate.
I do agree that the relation between the findings of the first paper and sea ice coverage need clarification, but it seems to be of less importance given the findings of the second paper.
William Ewing (Columbia Univ), back in the '50s, said that he had evidence of a 60-year freeze/thaw cycle for the Arctic Sea. Evaporation from an ice-free Arctic Sea fed snow falls on Siberia, Canada and Greenland resulting in glaciers sending floes into the Arctic Sea. As the Sea got covered up the evaporation slowed and so did the glaciers. Rinse and repeat.
Well, that would mean there should have been as little ice when he said that as there is now. http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/sea_ice.html
Satellite data from the SMMR and SSM/I instruments have been combined with earlier observations from ice charts and other sources to yield a time series of Arctic ice extent from the early 1900s onward. While the pre-satellite records are not as reliable, their trends are in good general agreement with the satellite record and indicate that Arctic sea ice extent has been declining since at least the early 1950s.
Next!
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Because skeptics are um skeptical. There are many of us who don't adopt a position of belief on this subject. Its clear the climate is changing. Its also clear there is lots we don't know about how the system works, and its not entirely clear where things are headed and its even less clear that its man made.
I am not saying it is not man made. It very well might be! I don't want to put money down that its not. I also don't want to adopt economically ruinous measures; on the possibility it is.
Skepticism isn't mere disbelief. One of the tenets of skepticism is going with the evidence once the evidence points strongly in a certain direction, instead of continually moving the goal posts. As used here, though, what people are calling "skepticism" is really just denial.
I want to let the scientists do more science. That is really not an extreme position.
No argument from me on that point. But many of those in the denial camp maintain that all of this climate science is nothing more than a bid for funding, and would love to stop the research. And I find that to be an extreme position.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
Perhaps we the rest of us would like policy decisions based on something more credible that someone's hobby.
Luckily for the rest of you, I included citations in link form. If you disagree with the conclusions of my citations, feel free to attempt to refute them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What about the poor plants, they've been CO2 starved for so long? They really starting to grow now.
You jest, but unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Some plants can make use of more CO2, but not most of them. They're used to it being around a certain level, so there's no reason for them to have evolved the ability to use much more. Some of them can use more than usual during periods of increased insolation, but there are practical upper limits to that.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
To be fair, not every bio fuel candidate is a food source...
To be fair there is a very high correlation between bio-fuels and food. Any plant based fuel source is going to compete with food for land, water, fertilizers and pesticides. I've seen the claim of bio-fuels being derived from agricultural, meat processing, and food "waste" but that stuff is rarely "wasted". I grew up on a farm and we knew that the manure from the cattle had to go to the fields or the crops would not grow. We knew that the corn stalks, straw, and other "waste" had to remain in the field or the top soil would wash away. Even rotten fruit, animal bones, and other nasty bits of organic material no one would want to eat can be, and is, used as fertilizer.
I seen claims that algae can be grown in factories out in the desert where the algae soaks up the sun in transparent pipes. The water can be drawn from the ocean or from city sewage so as not to deplete fresh water sources. Even this competes with food since that same algae can be used to produce oil for food just as easily as it can for fuel. Change that process slightly so that instead of just squeezing out the oils the algae proteins are extracted and one could produce a nutritious, and perhaps a bit unappealing in raw form, food source.
Nor does every heating option require fossil fuels. For starters , simple wood burning stoves have worked for ages.
While the wood is not food many trees produce fruits that we eat. That land used to grow trees can be used to grow food crops. Even wood for fuel competes with food.
This brings up the history I've read on how civilizations have ended when food competes with fuel. A harsh winter comes along. The people are looking for anything to keep them warm. The trees they relied upon for apples, dates, olives, whatever, start to look real tempting for firewood. They cut down the trees and burn the wood. Spring comes and there's not enough trees to feed them any more. By next winter large numbers starve or freeze to death. The next spring the people that remain, if there are any, move on and leave a desert behind. We've seen this happen many times in history, we don't need to see it repeated again.
There is one bio-fuel source I can support and that is municipal sewage. Using human waste as fertilizer carries the hazard of spreading disease. There are methods that are currently used now to treat the waste and dispose of it in relatively safe means but we still see wildlife getting harmed by our treated waste. If we use this waste for synthesizing fuels any bacteria, virus, prion, hormone, enzyme or whatever that exists in the waste will be destroyed in the creation of the fuel or consumed when the fuel is burned.
The municipal sewage is not an energy source in itself. Much of the energy that is contained in the finished fuel product will have to come from some other source. The sewage is mostly a feedstock to derive the carbon and hydrogen atoms so that a valuable fuel (like jet fuel or heating oil) can be made from a less valuable fuel (like nuclear, coal, or natural gas).
I realized this post ran very long, and probably few people will even read it. However I wrote it so I'll post it.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
260 billion years? Are you really that fucking stupid? Get your head out of your ass, neckbeard.
To be fair there is a very high correlation between bio-fuels and food. Any plant based fuel source is going to compete with food for land, water, fertilizers and pesticides.
Algae does not compete with food for land, water, fertilizers, or pesticides, and the USDOE proved the technology in the 1980s at Sandia NREL. You grow it (in theory) on desert land currently owned by the BLM using seawater (or any other non-potable water, really) pumped in from some distance. Wastewater is put back into the aquifer, but now inland, so everyone wins. The waste parts of the algae from the process are fertilizer.
The municipal sewage is not an energy source in itself.
The municipal sewage is an energy source, powered by poop.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Wind turbines produce way more than 12% of their nameplate rating, unless you're talking silly ones for home use. The rest of your conspirational garbage is just not worth reading.
A quote from the article: "corporate cronyism that preyed upon public ignorance of earth science to create a crisis — global warming — to exploit and loot the Treasury."
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Of course algae competes with food for land. Anywhere that has enough sunlight and a firm enough foundation to place an algae factory is also suitable for a greenhouse to grow tomatoes. I'll concede that it does not compete for water, fertilizers, and pesticides since something that is not used as food does not have the same safety constraints as something that is used for food.
I'll admit that I did not read the entire PDF you linked to but I did read enough to find that the process described does not free us from the use of fossil fuels. They point out that even in a desert environment there is a need to provide heat to the algae to keep it alive and productive. There was also a need for a CO2 source, they describe using the exhaust from a coal fired power plant to provide the highly concentrated CO2 required. I would assume in a production environment that waste heat from the coal fired plant would be used to keep the algae warm.
Also, your example of a municipal sewage plant that is "powered by poop" makes considerable mention of the use of sunlight. Seems to me that the plant is largely powered by the sun. I saw no mention of energy actually being extracted for use outside of the plant. While the process described may not need an external energy source (excepting solar heating) to process the sewage it cannot be called an "energy source" since no energy leaves the plant.
Both the algae bio-diesel and the sewage treatment examples you gave rely on photosynthesis to provide the energy needed. If there is enough sun for that photosynthesis then there is enough sun for photosynthesis for food crops. Since they both require the sun to work they are not energy sources, the sun is the energy source. These processes make use of the sun in interesting ways but deriving work from the sun is a trivial task any more. The hard part is getting the sun to do work for us at a cost competitive with fossil fuels.
This gets back to my point from an earlier post. We will continue to burn fossil fuels so long as it remains cheaper than the alternatives. Right now the only energy sources we have that are competitive with fossil fuels are nuclear, hydroelectric, and maybe wind. There might come a day when algae and "poop" can provide energy as cheap and abundant as fossil fuels. Until that day comes we'll need to keep digging up coal and drilling for oil to maintain our standard of living.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Of course algae competes with food for land. Anywhere that has enough sunlight and a firm enough foundation to place an algae factory is also suitable for a greenhouse to grow tomatoes.
Wrong. Tomatoes don't travel well. Biodiesel or its feedstocks can. You put the algae fields far from everyone. You put the tomatoes close to civilization. Also, tomatoes either need soil, or you can put them anywhere. Algae doesn't need soil, so you can put it in places where it's not convenient to grow tomatoes.
I'll admit that I did not read the entire PDF you linked to but I did read enough to find that the process described does not free us from the use of fossil fuels. They point out that even in a desert environment there is a need to provide heat to the algae to keep it alive and productive.
You do it the same way you do it in a pool, with a cover. If you designed the cover correctly, you could get solar distillation cheaply. Also, read the entire PDF before you comment on algae fuels again, you'll be much better-informed.
Also, your example of a municipal sewage plant that is "powered by poop" makes considerable mention of the use of sunlight. Seems to me that the plant is largely powered by the sun. I saw no mention of energy actually being extracted for use outside of the plant.
Methane collects under the plastic liner, and it can be captured. So not only does this approach produce stored energy in a form that we already know how to use (biogas) but it also captures methane which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere but it also gives us a chance to burn it and turn it into CO2, which is a less-warming gas than methane.
IOW, you are wrong on all three counts.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
IOW, you are wrong on all three counts.
Perhaps I am wrong, I just don't care enough to argue any more. What you have not addressed is the cost. Until these alternatives are demonstrably cheaper than fossil fuels these technologies will remain in the realm of science fiction and wishful thinking.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Global Rotation of SeaWiFS Biosphere Decadal Average with Land
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Perhaps I am wrong, I just don't care enough to argue any more. What you have not addressed is the cost
This is the attitude that will sign humanity's death warrant. What of the cost of burning fossil fuels? They are only "cheap" economically if you ignore the externalities.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't believe that we have enough information or resources as consumers, (e.g. as travelers, energy utilize-rs, eaters et al.) to make necessary transitions to alternative fuels - these are - from my perspective - needed changes that seem to me to be wildly apparent. Some of these answers are 'pre-discoveries' that have been underfunded or out competed by the much more influential.
The infrastructure that exists works at a certain understandable layperson's level of energy input so that what we do desire from the resources that our infrastructure supplies to us -everything from fast food, to driving any car we want to drive, watching cinema, television, computers.. on and on in a daily cycle, we are being fed each and every day by the cycles of the energy system. The Earth is no different, it runs and operates on the inflow and output of energy - our resources come as an integral and tangled web of energy requirements all consumed on this one globe. It seems that we can certainly stretch our vision to see how differently we could approach our daily lives, ... and as we dive into balancing what is necessary; what we want to accomplish; and what is possible we might disregard what the corporate financial needs are talking about - I mean just to see the other side of the box - in other words, let's have a discourse with an exclusion of profit being the bottom line - just to see what is possible.
Omg play the violin why don't you...
This is the attitude that will sign humanity's death warrant. What of the cost of burning fossil fuels? They are only "cheap" economically if you ignore the externalities.
Wow, you totally didn't read what I wrote. I'll try again.
The "externalities" of fossil fuels require us to develop alternatives. Until we create those alternatives we will have to burn fossil fuels. Barring the use of fossil fuels before the alternatives are economically viable means people starve.
Right now bio-diesel from algae is a theory. It might be a very good theory but as of right now I cannot go to the corner filling station and buy bio-diesel. Until I can I'm going to have to fill my truck with gasoline derived from petroleum crude. If you cut off my gasoline before I can get the bio-diesel, and a truck that runs on that bio-diesel, then I will get very upset, then very hungry, then very cold, and then very dead.
Perhaps that is an unlikely scenario. People won't end up dead, at least not those that just want to eat. The people that will end up dead are those standing between the fossil fuels and the very cold and hungry people that need that fuel to eat and stay warm.
There's a lot of people in this world that like to eat and don't like being cold. Until you get that algae farm producing bio-diesel you are going to have to keep the petroleum flowing. Talk about "externalities" all you like but it won't do much good. People aren't going to pay attention to ice caps melting away in fifty years if they don't have breakfast in the morning.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
"externalities" of fossil fuels require us to develop alternatives. Until we create those alternatives we will have to burn fossil fuels.
We have had the technology for the alternatives (in every category) for thirty years. It's not the ability that is missing, it is the will.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Record 35 year lows. That's never happened before in our 4.5 billion year history, you can be sure!
Well the Native people in the area have been living there for over 20,000 years and never remember a time when the Northwest passage was ever free of ice. It is now.
Your a frog in a boiling pan of water and just like the frog you have no clue that your dying.
More like it looks like a hockey stick.
So record low article ice extent means we will have an ice age? Now that's something to be worried about. We need to find ways to raise global temps. Any ideas?
Apparently 33 years of satellite ice mapping is no match for geologic time scales.
Perhaps satellites cause global warming then?
You said:
we might well be looking at the so-called "sixth extinction" which could be worse than any of them
That is, you didn't just claim AGW may cause mass extinction, but that it may be the worst extinction event ever. Claiming AGW will trigger an extinction event is in the realm of possibility, but claiming it will be the worst ever is definitely overhype.
Symbolset then suggested we won't manage a record-setting extinction event, saying:
Humans could have no greater nor swifter impact on the CO2 balance than the evolution of white-rot fungus
You then, unwittingly, agreed with him, saying:
Well great. We can assume that human beings can't affect the environment any worse than a fungus that altered that altered the ecosphere beyond all recognition. Hey, that makes me feel a lot better.
He did not disagree with your claim that AGW may lead to extinction, and neither he nor I are saying AGW isn't to be worried about. We are just dismissing the most extreme claim ("worst ever" extinction event), that is all.
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If you have a steady source of income, and aren't betting with borrowed money, you won't get a solvency problem on intrade. When shorting stock, the downside is potentially infinite. When "shorting" these contracts (really, selling them), your losses are capped, because the most they can be worth is 100 - and you have to tie up that much money in order to sell the contract in the first place.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.