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Ice Loss In West Antarctica Is Speeding Up
An anonymous reader writes: A new study just published on Antarctic ice loss by Christopher Harig and Frederik Simons of Princeton confirm West Antarctica is losing mass fast. The study used satellite measurements to determine the rate of mass loss. The lead author of the study told The Guardian: "It is very important that we continue long term monitoring of how mass changes in ice sheets. For West Antarctica in particular this is important because of how it is thought to be more unstable, where the feedbacks can cause more and more ice loss from the land over time. These strong regional accelerations that we see are very robustly measured and imply that Antarctica may become a major contributor to sea level rise in the near future. This increase in the mass loss rate, in ten years, accelerations like that show that things are beginning to change on human time scales."
of climate change deniers.
Of course, we're not going to do anything about the problem. Of course not.
You're picking a fight before it's started!
The only thing worse than the climate change deniers are the people like you who are absolutely convinced that the doomsday is coming. At least the deniers are skeptical.
Personally though, I hate both your attitudes because your emotions and politics get in the way of rational, logical evolution of the science behind the issue.
The only thing worse than the climate change deniers are the people like you who are absolutely convinced that the doomsday is coming. At least the deniers are skeptical.
Very few deniers are honestly skeptical.
Personally though, I hate both your attitudes because your emotions and politics get in the way of rational, logical evolution of the science behind the issue.
I sort of agree, but then, do we have time to wait for the 'logical evolution of the science'? Most science is done by making observations that prove hypotheses. In this case there is a slight problem with this way of making science. Once the observations are indisputable, its a bit too late to change things.
That is why I back 100% the hypothesis that leads the human race to clean up their act and (I hope) create technology that ultimately leads to a Star Trek sort of socialist utopia.
Even if it costs current-day industrialists their last million in bonuses.
Personally though, I hate both your attitudes because your emotions and politics get in the way of rational, logical evolution of the science behind the issue.
I sort of agree, but then, do we have time to wait for the 'logical evolution of the science'? Most science is done by making observations that prove hypotheses. In this case there is a slight problem with this way of making science. Once the observations are indisputable, its a bit too late to change things.
That is why I back 100% the hypothesis that leads the human race to clean up their act and (I hope) create technology that ultimately leads to a Star Trek sort of socialist utopia.
Even if it costs current-day industrialists their last million in bonuses.
Let's not be naive about our society. Star Trek as a model will never be in our grasp unless there is a total revolution, other wise our society if anything will evolve similar to that of the Ferengi.
We are ruled by a growing technocracy that is manipulated by avaricious oligarchs.
Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. It's really as simple as that. There's too much at stake to ignore the problem and hope it goes away.
I am sure that this was done by the same bunch of climatologists who got stuck in the ice last year.
I'm just wondering, if you see a truck rolling down a road towards you, you're not sure if it will hit you and, you can't make eye contact with the driver, do you just trust that he is going to see you and everything will be ok or do you make a effort to stay out of the way? After all there is no evidence that the truck is going to hit you, so isn't it perfectly reasonable to just stand there and see if it does?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
At least the deniers are skeptical.
I disagree. Climate science deniers are not the least bit skeptical of anything that conforms to their desired result. A true skeptic is more skeptical of things that appear to confirm their biases than of things that don't.
I sort of agree, but then, do we have time to wait for the 'logical evolution of the science'? Most science is done by making observations that prove hypotheses. In this case there is a slight problem with this way of making science. Once the observations are indisputable, its a bit too late to change things.
I don't care whether you are pro or against climate change action, but at least you are being perfectly HONEST.
So that's right, it is about risk and how to deal with that risk. To me this analogy fits: you are on a fast road and there is limited visibility, you see some object on the road up ahead, and you know that if you swerve violently you might just swerve into some other car or a tree, or maybe just go off the road and bump and survive, or you could keep going and see whether the object turns out to be an old cardboard box or something less dangerous. The decision/problem is about how best to rationally handle the questions of the risks involved.
There are two common and really idiotic views on climate change:
(1) it is real and happening and undeniable and those who claim we aren't certain are asking for a 100% certainty whereas we are 99.9999% certain so to deny that is tantamount to questioning whether the world is flat or a sphere, and whilst it may be true that in some weird unpredictable way, climate change turns out to be benign, because anything is possible, the risk of planetary disaster, mass extinction, runaway greenhouse, etc. are simply too big and so we have to act, because by the time it happens, it'll be too late, so we MUST act
(2) there is a United Nations drive to create a grass roots political counter culture which will operate via NGOs as an alternative to national governments, for wealth redistribution from rich countries to poor countries, to halt population growth, to halt industrialisation, in some new mix of socialist world government, under the banner of "global justice" and "sustainability", and that movement is simply unelected, undemocratic, authoritarian, and nuts, and they are pushing climate change as "science" via the corrupt IPCC in order to beat everyone into accepting their new "reality"
Now I'm sure many people will think that (1) makes sense and (2) is the idiotic one, but here's what I think really makes sense:
The reason both views stink is because, they are both really about risk and the future, and nobody knows the future. I'm all for a world government, where any kid born anywhere gets the same great opportunities in life, but how do you get there? I'm all for protecting the environment, but there too there is always risk. For example, that TED talk by an ecologist who said that, back in the day, they knew, and all ecologists agreed, that to protect a grassland they had to change things, so they shot 10,000 elephants. And decades later they realised their model was totally wrong. THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES. Of course, people only act when they think they know the answer. Of course, decades of expertise can go into that answer. And it can still easily be wrong. To think otherwise is just overconfidence in a world of complex systems. More fool you.
Remain open minded, to both ideas of global governance and to ecological change and to environmental damage and so on, and to economies, to education, to all the other human systems, and remain open minded about all these things, and then when thinking about risks, INCLUDE the risk of your established and accepted expert theory being wrong, include those risks and weigh up all those risks. Yes, welcome a global equal society, but also be sceptical about how to get there, the risks involved, after all, the current system is a product of people's past efforts, and you are not the first generation to suddenly grow some compassion. Likewise, look for risks to the environment, to societies, and so on, and climate change is one risk, but not the only one. Weigh up all the risks.
Look at tetraethyl lead, the lead industry, and the scientists who discovered in the 1940s the horrible things TEL does to children, then read on why it wasn't banned until 1973.
Look at smoking, the scientists who started figuring out all the awful shit it does to the body, and the tobacco industry that spent 25 years fighting a systematic FUD campaign (and personal character attacks against them).
Now scientists have spent decades fleshing out the basic idea that Arrhenius articulated about 120 years ago and it's becoming increasingly a sign of lunacy to claim he wasn't right... Yet just as smoking-causes-cancer denialism was the unbelievably stupid meme that Just Wouldn't Fucking Die because the tobacco industry kept funding it, and the leaded-gasoline-is-harmless denialism that was funded directly by the lead industry before that, now certain interests that want to burn and/or strip mine the word in the name of the Holy Lord's Next Quarterly Profit Report are funding a massive, systematic attack against any coherent action on climate change. And you people are falling for it. AGAIN.
Are we seriously expected to believe that 97% of the world's scientists are involved in some sort of massive scheme to... uh... steal grant money? Or that maybe damn near everyone who looks into what's going on realizes we really gotta do something about this crap?
[...] And decades later they realised their model was totally wrong. THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES. Of course, people only act when they think they know the answer. Of course, decades of expertise can go into that answer. And it can still easily be wrong. To think otherwise is just overconfidence in a world of complex systems. More fool you.
You might want to look at Asimov's The Relativity of Wrong. Science can never give us philosophical certainty, and many scientific theories are incomplete (i.e. "wrong" in the strict sense). But that does not mean that all are equally wrong, or wrong enough to be useless. Newton was superseded by Einstein, but is still good enough for nearly all practical purposes.
Stephan
if the world is ending, we might as well enjoy ourselves... If it ISN'T ending, then perhaps we shouldn't derail our economy
Are those really the only two possibilities that occur to you?
No scientist claims the world is ending; that's a straw man from the denialist camp. What the scientists ARE telling us is that the coming climate changes (which can't now be prevented completely but CAN certainly be mitigated) will have significant costs - economic and humanitarian.
Even if you ignore the human costs (relocations, famine, refugees, conflict over dwindling local resources - mostly in poor countries), there's still the economic costs (increased storm damage, droughts, flooding, sea level rise) which been shown by numerous economic studies to far outweigh the costs of mitigation.
Yes, it will cost money to move our energy infrastructure away from fossil fuels. No, it won't derail the economy (the average estimate from the World Bank and many others is about 0.5-1% of GDP). But it will slow the onset of climate change, reduce the impact of changes in decades to come, and SAVE us hundreds of billions we'd otherwise need to spend adapting to the negative effects of dramatic climate change, not to mention other indirect benefits (like the surprisingly large health costs from fossil fuel pollution). Many studies show the investment in a clean, efficient energy infrastructure will actually save us money in its own right, independent of climate change effects.
Replacing lightbulbs is easy, low-hanging fruit, and there are numerous other efficiency gains we can make, but it's ultimately not enough. We don't have to cut our energy usage to the bone, we just have to invest in carbon-neutral energy generation - then we can easily support our lavish lifestyles with zero carbon cost, and save money in the process.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Nope, deniers aren't skeptical. A skeptic even wonders if THEY are right, and are willing to change their mind in the face of evidence, instead of hunting for some third-hand anecdotal report that might possibly indicate a vague problem or issue with the evidence for. Then assumes it's true and the evidence for AGW being real is faked.
That's not skepticism. That's denial.
So, let met get this straight. There are satellite measurements of the ice mass on antartica and they show the ice mass is melting.
And all you have to say is: there is enough ice. See those scientists are getting stuck in it. See? There you have it. Everything is fine!
What kind of leadership are people like you looking for? Someone that will give you a fresh diaper when you are shitting your pants because bad things are happening? Or someone who actually does something about it?
You're picking a fight before it's started!
Indeed he is. Fights over global warming and denialism have never happened before on the entire internet. I look forward to reading this new and refreshing thread.
The only thing worse than the climate change deniers are the people like you who are absolutely convinced that the doomsday is coming. At least the deniers are skeptical. Personally though, I hate both your attitudes because your emotions and politics get in the way of rational, logical evolution of the science behind the issue.
For some reason that whole paragraph makes you sound like a denialist. I don't know if you are but you sure sound like one. For example jumping to the instant assumption that the author is prophesying the end of the world is a classic denialist trick to distract from actual discussion, and to discredit the science by trying to discredit an unrelated argument.
You then go and tout your "logical rationality", even though you jumped to wild conclusions about what the author read. For some reason the people least likely to use logic and rationality also shout most loudly about it.
So TL;DR, I've no idea if you're a denialist, but you sure read like one even without actually denying anything.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Whatever we do there are risks, and start yeah, but start what? What if climate change is actually a fairly low risk in the grand scheme of things and meanwhile lack of cheap (coal fired) electricity is holding back Africa, and the underdevelopment of infrastructure, is making one of those global epidemics more likely? Something which could decimate humanity in a few years? Why is climate change touted as THE MOST IMPORTANT issue? When that's just a wild speculation about risk?
Which do you start?
We might, say, start by collecting an international body of experts and ask them to look into the issue. Maybe they could periodically write reports, maybe on the physical science side of the issue, but also on the impacts of the physical changes. Just a weird idea, of course, but if we had started early enough, we might have had a first overview by 1990! And if we don't quite trust those experts, we could e.g. ask some national science academies to evaluate the issue.If they all violently agree, we might start to consider actions.
As for Africa: Sure, Africa has done so well in the age of "burn it like there is no tomorrow", so continuing in the same direction is obviously the right thing to do. Or maybe this is the most cynical propaganda meme I've yet encountered.
Stephan
When the deniers ignore their own study (Berkeley Earth Report) because it doesn't confirm their original biases then they can no longer call themselves skeptics.
There's a volcano under West Antarctica that might have something to do with it.
You do know that Anthony Watts is paid to lie and spew half truths on that site, right?
We are 12,000 years removed from the last Ice Age. Melting glaciers is normal. It's all a big hullabaloo raised by people who want your money.
The only risk greater than man made global warming is the risk that man will try to stop global warming. Sure we are influencing the climate and we should try to reduce that influence. On the other hand, I don't see any good from experimenting with intentional manipulation of the climate OR from crippling the poor's access to energy and standard of living in order to reduce that influence outweighing the possible negatives of a warmer climate.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
It is a fallacy that addressing AGW means limiting the poor's access to energy. There will be change no matter what, and change begets winners and losers, and the losers are the current crop of plutocrats who run the GOP rage machine, and this nonsense about addressing climate change making us collectively poorer is just one of many pratts.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
sorry, I got angry and forgot my point...
You'd be better getting less angry and doing more research.
No scientist is saying the world is ending TOMORROW.
Unless you consider being 'past the point of no return' being roughly the same, in which case scientists have said that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
No, the land is pretty much permanently covered by ice, and since the land area is fixed, any changes in ice area must be from the sea ice only.
Also note that your graph is called "ant-sea-ice_fig.JPG", and that it appears on this page http://www.worldclimatereport.... titled "Another IPCC Error: Antarctic Sea Ice Increase Underestimated by 50%" So, clearly they're talking about the sea ice changes.
The ice loss that this article is talking about is a reduced thickness of the land ice. That's not something you can see on a 2D picture from a satellite.
It's not as if the rising temperatures are something just recently discovered or somehow recalculated into the past. It's something that has been observed by several generation of scientists now.
Yes, sea ice extent has been mentioned several times. That's the stuff that freezes on the sea surface every winter, and melts every summer. It's not very important, and it's not what this article is about.
This article is about total ice volume, and how it's declining year over year.
Look at tetraethyl lead, the lead industry, and the scientists who discovered in the 1940s the horrible things TEL does to children, then read on why it wasn't banned until 1973.
Look at smoking, the scientists who started figuring out all the awful shit it does to the body, and the tobacco industry that spent 25 years fighting a systematic FUD campaign (and personal character attacks against them).
Now scientists have spent decades fleshing out the basic idea that Arrhenius articulated about 120 years ago and it's becoming increasingly a sign of lunacy to claim he wasn't right...
What was Arrhenius' estimated value for transient climate sensitivity to CO2 again?
There are many informed skeptics who understand the science, but don't believe we have enough information yet for drastic measures.
Yet just as smoking-causes-cancer denialism was the unbelievably stupid meme that Just Wouldn't Fucking Die because the tobacco industry kept funding it, and the leaded-gasoline-is-harmless denialism that was funded directly by the lead industry before that, now certain interests that want to burn and/or strip mine the word in the name of the Holy Lord's Next Quarterly Profit Report are funding a massive, systematic attack against any coherent action on climate change. And you people are falling for it. AGAIN.
What "coherent action on climate change" do you recommend, exactly? Not a single suggested mitigation will make a significant difference in the estimated (guesstimated) temperature by 2100. The one thing that would make a significant difference, if in fact there's a problem worth the effort, is a mass transition from coal to nuclear power worldwide (ESPECIALLY in China and India). However, apparently nuclear is anathema to the vast majority of climate alarmists and environmentalists, despite it being the safest power generation method in use by far.
Are we seriously expected to believe that 97% of the world's scientists are involved in some sort of massive scheme to... uh... steal grant money?
I think the majority of scientists involved are honest, if not doing a great job with the science. You should read Judith Curry's site for some rational discussion of the issue from a highly qualified climate scientist. As far as the way the science is being used to advocate social change, remember that the most effective lies contain a grain of truth...
Or that maybe damn near everyone who looks into what's going on realizes we really gotta do something about this crap?
Actually, that's not obvious at all. It is clear that more research is needed before taking drastic measures that will harm the poor around the world more than any other group. In the meantime, we should embark on win/win efforts such as a mass conversion from coal to nuclear energy. Coal power is bad from many perspectives, such as killing tens of thousands of people every year, increasing ocean acidification, and providing a rich source of organic mercury. Solar and wind are fine as long as they're cost-effective, but they aren't a good fit for base load power.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
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