The Arctic Sets Yet Another Record Low Maximum Extent (nsidc.org)

Layzej writes: Arctic sea ice was at a record low maximum extent for the second straight year, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and NASA. This year's maximum extent is 1.12 million square kilometers below the 1981 to 2010 average of 15.64 million square kilometers. Ice extent increases through autumn and winter, and the maximum typically occurs in mid-March. Sea ice then retreats through spring and summer and shrinks to its smallest or minimum extent typically by mid-September. Ice melt in the region is reducing the transport of warm southern waters brought north by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). "Some studies suggest that decreased heat flux of warm Atlantic waters could lead to a recovery of all Arctic sea ice in the near future," said NSIDC senior research scientist Julienne Stroeve. "I think it will have more of a winter impact and could lead to a temporary recovery of winter ice extent in the Barents and Kara seas."

Comments

National Snow and Ice Data Center

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this a data center with tons of blade servers that creates virtual ice and snow?

Re:National Snow and Ice Data Center

[Anonymous Coward]

Hurrrrrrrrrr.

Learn to parse English, tard. If it makes you feel better, and less retarded, read it as "National Center for Snow and Ice Data."

With an understanding of English like yours, I predict you will have a long and storied career as a Slashdot editor.

Re:National Snow and Ice Data Center

[Anonymous Coward]

Hurrrrrrrrrr.

Not so bright yourself, I'm afraid. Didn't take your Autism meds this morning?

No amount of evidence is enough

[PvtVoid]

It really doesn't matter how much compelling evidence continues to pile up that global warming is an imminent threat, deniers will continue to deny. If I believed in an afterlife, I would sincerely hope that those choosing inaction would spend eternity hearing the cries of the billions who will suffer as a consequence. But there will be no such luck.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Brett Buck]

"Billions who will suffer"? This sort of histrionic exaggeration is why no one takes you seriously.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The entirety of human civilization is based on the principle of "Somebody Else's Problem".

That's why you diseased creatures will be extinct inside of 500 years.

And good riddance.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Notorious G]

It really doesn't matter how much compelling evidence continues to pile up that global warming is an imminent threat, deniers will continue to deny. If I believed in an afterlife, I would sincerely hope that those choosing inaction would spend eternity hearing the cries of the billions who will suffer as a consequence. But there will be no such luck.

"Some studies suggest that decreased heat flux of warm Atlantic waters could lead to a recovery of all Arctic sea ice in the near future," said NSIDC senior research scientist Julienne Stroeve.

Ice very well may come back, and soon. Spare us the hysterics.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[avandesande]

The problem isn't the science behind warming it's the ridiculous solutions that are being proposed.

Kill the ban on breeder reactors in the United States and license French reactor designs. Could be done in 10-15 years and cut our carbon output 50%. Unfortunately there is no political will to do what needs to be done.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[PopeRatzo]

Ice very well may come back, and soon. Spare us the hysterics.

Sure and Jesus very well may come back, and soon. But that's not exactly a strategy, is it?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[religionofpeas]

The problem isn't the science behind warming it's the ridiculous solutions that are being proposed.

The problem is that half the people are denying the science, so we can't even start a proper discussion about any proposal.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Lmao at "billions who will suffer." HAHAHAHA. We're talking about 2 degrees warmer over 100 years; not global thermonuclear war son.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

And stop subsidizing individual cars and invest in public transit.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Layzej]

If winter sea ice does recover due to a slowdown in the AMOC that may not be such a good thing. "This “overturning circulation” (AMOC) plays a major role in the climate because it brings warm water northward, thereby helping to warm Europe’s climate, and also sends cold water back towards the tropics"

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it is. Jesus caused this mess called existence... he can mop it up.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Layzej]

Kill the ban on breeder reactors in the United States and license French reactor designs. Could be done in 10-15 years and cut our carbon output 50%. Unfortunately there is no political will to do what needs to be done.

Agreed. This is the discussion we should be having. We need the republicans to come to the table to bring some balance to the conversation.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[religionofpeas]

We're talking about 2 degrees warmer over 100 years; not global thermonuclear war son.

https://xkcd.com/1379/

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[ledow]

Let's assume, for whatever purpose, that I believe you.

What, precisely, would you like to do about that?
What's the impact of your suggested actions?
Are they more or less dire than the proposed scenario if we a) do nothing at all, b) just don't give a shit and do more of what we're doing?

Because NOBODY, really NOBODY, actually has a solution.

You're right. Okay? Let's accept that. Now what?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[radarskiy]

The arctic has a well-known liberal bias.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[PvtVoid]

Kill the ban on breeder reactors in the United States and license French reactor designs. Could be done in 10-15 years and cut our carbon output 50%. Unfortunately there is no political will to do what needs to be done.

Agree completely.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[aron1231]

That's actually a complete lie. Do some research on how Humanity was pulled out of the Dark Ages - the answer might surprise you.

Nonetheless, many people on this planet miss those dreadful times.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

But the UN estimated in 2000 that by 2100 nearly a billion people will have died from global warming. It is not an exaggeration.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[aron1231]

Since when is this not EXACTLY how the scientific process should work?

I'll verify a hundred times before blind acceptance any day.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

But the UN estimated in 2000 that by 2100 nearly a billion people will have died from global warming. It is not an exaggeration.

Exactly. That is why deniers like Brett Buck are so dangerous. They are literally worse than Hitler. Global warming has already made Hitler look like the Easter Bunnie. People are dying by the millions every year.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

In the course of 100 years, nearly 1 billion people die of something? Gee, if only that many people die, it's going to be get pretty crowded. Why those people will die is mere conjecture, i.e., flame bait. That's why it isn't believable.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

And many are drowning like in NEw York City with the rising tides.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[aron1231]

^ Yes, these idiotic suggestions. We need real solutions that work for the US, not solutions that work for Europe (MUCH different geography, composition, etc.).

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

How do we know that hasn't happened already?

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Or are homeless on the east coast because the waters just won't stop. Just won't stop.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

stupid has won. there's no arguing with it. only thing left to do is enjoy some popcorn while the world burns.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Only polar bears care about the actual ice, for rest of us its an indicator. Ice returning because the bloody Gulf Stream stopped is in no way a good news, its sort of like celebrating that mountain cottage is no longer on fire because an avalanche wiped it away

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The actual number of deaths will probably reach out not the billions.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Those Republicans want us all to die.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Tired of hearing about climate change/warming what ever, I accept we have screwed the pooch.

I bought a house 400ft above sea level in a location that rarely gets storms or temperature extremes .
I avoid carbon emitting activities where its practical to do so - I leave the car at home and ride the bus and train to work, have made effort to get my house energy efficient with a heatpump waterheater, and a heatpump for heating the house, next I'm replacing windows, at that point I've done as much as I can with out getting all greenpeace about it.

What I cant control are disruptions to the food supply, electricity generation or a steady income. Hopefully we'll make it the next 30 to 40 years with out any drama, by then I'll be old and wont care. However I do wonder what a mess of a planet my kids are going to inherit, and the kids of the morons that run the evil carbon spewing activities, do these guys not worry about that?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Pinkoir]

Also known to be bearish on surface ice.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[PvtVoid]

Since when is this not EXACTLY how the scientific process should work?

No, it's now how science should work. Science allows you to actually reach actionable conclusions about the world. That's the point.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[avandesande]

With an intelligent switch to nuclear we would see enough benefits that the global warming controversy would be moot. No more mercury emissions, strip mining, decommission the old nuclear plants and reprocess the spent fuel rods (solving a host of waste issues). If you propose a palatable solution than you will bring more people to the table.

Taxing rich nations for the carbon emissions with no restraint on the 3rd world is ridiculous and nowhere near a solution! If this is the solution than the science is rejected outright. TPTB lie through one side of their mouth 'this is the solution' and through the other say 'believe the science'.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

How is global warming an imminent threat? It is the best thing that could happen to humans. Humans are not naturally evolved to live in cold weather. Warm weather year round means less clothing to buy and store. More land can be opened up for food growth. Less oil will be needed to produce heating. Any alien craft frozen in a thousands of feet of ice will be uncovered. Instead of worry about it we should be thinking about how we will be living on a warmer planet.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[jfbilodeau]

Verify as much as you want. That's called science. But when the evidence points in a clear direction and your refuse the conclusion, that's called denial.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Smidge204]

Well, there are roughly 7 billion people on the planet, and even if only a relatively small proportion of them are screwed (realistically, MOST people will be screwed...) it's a safe bet that problems will persist for *many* generations.

Sea level rise alone stands to displace over a billion people, and that doesn't account for all of the other problems like violent weather and impacts to food and fresh water supplies.

I don't think "billions" is at all histrionic, or even much of an exaggeration.
=Smidge=

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[avandesande]

The low hanging fruit in this case is grid power. Also a strong nuclear grid will facilitate electric car adoption.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Applehu Akbar]

"The problem is that half the people are denying the science, so we can't even start a proper discussion about any proposal"

That other half of the 'deniers' are the ones who won't let us implement any low-carbon solution, even going so far as "Ivanpah kills birds!" No, Ivanpah is making bird species more intelligent by selecting out the individuals who blunder around in foodless desert wasteland.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[jfbilodeau]

Denial or ignoring the problem is _not_ a solution.

Neither is sitting on our ass and hoping for the best.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[alvinrod]

Then don't talk about it as a mater of global warming. Say that you're doing it to reduce pollution. Is there anyone against reducing pollution? Sell it as reducing pollution, improving efficiency, eliminating our dependence on foreign energy.

The obtuse fools who keep banging their heads against the wall in this way are just as idiotic as the people burying their heads in the sand and ignoring that there's any kind of problem at all.

It doesn't matter if you have people who normally accept science. Odds are there's one or more things that they'll argue against for exactly the same reason. Ask people about GMO food safety, homosexuality and gender identity, vaccines and autism, sex-based intelligence factors, or any number of other topics and you'll likely find at least one instance where a person disagrees with the current scientific consensus and they'll invariably start using the same kinds of excuses you see with people denying climate change and you probably won't get them to budge much either, even though they agree with all of this other science in various other matters. Even really smart people are capable of being pig-headed idiots and trying to pound the table isn't an effective way of changing their minds or getting them to go along with you.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[religionofpeas]

What, precisely, would you like to do about that?

I suggest that 30 years ago we accelerated the building of nuclear power plants and expand the grid.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[RevDisk]

Most sane people agree that climate change is a thing. I certainly do. Ice core samples show it rather convincingly. I'm also mostly fine with our recent sample collection though I think the datasets aren't as good as some people believe. They rarely are for large scale projects, but still there's a natural bias towards thinking your collection methods are always better than they really are. Third party auditing to try to correct bias gets expensive and politics get involved as well.

On the other hand, there's legitimate issues. There's a very vocal component of climate change that are constant Apocalypse callers. You would be a good example. "Cries of the billions who will suffer." Folks have a hard time taking serious action based on this especially when we've been hearing "end of humanity within five years" for over a decade.

The other hand is that there's no good supplied solutions. I mean, concrete realistic options that have a full roadmap, reasonably accurate cost projections and acceptably accurate levels of risk and mitigation. If it costs $10B to fix 80% of the problem, but $10T to fix 99.99% of the problem, well... Maybe we should explore that 80% solution, as it's much more realistic to implement. Any solution that is too expensive or too restrictive simply won't be implemented, because human nature and common sense. Humans will simply not voluntarily remove 90% of earth's population or go back to living in yurts. I place myself in that bracket. I think it's an issue that is meaningful, if not overstated by some, that I'd be willing to pay if it could be mitigated in a meaningful but not ruinous process.

Think the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) ban. We paid an economic price for less efficient or more expensive alternatives, but it did the job well enough. That's not strictly a climate change thing. I've seen plenty of projects were people were shocked that a business or government unit didn't want to spend tens of millions of dollars for vague promises with absolutely no numbers backing them up.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[religionofpeas]

Also known to be bearish on surface ice.

Polar bearish ?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[msauve]

" it's now how science should work. Science allows you to actually reach actionable conclusions about the world. "

Sure, by following the scientific method. You know, that thing with testable and falsifiable hypotheses, which climate "science" doesn't bother with?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[AthanasiusKircher]

Since when is this not EXACTLY how the scientific process should work?

Well, as the evidence piles up, it becomes more and more difficult to rationally accept opposing views. Yes, the exact models and magnitude of various changes are still under discussion, but denying climate change entirely is pretty hard to maintain given the evidence.

I'll verify a hundred times before blind acceptance any day.

Indeed. It takes me a long time to get going every morning. Since I don't believe in settled science, I don't trust mirrors. That whole "law of reflection" thing could turn out to be bogus. So I spend an hour calibrating the mirror in my bathroom to shave and then testing the mirrors on my car before driving.

I also don't buy this "gravity" thing. It's just a theory. So I'm a little afraid to flush the toilet after using it, since stuff could come flying upward instead of moving downward into the drain. So, I run a bunch of experiments on the water in my house to verify gravity still seems to be working before I flush.

Also, I calibrate my stove and verify that it will actually heat my breakfast. Those "laws of thermodynamics" are science, but they of course aren't "settled." That's not how science works, after all. There's no reason heat couldn't start flowing backward and freeze my whole kitchen when I turn on the stove.

Just to avoid problems, I run my scientific experiments every day to "verify" that these "laws" still seem to work. I know it's a hard life, and I have to get up at 2am just to get to work on time. But, I'll verify a hundred times before blind acceptance any day!!

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[religionofpeas]

Folks have a hard time taking serious action based on this especially when we've been hearing "end of humanity within five years" for over a decade.

You accuse people of hyperbole, and yet you give the worst demonstration I've heard in a million years.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

>And stop subsidizing individual cars and invest in public transit.

Why? What does this have to do with global warming?

Oh, you believe we won't have electric cars. LOL!

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[hey!]

"Billions who will suffer"? This sort of histrionic exaggeration is why no one takes you seriously.

It seems odd to me that anyone could believe that nobody would suffer if climate changes.

You can argue that climate isn't changing, although you'd be holding the short end of the evidence stick in that one. You could argue that some people will also benefit from climate change, and that'd even be unquestionably true. But you can't argue that rainfall can shift as much as climate models are predicting without billions of people suffering, both directly from bad harvests and indirectly from the destabilization of the countries they live in.

If you want to see what that hypothetical situation would look like, look at Syria. The Assads have been ruthlessly but effectively putting down Islamist uprisings for decades, so what was different in 2011 that allowed Al Qaeda in Iraq to metastasize into ISIL? An internal climate refugee crisis touched off by four years of drought-ravaged harvests and a spike in international commodity prices. Across Syria 160 agricultural villages were depopulated, and in some provinces 85% of the livestock perished. This provided ISIL with an army of angry, hungry, unemployed young men ripe for radicalization.

So really your strongest argument here would be that climate is not changing at all -- that the Syrian was an anomalous weather event and that there won't be more of them in the future (as the models are predicting).

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

So worse than Hitler but less that Mao or Stalin?

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

But the UN estimated in 2000 that by 2100 nearly a billion people will have died from global warming. It is not an exaggeration.

Dude, watch WaterWorld, problem solved.

My statement makes as much sense as the pablum your statement makes. Actually mine makes more sense. Stuff can be raised and oh-ma-gawd! Stuff floats. Ancient villages and towns have existed on stilts, Lookup the Aztec city Tenochtitlan, etcetera. Huh.

See Raising of Chicago. Hysterical crisis averted given the time to avert it. But since I've not met a liberal yet who does not, in fact, loathe the poor (see Apples attitude about poor people), they believe no one but them (liberals) can figure this stuff out unless "helped" by them. They really just have a God Complex where everyone, but them, have to ride their trains and live the way they want.

But because, in reality, they are lazy, clueless and without imagination, they just can't believe we are not all doomed.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Type44Q]

No, Ivanpah is making bird species more intelligent by selecting out the individuals who blunder around in foodless desert wasteland.

By that logic, we'd best watch out for the squirrels; we've killed off so many of the "dumb" ones that the survivors'll be intelligent enough to develop cesium weaponry and take us out... any day now.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[religionofpeas]

You know, that thing with testable and falsifiable hypotheses, which climate "science" doesn't bother with?

Nonsense. The warming over the last 40 years gives us enough data to test and falsify the hypothesis that CO2 is responsible. How much longer do you propose we wait before we draw any conclusions ? Feel free to add your calculations.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

And the fact that batteries now SUCK.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-06/tesla-s-new-battery-doesn-t-work-that-well-with-solar

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[ledow]

Agreed. So your suggestion is....?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[The Grim Reefer]

What, precisely, would you like to do about that?

I suggest that 30 years ago we accelerated the building of nuclear power plants and expand the grid.

So the first step is to start working on time travel?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[msauve]

Correlation is not causation. If it were, then since the rise in the number of climate "scientists" over the past 40 years correlates with increased climate change, we could simply eliminate climatologists to solve the issue.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

So now the deniers who didn't want to do anything because it costs too much, now want to 'just' raise everything? Or just assume that infrastructure floats?

Shut the fuck up. We're all dumber for having read your comment.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[religionofpeas]

Correlation is not causation.

Agreed, but that's a pointless remark, since the mechanism behind CO2 induced warming is well understood on a physical basis. It was already understood more than a century ago, and the global warming effect was already predicted then.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you believe most electric cars don't get their power from dirty sources? LOL!

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[religionofpeas]

So the first step is to start working on time travel?

The point is that this isn't new information. We've been knowing for a long time that this was going to happen. First denying it for decades, and then saying it's too late to act isn't really an inspiring strategy.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[avandesande]

"You accuse people of hyperbole, and yet you give the worst demonstration I've heard in a million years."

And your hyperbole is the worst I have heard in a billion years!

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

So now the deniers who didn't want to do anything because it costs too much, now want to 'just' raise everything? Or just assume that infrastructure floats?

Shut the fuck up. We're all dumber for having read your comment.

Hey, he just entertained the bullshit notion of Eco-Alarmist's screaming "We're All Gonna Die!" But being a liberal you bought a Prius and moved to San Francisco right. Yeah, that helped everyone. Ow wait, that only helped you.

I guess when you are standing in an inch of water and screaming "OW LORDY HELP ME!" maybe it won't seem so far fetched to your myopic "mind."

PS: Look into a city called Venice (the one in Italy). Yeah, that's some real science-fiction right there. Also, see how it was Eco-Alarmist's who in fact caused the plight of Venice today. Deniers Indeed.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth would you license French reactor designs? There's nothing special about the designs, the French lesson is to pick one "good enough" design and sick to it, no messing with site specific mods.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

you believers are like the crazy people on the NYC streets who are warning of the apocalypse based on the book of revelations. or the crazy preppers. or any of the other crazies out there who are always thinking the world is ending next month or next year

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[jfbilodeau]

How about we listen to those who have studied the problems and have solutions to offer instead of sticking our head up our collective asses. I'm sure there's plenty you can do at your end.

We know that buying gas-guzzling SUV is bad for the environment. Before you start blaming the government for imposing legislations, please consider that the problem has been known for a while, but people feel that a status symbol is more important that the sustainability of our planet. We only have ourselves to blame.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[PvtVoid]

PS: Look into a city called Venice (the one in Italy).

You couldn't have picked ironically appropriate example.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[pr0fessor]

Am I the only person who was taught in school that the earth has had multiple ice ages and that regardless iced capped poles isn't the normal state of the planet. Stopping man made global warming isn't going to stop the earth from doing it's thing the only way we are going to stop climate change is by learning to completely control the climate.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[msauve]

That is also pointless. We also know that over the extended record, CO2 follows temperature, and that temperature variability is such that a 40 year term is completely insufficient to draw any sort of conclusion.

I'm done, you obviously don't have anything scientific to add.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

He sucks the corporate dick. Anyone that doesn't think the biggest problem we face is AGW does.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Now just imagine all the troubles Venice has had (they had to install flood gates citywide at a cost of $6Billion) and multiply it by the 5 billion people living within a few miles of the ocean.

Of all the cities you could have picked, Venice is about as stupid as they come.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[ledow]

And quite what are those people saying, for instance? Because there's shockingly little air-time ever given to that.

Let's say we tax all cars over a certain engine size, applicable to the US. Will that reduce emissions by any noticeable amount? Will that amount recede the ice-caps by anything significantly measurable? Because, pretty much, as far as I can tell the answer is no.

I'm playing devil's advocate here, but I'm also quite serious. As someone of scientific mind, "What's happening?" is a good question, but not one millionth as interesting as "What does that mean?" and "What are the alternatives?"

What, precisely, are the listed actions that - if we impose them immediately, world-wide, without anyone trying to find a way around them, would reduce the danger and NOT introduce more problems (e.g. if we taxed ALL cars, would that push people into poverty and/or would it mean that people instead started overcrowding the train systems?). And how feasible is that of ever happening?

Stop using oil?
Start taxing it heavily?
Start rolling, scheduled power-cuts to reduce usage (like the UK did in the 1970's?)?
Stop the sale of cars, appliances, etc. that are less than super-efficient?

And how long, if we do all that, do we have to do it for? Centuries? Permanently? Until we spot a difference?

And, playing absolute devil's advocate, what if we notice NO difference? What if we ban oil-use and nothing changes and we continue to flood the world? What did we gain by doing so? Could we have predicted that? What other mechanisms could be responsible.

Sorry, but it's really not as simple as "stop buying SUV's". The engine sizes in Europe are tiny compared to the US, so we're already effectively doing what a ban on SUV's in America would do. And it's always been that way. So do we spot differences in emissions? Not really, our scientists are still saying the same as the US scientists. And while China is just burning coal like there's no tomorrow, would/could anything we do actually make a difference if they don't also co-operate?

I'm being serious here, and have had this conversation many dozens of times online.

I believe you. NOW WHAT?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical alarmist death worshiper.

Say "hi" to your Lord and Master, Moloch for me when you enter the gates of his fiery domain.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need a global warming argument to justify the installation of more and better power sources.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Now just imagine all the troubles Venice has had (they had to install flood gates citywide at a cost of $6Billion) and multiply it by the 5 billion people living within a few miles of the ocean.

Of all the cities you could have picked, Venice is about as stupid as they come.

While DENYING by omission who and what caused it. Read some more, and you may come across the answer. If you really care so much.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[lucm]

"Billions who will suffer"? This sort of histrionic exaggeration is why no one takes you seriously.

It seems odd to me that anyone could believe that nobody would suffer if climate changes.

The fact that you jump from "billions" to "nobody" is, essentially, what "histrionic exaggeration" means. There's a huge fucking amount of numbers between 0 and >2,000,000,000.

Just pull out your calculator, for god's sake. There are 7 billions people on the planet at the moment. The odds that at least 25% of them will die (i.e. "billions") because of a projected global increase of 4 Celsius in temperature over a century would require a lot more explanation and hard data than what has been provided so far to be considered anything than ludicrous. Just look at a fucking map and see where the bulk of those 7 billions people live, how the fuck is such a slow change supposed to kill them all?

This is the kind of bullshit number that people make up as a scare tactic, like"1/3 of women will be raped in their lifetime". It doesn't help take the climate change proponents seriously, it actually make them look like liars to those who are not convinced that there's a problem.

This kind of tactic is harmful to the cause. The more you try to scare people with end of the world scenarios, the less they listen because this has been tried many times before (acid rains, ozone layer, GMO, etc.) and the world did not end. Only people who respond well to that FUD approach is people who are already convinced, which means it's totally useless.

Here's the solution:
1) rebuild the credibility of climate scientists by providing clear, simple data that isn't presented in an alarmist way
2) stop saying "ample evidence" or "the science is there" or other generic label that may look like you don't know the fuck what the numbers are, otherwise the other side uses the same and nobody knows what the fuck is going on
3) crunch numbers to show the economical impact of climate change, not just the "billions of death and mayhem and suffering and crying babies" to make the dialogue more inclusive
4) vote for people who have a balanced, pro-environment agenda, as opposed to shallow rockstars, right/left extremists or obvious frauds
5) vote with your dollars when it comes to heavy polluters (computers, cars, etc)

It's not sexy, not cool, not spectacular, it's just fucking common sense, and that's probably why it's not happening. People want drama, so that's what you get.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[GameboyRMH]

That is also pointless. We also know that over the extended record, CO2 follows temperature

Wrong:

https://www.skepticalscience.c...

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[GameboyRMH]

Stupid hasn't won yet. In fact, after COP21, I'd say stupid is starting to lose.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[lucm]

+1. It doesn't take long to get beyond the shallow "science is right" arguments when you start digging. On either side of this argument.

If one was to draw a bell curve with one side being deniers and the other side non-deniers, you could bet that the bulk of that big bell would be made of faithful people who don't argue or think further about why they're on one side or the other, they just follow a dogma and consider the other side to be idiots.

Typically a Netflix documentary with charismatic interviewees will be enough to win them over.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[LynnwoodRooster]

Yep, half the people simply deny the science of breeder reactors. If we could get them on board, the rest of the discussions would be irrelevant.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[GameboyRMH]

Change coal to nuclear and renewable (China's on it already), switch ICE cars to EVs. Those two will help immensely. Taxing oil heavily may be helpful at some point in that transition. We've already stopped the sale of appliances that aren't super-efficient, and switching to EVs will do the same to cars, since EVs are 95%+ efficient and ICE cars are around 30%. Further in the future, carbon sequestration will be necessary.

If nothing changes then some new phenomena must've taken effect, because we knew well enough what's causing the warming right now that there isn't room for such an oversight to exist.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

well, the explanation here is obvious in the alternate reality that dipshits refer to as "the real world." i'm guessing the word real does not mean the same thing to them that it does to us. obviously...

Across Syria 160 agricultural villages were depopulated, and in some provinces 85% of the livestock perished.

because they're lazy mooslims who are coming to europe for a handout because they're too lazy and stupid to work for a living. it's all part of the gay agenda to boot!

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[lucm]

Verify as much as you want. That's called science. But when the evidence points in a clear direction and your refuse the conclusion, that's called denial.

This is an empty statement, and that's the core of the problem. It's not enough to say "evidence points in a clear direction" because that's what BOTH sides are saying. Explain the data clearly instead of saying that data is on your side, or you're just more noise with zero signal.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[LynnwoodRooster]

We know that buying gas-guzzling SUV is bad for the environment. Before you start blaming the government for imposing legislations, please consider that the problem has been known for a while, but people feel that a status symbol is more important that the sustainability of our planet. We only have ourselves to blame.

No, we don't know that. In some uses it may be bad for the environment; when it's used to haul food, deliver medicine, or provide goods and services to many people that cuts down their net effect on the environment, it's a good thing. Blanket statements are why there is a debate in the first place.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[GameboyRMH]

However I do wonder what a mess of a planet my kids are going to inherit, and the kids of the morons that run the evil carbon spewing activities, do these guys not worry about that?

No they don't worry about it, their kids can afford to move to wherever is safe and has a nice climate, even if it's some luxury arcology on the ocean or in space.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[GameboyRMH]

Our civilization is already set up for pre-industrial temperatures (our closets & coat racks are just a tiny fragment of this infrastructure), and the ideal temperature for economic productivity is 13C.

Also most places, even if considered in isolation, will not be positively effected by global warming in terms of crop yield.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[lucm]

True that.

Another example is people complaining about urban sprawling. What about a place like Arizona or Nevada where temperature stays in the oven spectrum half or more of the year? It gets exponentially more expensive (and resource-consuming) to cool down upper floors when you stack people on top of each other, that's why if you drive around Phoenix or even Las Vegas you won't see a lot of duplex or affordable condo towers.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[GameboyRMH]

s/effected/affected/g

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[lucm]

We know that buying gas-guzzling SUV is bad for the environment. Before you start blaming the government for imposing legislations, please consider that the problem has been known for a while, but people feel that a status symbol is more important that the sustainability of our planet. We only have ourselves to blame.

Yeah, it's a known fact that diesel or electric car batteries are much better solutions and by no way a status symbol.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[GameboyRMH]

In the very long term we will indeed need to completely control the climate. Today we have to correct man-made climate change, at some point in the far future the earth will begin to enter an ice age and we'll have to prevent it. We may have to move as much power generation capacity from fusion to natural gas as possible. People will even debate bringing back filthy, filthy coal power.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[jfbilodeau]

Do you need an SUV to haul food, deliver medicine or provide goods and services or are there more efficient method?

Please enlighten me. Where is a SUV really better for the environment than say a minivan or small car? Even a cargo van for large haul?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft. Go jump off a cliff, PvtVoid. Spare the world from your ravings.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Hylandr]

* Citations Required.

With as much hyperbole as the media and politics has been pumping out something like this would be pasted on every headline, every day.

It's a *sad* state of affairs when you get all your education from the entertainment industry.

Looks like Chicken little season is ramping up for the summer again.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Sea level rise alone will displace 1 billion people??? Please, please provide a cite for this wild claim.

Also, you forgot to factor increased meteor strikes.

Quick! Your sky is falling...

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Just FYI:
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses
How come ice advances on the South Pole don't get covered in the media?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't the science behind warming it's the ridiculous solutions that are being proposed.

The problem is that half the people are denying the science, so we can't even start a proper discussion about any proposal.

The real problem is people like you laying the blame on people who disagree with you. Get off your ass and start making a change. Well, in reality you do not live significantly cleaner than so-called deniers.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft. Go jump off a cliff, PvtVoid. Spare the world from your ravings.

Yes, because anyone who doesn't think exactly like you should be killed or jump off a cliff. How very liberal of you.

I had a boss just like that. He cared soooo much about The Children and Rainbow Colored Unicorns while attending cocktail parties. But if you disagreed with him; you, your family, your dog and his fleas, and any pictures or memories of things related to the above needed to be hunted down and killed. He made quite the Cocktail Liberal, but actually channeled Stalin to a high degree. Steve Jobs was his Idol. Imagine that.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[NetNed]

Yes! Banish the heretic deniers with a red "D" on their lapels so that all can see that they will not accept the relig...... I mean science that is climate change! Now lets pra....... I mean discuss they problem!

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[msauve]

LOL. Your own source shows that CO2 follows temperature rise. They then go on to rationalize that the CO2 rise causes further temperature rise, which isn't any different than claiming that since you came after Jack the Ripper, you're here because of him.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, great, now how do we do that? Like seriously do it. Not just say this is what needs to be done, but an actual plan to make it happen.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Maxo-Texas]

It's not histronic at all. It's simple math.

Each extra extreme weather event affects tens of millions of people to over a hundred million people. That adds up to a billion very fast. Now cast it over 20 years and you've got billions.

Property destruction, death, loss of infrastructure that leads to plagues of cholera and other serious disease, And for many in 50 years, complete loss of a place to live and being turned into impoverished refugees (which has never ended well).

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[ledow]

It's going to take decades, even in China:

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

And the numbers aren't anywhere near as good as you might think:

https://gailtheactuary.files.w...

Electric cars are a harder sell:

http://www.bls.gov/green/elect...

And are contributing to much higher peak energy usage (some rapid chargers are 45KW or more).

However, their impact is limited. To get people to ditch ICE and go all EV, what would that take? We're talking replacing 75 million annual car sales into EV that are currently selling in the hundreds of thousands at best.

Even at TEN TIMES that rate, it will be decades before it makes a dent in total car ownership.

And total greenhouse gas emission of them isn't as large as you might think:

https://www3.epa.gov/climatech...

(Don't forget that "transportation" at 1/4 of total emissions includes support for industry which makes up another 1/4.) Assuming you cut car emissions and electricity emissions BY HALF over the next, what, century? That's only 25% of current emissions. Which takes us back to 1991 levels of emissions, roughly.

So by two major, radical changes in policy (energy production and transport), with millions of knock-on effects (how do you convince people to buy new EV cars?), and assuming quite good ratios of conversion, efficiency, discounting "cost", and investing decades of work, we might get back to where we were... two decades ago.

I'm literally googling this as I go, I'm not claiming it as gospel. But even TRYING to follow that path, I can't see the way out that would make any significant difference. Certainly not compared to, say, doubling the price of electricity or fuel by taxation, for instance.

Which is a paperwork exercise that can be reverted in a day.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

It is quite possible for us to adapt as a species global warming is no threat to our existence. However if you're in Louisiana or any number of other low lying states you'll find your property going away much like several tropical islands have experienced over the last few years. While raising a city is quite possible you would have to do it before the water is at your doorstep, it would take quite a while to accomplish.

It doesn't help that you're not even allowed to measure the depth of the ocean in South Carolina so you can't make policy decisions to prevent erosion or protect the land you have. Private citizens are free to do what they do all over Hawaii and add sand bags to prevent erosion due to rising water.

Of course you have a town in Europe right now about to fall into the ocean due to erosion but no, the waters aren't rising, there is no cost currently for global warming despite all the costs. It easy to blame a storm causing a mud slide which leads to destabilizing a bluff. Of course the bluff only became unstable because of soil erosion due to higher tides caused by ice melting.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[hey!]

World bank projections in agricultural productivity in 2050 show reductions in productivity across the Middle East, Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, Australia and large swaths of North America. This takes into account longer growing seasons and places where rainfall increases. Russia, for example, does extremely well under the warming scenario with longer growing seasons and increased rainfall in currently arid areas.

The US and Australia being rich countries with relatively low birth rates will be able to import food from places like Russia. But Africa, which current sports a population of 1.1 billion, will have a population of two billion and less food production to feed them. Large areas of India are expected to receive much less rainfall and to be less productive. India currently has a population of 1.2 billion, expected to grow to 1.5 billion.

Now everyone in these places won't be suffering. India currently boasts a middle class larger than the US middle class. They'll continue to be able to buy food. But they have an enormous underclass who are already living in conditions that are very precarious.

This is not an alarmist picture. Simple math gets us to the 10^9 benchmark in South Asia alone. That's should be alarming. But it's not hopeless. Even if we can't reduce the rate of the climate change we expect to take place, there are other things we can do, like develop drought-resistant crops, better agricultural technology, etc. The "billions suffering" isn't much of a stretch provided we assume we do nothing to avoid that happening.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[LynnwoodRooster]

Me, personally? No. But I do have an uncle who is the local pharmacist/general store for a tiny town in Central Northern Washington and he uses his Suburban for weekly runs into town to buy many items in bulk at Costco/Sam's Club that he resells for the locals. So they don't have to do the 120 mile round trip, especially in the winter when the roads are pretty bad. So yes - it does happen. But that's OK, SUV=evil, I get it.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

If you believed in an afterlife, you would be just as stupid as the morons who believe carbon dioxide is capable of doing what you morons pretend it's doing.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[KeensMustard]

On the other hand, there's legitimate issues. There's a very vocal component of climate change that are constant Apocalypse callers. You would be a good example. "Cries of the billions who will suffer."

If the number of people who will suffer (or are suffering) is not in the billions, how many is it? How did you reach that conclusion - by studying the evidence, or just on a feeling?

Folks have a hard time taking serious action based on this especially when we've been hearing "end of humanity within five years" for over a decade.

I've never heard statements of that kind coming from the scientific community. Plenty coming from the other side though: like this: Humans will simply not voluntarily remove 90% of earth's population or go back to living in yurts.

The other hand is that there's no good supplied solutions. I mean, concrete realistic options that have a full roadmap, reasonably accurate cost projections and acceptably accurate levels of risk and mitigation.

Is there any particular reason why you aren't doing this yourself? Who were you expecting to do this one your behalf?

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, consider how millions have been affected by migration from Syria (a couple try of 20M) and then imagine if a lot of the M. E. became too hot to live in. Would those populations put years of conflict behind them while looking for a place to migrate to?

Consider the water sources for India and China. If those are threatened, do you have doubts that more than 1 000 000 000 people would suffer, either directly from drought or from armed conflict? It's really not that far fetched to count billions of "sufferers" when the shit hits the fan.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[pr0fessor]

I know it just bugs me that everyone is freakn' out on climate change when everything they want to change probably should be for much more immediate reasons. The earth is going to warm up and cool down with very little we can do about it and giant portions of what are populated areas now like Canada and the the entire Northern US and Midwest will probably be under a glaciers yet again multiple times before it's all over just not anytime soon compared to the life span of a single human.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

"Billions who will suffer"? This sort of histrionic exaggeration is why no one takes you seriously.

But you can't argue that rainfall can shift as much as climate models are predicting without billions of people suffering, both directly from bad harvests and indirectly from the destabilization of the countries they live in.

Maybe not, but I can certainly question whether or not the climate models accurately predict how much the rainfall will shift. Kind of like how the climate models predicted that the Earth would be several degrees warmer than it actually is by now.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't help that you're not even allowed to measure the depth of the ocean in South Carolina ...

Citation! I work IT for the state legislature, and I have never even heard of such a thing. I think you're full of crap.

Plus, I'm from an island off of the coast of SC, and my parents house is about ten feet farther from the ocean as compared to when I was in elementary school. Some buildings are a lot closer to the water now, but that's due to erosion.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[lorinc]

Humans will simply not voluntarily remove 90% of earth's population or go back to living in yurts.

You nailed it. Of course, we're not speaking of mass murder WWII style, and more in the sense of conservative birth policy. But that is not going to happen voluntarily, because nobody wants to stop multiplying. And we're not even talking about being less careless about energy consumption. It seems at a macroscopic level, our behavior is not very different to that of bugs.

One thing is pretty sure, though. The current earth ecological system is not able to sustain our growth both in number and in consumption. So it seems that a huge number of our fellows are going to die from misery or live in yurts anyway.

That being said, I wish all the joy to the little kids that are being born right now. They will probably live the living hell thanks to the infernal machine their great grand-parents launched and that their grand-parents and parents continued to feed.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

HOW DARE YOU! That is NOT what Global Warming is meant for. It is meant for Progressive Socialist global wealth redistribution and enrichment of the keepers of the religion. Any heretics to the state religion of Global Warming will be rooted out and shamed by the SJW brown shirts and be regulated out of existence. How DARE you question the state religion. The keepers of the religion and their "useful idiots" have declared everything settled. We just need to give billions of dollars to 3rd world war lords to fix the CO2 "problem". Just stop being privileged.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[angel'o'sphere]

If you are pro nuclear you should get your head out of your arse and read a bit about the topic.
There are plenty of reactor 'ideas' that are hundred times better than breeders.

Playing pro nuke and anti wind or anti solar and then coming up with breeder reactors as a 'solution' makes you look like a complete moron and an idiot.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[LynnwoodRooster]

You really know what makes people look like morons and idiots (vindictive ones at that)? Attacking people for things they never said nor wrote. Inventing things like anti-wind or anti-solar when it wasn't even mentioned or hinted at. But then - you probably already knew that, didn't you?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[angel'o'sphere]

If you don't change energy production, it does not matter how you control the population numbers.
Reduce the population to 10% by magic over night and keep the CO2 output, then you postpone any event only by a factor of 9.
Bottom line it changes nothing at all.
Tweaking at the planets population numbers is just idiotic. Especially if we only need to kill all north Americans and most of the Europeans an a few of the Chinese and would have a much stronger effect than killing 90% of the planet.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[angel'o'sphere]

Actually with current CO2 levels, most certainly with the levels we have in 10-15 years, there won't be any 'ice age' any more.
That problem is already solved.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[angel'o'sphere]

The two or three dark ages we had are named that way because we have not much written history about them.
Not because they were particularly dark or savage.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[hey!]

They don't have to be precise to give you a general picture.

Think of the troposphere as a shell of gas 6400 km in diameter and about 17km thick. That shell is rotating at 1700 km/hr at the equator, is being differentially heated by the Sun on its day side, tidally affected by the moon, interacting with landforms and the ocean etc. What you get is an immensely complex pattern of swirls and currents which transport water from and two various places in characteristic patterns we call local climate.

Now a 4C rise in average temperature doesn't sound like much, but don't think of it as a few ticks on the thermometer. Thinking of it as injecting an additional 10^21 joules of kinetic energy into that shell of gas we call the troposphere. What are the chances that those swirls and currents will transport water vapor from and to the exact same places as before? Almost nil.

So a lot of places that depend on rain now won't get it; and other places will get more rain than they can use. We don't need to know exactly what those places will be to know that it'll pose a huge challenge to the people living there.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[angel'o'sphere]

Russia won't have a longer growing season.
The cycle of arctic winter and arctic summer does not change at all due to global warming.
The problem in most parts of Russia is light not temperature.

And to the contrair: Russia is fucking hot in summer. If it gets warmer there, the growing season might start 5 days earlier and die abruptly in the middle of it in a heat bowl.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Hysterical crisis averted given the time to avert it.

The clock is ticking, but you're too busy denying to start averting.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't find anything for South Carolina, but I found that North Carolina voted to declare that the sea would rise 8 inches over the next century, largely for the benefit of a group of developers that wanted to sell homes on coastal land that were uninsurable given the predictions at the time that it would rise several dozen inches.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[angel'o'sphere]

Yes I knew
As wind and solar is cheaper than nuclear reactors and breeder reactors are outdated since 30 to 40 years.
So? You are not a moron? Not anti renewables? Why mentioning breeders then in at least five posts?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[hey!]

That's true for most of Russia, but it's offset by rainfall. The bottom line is that the World Bank is predicting a net gain in agricultural productivity in most of Russia except for the far north.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[angel'o'sphere]

Russia already has trouble with grain harvests since 30 years. Look at the Aral Lake or Baycal Lake.
Your idea that it would rain more is absurd, from where should the water for that rain come?
The world bank is as the name implies: a financial institution.
Why anyone would trust their judgement is beyond me.
It is a no brainer to assume that in all centers of big land masses droughts will be common. Does not matter if it is USA, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Russia, Mongolia, China.
If the wold bank thinks different it should probably share its insights with climate scientists.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[LynnwoodRooster]

I mentioned breeders in precisely one post, and neither my post nor the GP contained anything about solar or wind. But apparently you have a mental block/fetish that swings with the sun and blows in the wind, and see nuclear gremlins behind every post. So be it!

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The Problem is that what is being paraded in the media has no relation to anything that used to be considered science. Rather than bringing out explanations, and data to support the 'scientific agenda', the public is instead told that 9 out of 10 scientists know global warming is a fact and that any disagreement with the scientific facts as established by these 9 out of 10 scientists means you a faggot.

The fact that people question the 'scientific facts' brings me hope.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[angel'o'sphere]

Oh, then I replied to the wrong person.
After the fives or six 'one line post about breeders' I might have not payed attention to the name of the poster.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

True that.

Another example is people complaining about urban sprawling. What about a place like Arizona or Nevada where temperature stays in the oven spectrum half or more of the year? It gets exponentially more expensive (and resource-consuming) to cool down upper floors when you stack people on top of each other, that's why if you drive around Phoenix or even Las Vegas you won't see a lot of duplex or affordable condo towers.

I had to read your comment twice, but there is a solution. I's called an "Attic". You can also paint the roof white, or make the 'attic' out of PV solar panels.

I'll leave the numerous other errors go with just a head shake.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

> I can't find anything for South Carolina

Exactly. I also asked around and did a quick search, and I found nothing. It's amazing how the "we're all going to die" people just make shit up to try to create a defense for their wrong beliefs. Those people just post lies they make-up on the fly.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Xyrus]

The fact that you jump from "billions" to "nobody" is, essentially, what "histrionic exaggeration" means. There's a huge fucking amount of numbers between 0 and >2,000,000,000.

Just pull out your calculator, for god's sake. There are 7 billions people on the planet at the moment. The odds that at least 25% of them will die (i.e. "billions") because of a projected global increase of 4 Celsius in temperature over a century would require a lot more explanation and hard data than what has been provided so far to be considered anything than ludicrous.

No, it really doesn't. The problem here is that you have absolutely no idea what 4C of global temperature increase represents. That increase in global energy budget makes the world's nuclear arsenal look like a mosquito fart in Cat 5 hurricane. Not being able to see how something of that magnitude couldn't lay waste to a quarter of the world's population (most of which live in poverty with already limited access to food and water) is either abhorrent ignorance on near incomprehensible stupidity.

There's plenty of evidence what havoc even regional climate changes can cause to human civilization, and those were much smaller than what's expected. Entire civilizations have collapsed in just a few years of drought, and you're seriously deluded if you think our modern technology is advanced enough to stave of a multi-year severe drought in a major agricultural region. And that's if we're talking about a place like the US.

Just look at a fucking map and see where the bulk of those 7 billions people live, how the fuck is such a slow change supposed to kill them all?

You're joking right? Here's a simple example. Climate patterns shift making what limited arable land we have into barren dust fields. Food prices skyrocket. Fresh water becomes a scarce commodity. Can you not think of one thing that could happen under those circumstances that would result in lots of people dying? If the famine and disease doesn't kill them, then the inevitable wars will.

This is the kind of bullshit number that people make up as a scare tactic, like"1/3 of women will be raped in their lifetime". It doesn't help take the climate change proponents seriously, it actually make them look like liars to those who are not convinced that there's a problem.

You're a child of the first world who apparently can't see anything beyond your TV screen. Civilization is always 3 meals and 24 hours away from collapse. When people think they have nothing left to lose, then bad shit starts happening.

There's no scare tactic being employed here. Climate projections show a different world emerging as a direct result of our activities. We either take steps now to reduce the extent of the changes and adapt to them or we do nothing until physics rams the inevitable down our collective throats and we reap the consequences.

This kind of tactic is harmful to the cause. The more you try to scare people with end of the world scenarios, the less they listen because this has been tried many times before (acid rains, ozone layer, GMO, etc.) and the world did not end.

It's not a tactic. It's science. Acid rain and ozone depletion were both phenomena that were addressed thanks to science pointing out that those were serious issues and people actually listening. Same thing with asbestos, smoking, leaded gasoline, and a host of other such issues.

Do you want to know what they all had in common though? Big business funding FUD campaigns to discredit the science. It took years to decades before anything was done on most of these issues as a direct result. It's no different with climate change. Hell, even some of the same propaganda companies are being employed. It's like I've been watching the same show on repeat, only with different actors. Ever see the movie "Thank You For Smoking"? It's practically a documentary about these companies.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this hard to believe? Look at all the people who live near the sea.

> More than a billion people â" most of them in Asia â" live in low-lying coastal regions.

Site:http://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-1/coasts/living-in-coastal-areas/

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Just know that we look at you deniers the same way.

Except you guys are more like 1 year olds. You lack the ability to think for yourself and the ability to comprehend science and hard data.

1 year old == denier.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Magius_AR]

You accuse people of hyperbole, and yet you give the worst demonstration I've heard in a million years.

I disagree. I've heard plenty of rhetoric from the CAGW movement to that effect. Ever heard of the "tipping point" theory? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_point_%28climatology%29) Some global warming supporters claim we're there already, or ifnot, will be within a matter of years. And they often claim the "end results" of said tipping point are anywhere from mass extinctions of oceanic species to catastrophic weather events to whole cities under water within decades. The "extinction of the human race" was certainly a hyperbolic comment, but not by much. The general commentary from the global warming supporters isn't "you'll have to move all the cities back several miles due to coastal flooding". It's "people will die! species will go extinct! dogs and cats living together!" dialogue.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[rtb61]

So to promote nuclear they need to set a clear warning, a radical tipping point from that point on where serious coastal population harm will occur. So real science is needed on permafrost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... because when that start significantly thawing it will release a massive amount of methane a much worse green house gas which will cause a very significant short term (relatively short versus CO2 as it breaks down) surge in warming ("traps up to 100 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide within a 5 year period, and 72 times more within a 20 year period." http://www.onegreenplanet.org/...".

So science on what that tipping point is and how close to it we are because those forecast of long term average sea level rise do not take that major surge into account at all. So a mass release of methane will cause a major short term tempreture surge, resulting in massive melting and sea level rise will surge before the methane breaks down and we go back to averages. You could end up with a metre rise in sea levels in just one season, depending upon how quick that permafrost melt is and how large that methane surge is. Could be lucky, if it is large enough it could ignite and it's just CO2 but that atmospheric fuel air bomb could cause a real huge problem all on it's own, mega kaboom.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[lucm]

True that.

Another example is people complaining about urban sprawling. What about a place like Arizona or Nevada where temperature stays in the oven spectrum half or more of the year? It gets exponentially more expensive (and resource-consuming) to cool down upper floors when you stack people on top of each other, that's why if you drive around Phoenix or even Las Vegas you won't see a lot of duplex or affordable condo towers.

I had to read your comment twice, but there is a solution. I's called an "Attic". You can also paint the roof white, or make the 'attic' out of PV solar panels.

I'll leave the numerous other errors go with just a head shake.

I don't know what "numerous other errors" you see but if you think painting a roof is a solution to cool down upper floors in Arizona there's probably no need to investigate your opinion further.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[riverat1]

That is also pointless. We also know that over the extended record, CO2 follows temperature, and that temperature variability is such that a 40 year term is completely insufficient to draw any sort of conclusion.

I'm done, you obviously don't have anything scientific to add.

You really should take the time to listen to this lecture at the annual AGU meeting in 2009 by Richard Alley:

"The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Climate History"

It's nearly an hour long but it covers over 4 billion years of how carbon dioxide relates to the climate.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Selective on you pole data. Aren't there two? No matter how compelling the half of the data you like is...

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[HiThere]

I think you overstate the case. It's probably only by the hundreds of thousands...unless you count people who would have died anyway.

To say they are literally worse than Hitler is to misunderstand both Hitler and the current situation. And they aren't (generally) malicious, which also counts.
P.S.: Stalin killed more people than Hitler did. So if you're going for hyperbole you should say worse than Stalin. Additionally Stalin appears to have done it with greater intent and less because he was crazy, which also counts.

But it's still something that we should have taken seriously decades ago. Now we can only hope to ameliorate the damage. And it's only hope, because the governments don't yet seem to really be ready to act, only to promise.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[HiThere]

People will only be damaged during the period of transition. After the ice caps melt there will be about as much land as there is now, just distributed differently. Canada may become the breadbasket of the world. Antarctica may be farmed. Etc.

Of course, the transition is going to be extremely rough, and the faster it is the more people will die from it. And it will be well over a century before the transition is over. Whoops...that's the entire lifetime of everyone reading this.

Expect sea levels to rise by over a meter, how much more is uncertain, and depends on how much of Antarctica melts...but records show that at one time there were temperate forests growing in Antarctica, and that it hasn't moved around to permit that. It just used to be that much warmer. (Of course, the continents were in different positions, so the weather patterns won't be repeating...)

Personally, I expect all the glaciers in Antarctica to melt except, perhaps, the ones at the tops of high mountains. And considerably higher sea level rise than official reports are willing to consider...but not all that quickly. Probably less than a foot/decade, and likely considerably less. Give it a few centuries, though. The CO2 won't leave the atmosphere quickly, so it's going to keep getting hotter until a new equilibrium is reached...and that 2 degrees is just because some people need a goal that isn't too threatening, not because there's any reasonable chance that we can hold it at that.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[HiThere]

A good point. When you say how many people will die/be displaced/etc. by global warming the number depends critically on just what factors you are willing to consider. And it's going to have a more than minor effect on nearly everyone. E.g., this was supposed to be an extremely wet winter in California, but the official site reports the snowpack at 87% of the April 1 average. Not very good for what was supposed to be an extremely wet winter. But the weather has been unusually pleasant all winter. Spring arrived in late January.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[HiThere]

Both sides are saying it, but one side is lying their pants off. And anyone who pays attention knows that it's the AGW deniers.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[dryeo]

and more in the sense of conservative birth policy. But that is not going to happen voluntarily, because nobody wants to stop multiplying.

Actually the evidence is pretty clear that given economics that don't require breeding labourers and/or old age support, a good chance that children will live to adulthood along with education (especially for women) and access to birth control, people will on average stop multiplying (defined as birth rate higher then replacement) and population will naturally decrease.
Citation is the birth rate in all developed countries.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The question should be what are _you_ doing?

Given the data is pretty compelling that 1) Climate change is _bad_ 2) it's at least probable (not certain) we're causing it
There's data to suggest that the amount of CO2 affects the amount of temperature rise, and other impacts of climate change.

Therefore _any_ reduction helps. This is not a we question. This is a _you_ question.
It's a reasonable risk reduction strategy to do what you can.

Here are some simple things you can do right now:
-insulate your home properly,
-buy and user energy efficient appliances / light bulbs
-run you washer / dryer at night (off peak when cleaner electrical generation is being used)
-drive a more fuel efficient car, (at least make it a criteria when vehicle shopping)
-own one car instead of two (forcing you to drive less)
-walk, take public transit or a bicycle where possible,
-buy local produce (not something shipped halfway around the world
-eat less meat
-actively recycle (reduces energy use)
-fly less (airplanes contribute)
-reduced your consumption of other goods (clothes, etc).
-buy new electronics or other devices less frequently (aka a new phone every 4 years instead of every 2)
-vote for and support politicians that reign in heavy polluting industries
-reduce your air conditioning and heating use (eg. set your thermostat lower in winter and wear a sweater)
-be careful with your water use (leaves it available in areas already affected by drought)

Taking it to the next level
-volunteer to plant trees every year
-invest in renewable energy and green technologies
--refuse to invest in dirty technologies / industries (eg oil)
-participate in a FIT or microFIT program and install solar or wind generation on your property
-educate yourself and actually look at the scientific literature and publications
-don't build or buy in natural disaster prone areas (flood plains, easy burning wooded areas etc...)
-educate your friends show them what you saved.
-write your member of government and/or actively protest for change

Aside from the fact that all of the above are smart things to do anyway (and most save you money, or earn you money) none of the changes are particularly hard to do when tackled one at a time. I can put a tick beside most of them, and frankly I don't get it why others aren't doing the same. I've saved lots of money (enough to pay my mortgage off sooner) and afford some things that I like. It also makes me feel good that I'm at least trying to be more efficient and lessen my footprint. The Europeans use roughly half the energy and water the average North American does, and still enjoy the same or better standard of living.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The World Bank simply repeated the projections of climate scientists.

Russia is a big place and some areas may have increased rainfall, some may not, but in the case of Baikal the main issue is the diversion of the river feeding it, not rainfall.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[lucm]

Both sides are saying it, but one side is lying their pants off. And anyone who pays attention knows that it's the AGW deniers.

Amazingly convincing

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

You reduce solar gain per unit volume by moving to two stories, and increase the volume per unit exterior making it easier to stabilise temperatures. Two stories would be preferable in places like Nevada for cooling, but they are more expensive to build for various reasons, and not the preferred style in that area.

Building with high thermal mass would be expensive (old Adobe single level dwellings in the area have high thermal mass) but single level dwellings with high levels of insulation and rejection of solar gain less so, and existing dwellings can be refitted.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[ledow]

My home is insulated.
My appliances are A+ or better.
I don't use a dryer whenever possible, we have washing lines for that.
I drive a brand-new car, it's got a 1.5l Eco engine.
I only own one car (for two people)
I can't take public transport to work, it's not safe to walk (across dual carriageways).
I buy whatever the supermarket has (the cost of air travel directly translates to the cost of the product). I don't have a choice in that matter, as I live in a city and there really aren't many things like local butchers etc.
I don't eat much meat.
I am forced to recycle by my local council.
I hate flying (not scared of it, just hate the rigaramole of it all).
I don't buy clothes (honestly, haven't changed size in 10 years, so I only replace what wears out, and my girlfriend is Italian from a farm-community so most of what breaks we sew or repair or her family does for us).
My last phone was bought 6 years ago, before that I hate a phone for nearly 10 years. I actually barely buy home electronics.
Fuck voting for someone just because of ONE policy.
I don't HAVE air conditioning. House heating is efficient and the house is solid brick so it's like a box. No word of exaggeration it's 4 degrees outside today and the house was 16 before the heating kicked in this morning (and that only because it was below it's "early morning" setting of 18 for when we get up, and we forgot to adjust it for DST the other day).
Our water use is so suspicious that they installed a water meter.

But, my science brain tells me, all that does next-to-fuck-all to save the planet and is barely worth bothering. I don't do any of the above for planetary reasons, I do it for cost. Hell, I've got LED lightbulbs everywhere because of the cost too.

Planting trees doesn't do much when we've destroyed something like 90% of the natural forest since cities started to take hole.

Green technologies aren't efficient enough and certainly give little return on investment. I live in the UK - solar just isn't practical and the legal hassles of "who owns the solar panel on the roof" and/or "can I erect that turbine" remove all profit and kill any plan before you start. That's before you work out that actually you'll never make back the cost of a kit just on energy usage alone, even with subsidies.

And I'm TRYING to educate myself, which is why I've looked this shit up and people still give the same crappy answers. I'm there. I've done this. And I don't think it makes anywhere near the difference you think it does.

I live in the UK, in a major city, so it's not like the US and we have no fault lines, few flood plains (certainly nothing close), and no forest fires (NO FOREST!).

Thus educating my (usually more educated, they're all in science labs) friends is hard because... well, they know and they know it's not inside the error margins, and they know that a lot of it is just tosh.

This is my point - looking at all that list, the difference you'll make is miniscule. And most people either already co-operate for reasons of cost, can be co-erced into co-operation for reasons of cost (start taxing things), or just don't care. Thus, it's not a global solution, and certainly MOST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD would love the luxury of having almost anything mentioned above, let alone having so much they have to reduce their usage of it.

We can all say "well, every little bit", but that's like saying that the old woman who brushes sand off her feet when she gets off the beach is "doing her bit" to keep the beach there, when it really makes no difference and barely figures in the error of measurement, let alone actually changes the situation.

Reduction of usage is also a complete red herring. Hypothetically, I can't think of a reason why - if we were to suddenly stop producing electricity and air-travel and all these things - the situation globally would improve. It might stop getting worse, but would it improve now? In a decade? In a century? I can't see it myself. We mig

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[GameboyRMH]

I wouldn't say it's solved forever, but it's certainly nothing we'll have to worry about for tens of thousands of years. If CO2 is returned to pre-industrial levels - the ideal goal in addressing global warming - an ice age could happen again just as easily as if humans never altered the climate.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[rhazz]

1) rebuild the credibility of climate scientists by providing clear, simple data that isn't presented in an alarmist way

The scientists are quite credible (most of them). It's the media that is presenting the alarmism.

CNN: "So, Scientist, what is the absolute worst case scenario that could happen?"
Scientist: "Hmm, well, the absolute worst case scenario, which is extremely unlikely to occur, is X. However we are far more likely to see something in the range of Y to Z."
CNN Headline: Scientists predict X could occur!

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Layzej]

Why is it the job of some guy on Slashdot to explain the last 100 years of physics? Do a google scholar search if you are curious. You will find that jfbilodeau is absolutely right. You may consider starting here in 1896

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of Russia isn't in the Arctic and I believe the Arctic does not have a really usable agricultural growing season currently, certainly I haven't heard of large amounts of agriculture there. So if it gained substantially in growing season there, like say enough to get one crop cycle in, it would already be on the up and up agriculture wise.

The increased rainfall meanwhile I believe is expected due to less ice in the Arctic, meaning more water there can turn to water vapor and then be blown south in to Siberia, including currently more arid regions.

So basically Russia actually does have a good chance to gain here.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Layzej]

There are many tipping points. Some have likely already been crossed: eg: Feldmanna and Levermanna 2015 . Lenton 2008 lists others to watch for.

The "extinction of the human race" was certainly a hyperbolic comment

Fighting hyperbole with further hyperbole doesn't really get us anywhere. Better to call it out when you see it and look to the science for answers.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Layzej]

If CO2 is returned to pre-industrial levels - the ideal goal in addressing global warming

I'm not sure it's ideal to move back to pre-industrial levels. There is some evidence that at least the initial warming was beneficial: https://www.aeaweb.org/article... Some substantial errors were later discovered in that paper, but I think even when corrected there is still some evidence of net benefit for at least the initial warming.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called the end of the ice age. That means ice melts. So yeab global warming and cooling has been around for millions of years

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[david_thornley]

So, because CO2 follows temperature [citation needed], it's impossible that an unrelated increase in CO2 can cause a temperature rise?

We have a very rough model that works according to standard physics that says that the CO2 we're adding to the atmosphere increases planetary temperature. We've been adding the CO2, the temperature's going up more or less according to the model, and that's completely insufficient to draw any sort of conclusion? In related reasoning, it's impossible to conclude that humans are all mortal, since if you pick a random human, past or present, you can't be certain that person is dead at p<0.05? Or are you willing to concede that there are aging effects that make us mortal?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[riverat1]

You are making the assumption that since increasing CO2 is a natural feedback of rising temperatures it's not possible for changes in CO2 levels unrelated to temperature changes to affect temperature. I'd like to see you try and justify that stance scientifically.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[lucm]

Let's immediately call an emergency meeting of all architects and house builders in Nevada to let them know that some dude on Slashdot has found out how they have been wrong for decades.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[HiThere]

I'm not trying to prove anymore. All the evidence in the world won't convince someone who keeps their eyes shut.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

How long has it been since Ontario was covered with a glacier of thick ice ? So global warming started when ? Yea like we are going to stop it. I know what we could do is put up a awning in space so the sun won't shine through the window.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[lucm]

Of course you're not trying to prove anything, you don't provide facts because you don't know them. You're worst than a denier, you're a phony, all you do is try to belong to a group by bashing the apparent enemy, without making the effort of educating yourself.

Watch the documentary Cowspiracy. It's full of phonies too, you'll be in good company, and you may learn a thing or two.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[samwichse]

You should probably look up the term "frost free days."

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[RockDoctor]

For "billions" to suffer would require less than (approximately) 28% of the next generation to suffer. Since the likely duration of the global warming consequent on current releases of carbon dioxide is on the order of 100 thousand years (3000 or so generations) it is reasonably likely that the number of people badly affected by anthropogenic global warming will exceed a billion.

(I speak as an oilfield geologist. And no, I don't care what happens to your children.)

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[RockDoctor]

People will only be damaged during the period of transition. After the ice caps melt there will be about as much land as there is now, just distributed differently.

You, sir, need to review and consider the hypsographic curve.If this were true (which it is not), there would be a section of that curve with a vertical slope of dA/dE (for A=area below this elevation, and E for elevation w.r.t. the Earth's centre). There isn't.

Elementary geography exam failed.

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[beastofburdon]

Who did cause it? You've got me interested. The only thing I know of that has made it sink is using up all the ground water in the area, was there something else as well?

Re: No amount of evidence is enough

[beastofburdon]

There is no averting dumbass. The climate is changing no matter what we do. It was going to change even if humans never existed.

Are we making it change a tiny bit faster? Maybe, but unlikely.

Will humanity benefit by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and reducing the amount of toxic chemicals we spew into the air, water, and soil? Absolutely we will benefit, but it will not stop climate change.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[angel'o'sphere]

Why should I? For regions like siberia, that is irrelevant :)
Perhpas find a nice web page explaining it. I'm to lazy two write now two pages about stuff that are no brainers and you should figure by your self if you think a few minutes about it.
The key point is day and night cycle. Before it is 'frost free' it first needs to be day time long enough per day.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[beastofburdon]

10 billion people? Bullshit! Sea level would have to rise at least 10ft in one year for that.
Violent weather, I'll give you that one.
Impacts on food and fresh water? Also bullshit.
More violent weather means more precipitation means more fresh water
Oh we have a higher level of CO2 in the air? Guess what, that will significantly increase the growth rates and yields of crops.

Come on, think about what people tell you for at least a few seconds before you begin to believe it for the rest of your life.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[beastofburdon]

The world bank? You trust the world bank to predict weather years in the future? Wow, just wow.
Our greatest scientist cannot predict weather years in the future, what the fuck kind of magical thinking makes you believe that the world bank has that capability?
I knew you were stupid from your previous posts, but this takes the cake.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

WHO was nuking Oceans like a mad **genius**? Not I.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[samwichse]

Yes, what do I know. Ag is only my job.

You must be right, it is only about the day length.

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[angel'o'sphere]

For agriculture the things in Siberia you need are:
a) perma frost soil needs to thaw at least 30cm, likely more
b) long enough day cycle or most seeds/plants would not germinate or not really grow
c) depending on plant, obviously frost free nights

As long as you don't have a), c) is pretty irrelevant. I doubt a) is happening significantly earlier even if the climate is massively warming as the energy to thaw a huge land mass is high and more directly correlated to the length of the day - aka sunny hours - than to the warms of the atmosphere. Well, but I might be wrong.

So, if we think about longer growth period, perhaps we win a few days, a week or two even, at the end of the growth period. That would depend how quickly the weather turns into "cold" ... or "rainy". I could imagine that Siberia is not that wet in autumn as e.g. Germany or UK. Then again: for ordinary crops that is not relevant, but perhaps they will harvest a good wine in 30 years?

Re:No amount of evidence is enough

[Anonymous Coward]

That is also pointless. We also know that over the extended record, CO2 follows temperature,

How do you figure? Because they correlate? Because there is no physical model that would explain it, let alone one that is certifiably true?

You suck at the scientific method you so violently claim to propagate.

Sea ice evolution

[Layzej]

This web app shows the evolution of northern and southern hemisphere sea ice evolution over the satellite record. Use left and right to change month. http://phosphorus.github.io/ap...

BEWARE!

[Zeromous]

Beware, the Tides of March!!!

Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents

[foxalopex]

The way this is explained isn't entirely clear to your average folk. I suspect folks are going to think that the fact that arctic ice isn't decreasing is a sign that everything is alright and that global warming is not a problem but it is much bigger than that. Each year arctic ice the size of a country melts in a cycle that refreezes in the winter. The cold freshwater melt is heavier than the surrounding seawater and sinks straight to the bottom starting many of the worldwide ocean currents. If this cycle gets disrupted or changed in some way it has a massive effect on worldwide climate. These currents drive many weather patterns such as rain, hurricanes, dry spells and heatwaves and cold snaps. What this article is suggesting is that the warm currents from equator might not reach the arctic resulting in the arctic getting colder and the equator getting hotter which will inevitably change entirely how our regional climate works. When something like this happens it results in entire weather systems such as monsoon rains which we're use to moving to different places on the planet. This usually isn't a good thing.

Re:Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents

[cogeek]

Thank you for the explanation for us common folk.... When you say "Each year arctic ice the size of a country melts," would that country be Vatican City or Russia? "Country" is not a very common measurement of mass in my limited, common experience.

Re:Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents

[religionofpeas]

Over the last 30 years, the Arctic ice has lost about 2 million square kilometers, or about the area of Mexico or Saudi Arabia.

Re:Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents

[Frosty Piss]

When you say "Each year arctic ice the size of a country melts," would that country be Vatican City or Russia? "Country" is not a very common measurement of mass in my limited, common experience.

We are talking multiples of Libraries of Congress.

Re:Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents

[Anonymous Coward]

What this article is suggesting is that the warm currents from equator might not reach the arctic resulting in the arctic getting colder and the equator getting hotter which will inevitably change entirely how our regional climate works.

That's not how climate systems work, however. Warm water will always find a way to cold water. It's basic, elementary school physics. Currents are affected by warm vs. cold, the rotation of the planet, the gravitational pull of the sun, and the tidal pull of the moon. None of those are going away.

Re:Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents

[Overzeetop]

You're thinking of entropy, which must always increase. Sadly, you're elementary level understanding completely misses the complexity of a system of the size of the earth, which can easily allow entropy to increase while allowing the *apparent* contradiction of cold areas getting colder and warm areas getting warmer. The earth functions on a scale which means that low entropy conditions are required for current patterns to continue. By increasing entropy those patterns (ocean currents) may be disrupted. Of course it means nothing to the planet as a whole, but humans - and the myriad resources they require for survival - occupy an exceedingly narrow range of conditions that support life, universally speaking. A small shift her or there won't change whether this planet exists for another billion years, but it's likely to change the duration that human life can be supported in the numbers which currently exist.

Re:Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents

[riverat1]

Thank you for the explanation for us common folk.... When you say "Each year arctic ice the size of a country melts," would that country be Vatican City or Russia? "Country" is not a very common measurement of mass in my limited, common experience.

The variation between the Arctic winter maximum sea ice extent and the summer sea ice extent minimum is around 8 or 9 million km^2 each year which would put it in the size range of the USA, Brazil and Australia.

Re:Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents

[riverat1]

The cold freshwater melt is heavier than the surrounding seawater and sinks straight to the bottom starting many of the worldwide ocean currents.

Actually fresh water is less dense than saltwater and it can form a cap over it that disrupts currents. It's cold saline water sinking in the ocean that drives some currents.

Re:Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents

[LynnwoodRooster]

Each year arctic ice the size of a country melts in a cycle that refreezes in the winter.

Would that country be Monaco, or Russia? Lichtenstein or Canada? Vatican City or the United States of America? Has a bit of impact on what you're trying to convey...

Re:Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents

[avandesande]

Fresh water is quite a bit less dense than salt water I doubt it sinks...

Re:Ice Melt Drives Ocean Currents

[riverat1]

The difference between maximum extent and minimum extent in the Arctic each year is around 8 or 9 million km^2 which would put in the size of countries like the USA or Brazil.

Natual cycles

[Anonymous Coward]

Natural planetary and solar cycles. Read the NIPCC reports, the suppressed scientists. They went through the IPCC reports paragraph by paragraph and showed why their interpretation of scientific research is wrong from cover to cover. Instead of having an intelligent scientific debate, the left just ignores it and resorts to personal attacks. Before you dismiss NIPCC as being funded by big oil, note that big oil such as Exxon funds leftist green initiatives.

Re:Natual cycles

[hey!]

Yeah, it's that scientific conspiracy to suppress ideas not supported by evidence.

It's worth noting that none of the lead authors of the NIPCC reports are climate scientists, except possibly Singer who has a background in remote sensing at least. He's also behind so-called "Leipzig Declaration", which is notorious for (a) misrepresenting the qualifications of many of its signatories (e.g. TV weather presenters) and (b) faking the signatures of actual climate scientists.

Re:Natual cycles

[riverat1]

Whenever I hear about the NIPCC report I think of Nipsey Russell. They're both pretty humorous.

Re:Natual cycles

[LynnwoodRooster]

Check the IPCC report. Most of the CLAs do not have degrees in Climatology, either. If that's your bar - then you need to discount most of the IPCC reports as well.

Re:Natual cycles

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly is this "left" you're talking about?

Is your definition "people who are not me?"

Record lows

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that the Arctic is showing record lows, let's see how the lamestream media tries to spin it as more global warming.

Re:Record lows

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they understand the science better than you do?

carpe per diem!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Guardian : World on track to be 4C warmer by 2100 because of missed carbon targets

Re:carpe per diem!

[Zeromous]

The difference being my joke is original, and perfectly within context. Yours is simply overplayed.

Title Dyslexia

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason I read that as "Yahoo stock hits record low."

Either I'm overworked or a psychic stock market savant

My goodness!

[aron1231]

You mean the planet is still warming up (recovering) from an ice age? Inconceivable!

Fear not gentle denizens, another ice age is coming! Then the faithful climateers will rejoice!

Re:My goodness!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the planet is still warming up (recovering) from an ice age? Inconceivable!

Fear not gentle denizens, another ice age is coming! Then the faithful climateers will rejoice!

Indeed. It's all a cycle. A cycle far longer than a lifetime and that really pisses some people off. They just have to Save the World today 'cos their self-loathing, yet somehow self-important, Special Snowflake might melt before they die. But you know:

"Never let a good crisis go to waste." Even if it is a manufactured crisis designed to make certain (douchbag) people very rich. Notice how their provably false claims of Imminent Disaster have gone from 5 to 10 years to now 90 to 100 years from now. What a Convenient Truth.

Re:My goodness!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the planet is still warming up (recovering) from an ice age? Inconceivable!

Fear not gentle denizens, another ice age is coming! Then the faithful climateers will rejoice!

I believe you are referring to glacial periods.
And ice age is a period when there are permanent ice packs(like the north and south pole), so until we start getting 100% melt every year, we are *still* in an ice age.

Plant life is generally too sparse and the climate is generally too cold to support the megafauna that once roamed the earth.

I would consider the Mesozoic to be a tropical climate compared to our current arctic climate.

This is one of the reasons I am in favor of global warming(regardless of the cause).
(Yes, I do live somewhere that spends weeks at a time above 38c(100f), but I still think global warming is a good thing)

Re:My goodness!

[riverat1]

If you paid any attention to the science you would know that the planet finished warming up after the last ice age about 8,000 years ago and had been slowly dropping toward the next one since then.

High fives all around

[Anonymous Coward]

2016 FTW, #1 #1 #1

Ahhh, what a maroon! - B. Bunny

[whitroth]

"Billions is hyperbole".

Well, no.
a) where are most metropolitan areas located? On rivers or oceans. NYC's talking huge seawalls, Miami's trying to figure out if it will exist above water in a decade or two, and this is true around the world.

b) It all affects the climate. Note that a) Syria's several years into the worst draught in many, many years. A large part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is over control of water. And then there's Phoenix and LA.... and the California Central Valley, that's drawing huge amounts of water, and the aquifers are running out, as they are in the midwest. You can't conceive of actual famine; too many in the world can.

                    mark

Re:Ahhh, what a maroon! - B. Bunny

[Anonymous Coward]

And then there's Phoenix and LA....

I speak from real-life experience; I've 'lived' in those places. It is a life-worse-than-death existence. Bring on the floods and cleanse those shit-holes. Hollow-wood would be a good place to start. A 533 foot tsunami would be ideal.

Considerations...

[PortHaven]

Arctic vs Antarctic ice
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/s...

http://www.nasa.gov/content/go...

http://www.climatechangenews.c...

***

The truth is, there have been times when the Earth did not even have polar ice caps. But I have a hypothesis regarding this scenario.

The orbital plane of earth is slightly lower. Think about it. The Earth's orbit around the sun is not perfect - no celestial body is. Look at the moon sometimes it's higher in altitude and sometimes lower.

So what if the Earth is slightly lower in altitude of it's planar orbit around the sun? The northern hemisphere would be warmer, ice would melt. The southern hemisphere would experience the opposite, with the antarctic increasing in the accumulation of ice.

Yet I have seen very little research into this possibility that could pose a valid explanation for Earth's present climate changes.

***

None of this means we shouldn't clean up our act, stop pollution, and move to clean renewable energy. Far beyond CO2, look at the damage coal mining has done to the neighboring environments. Streams poisoned until no life is in them. I think we can ALL agree we need to clean up our act.

Re:Considerations...

[religionofpeas]

Yet I have seen very little research into this possibility that could pose a valid explanation for Earth's present climate changes.

I think there's a fairly well accepted theory that the Antarctic land ice is melting quicker, reducing the salinity of the surrounding water, which helps to freeze the surface in the winter.

Re:Considerations...

[amicusNYCL]

This is a joke hypothesis, right? You're not actually suggesting that the Earth no longer orbits the sun, but a point "below" the sun?

Re:Considerations...

[DRJlaw]

So what if the Earth is slightly lower in altitude of it's planar orbit around the sun? The northern hemisphere would be warmer, ice would melt. The southern hemisphere would experience the opposite, with the antarctic increasing in the accumulation of ice.

Yet I have seen very little research into this possibility that could pose a valid explanation for Earth's present climate changes.

There's been very little research into this possibility because it violates the laws of physics. You could not consistently orbit "slightly lower in altitude of [Earth's] planar orbit around the sun" without the near constant intervention of really, really large rockets.

Pick an orbital plane that you want to label as the "normal" one. Now shift the planet "below" the orbital plane due to, say, the combined gravitational pull of most of the other planets (September 2040 superalignment; y'all's days are numbered!). The problem is that the planet will still orbit the barycenter of the solar system, which also moves around slightly, but not much. The barycenter will "pull" the planet up. Thus means that, just like when you spin a tetherball in a flat plane and then push or hit the ball down, if the Earth were to descend "below" the normal plane, it would for half an orbit but pop up "above" the orbital plane for the other half. Blah blah blah, Earth gravity and air resistance to rotation of the ball make this a poor model, but at least it's within the realm of ordinary experience.

Guess what already causes the northern hemisphere to be warmer and the southern hemisphere to experience the opposite? The axial tilt of the Earth's rotation relative to its orbit. We call it winter and summer. It reverses every 6 months. can have subtle effects on the precise timing of certain transitions, but you're not going to escape the reversal of conditions every 6 months.

Re:Considerations...

[AthanasiusKircher]

This is a joke hypothesis, right? You're not actually suggesting that the Earth no longer orbits the sun, but a point "below" the sun?

Well, it's already been modded up, so somebody else seems to buy it too.

Just to be clear -- the reason there's no "research" on this hypothesis is because it makes no sense from a basic orbital mechanics standpoint. If the earth for some reason moved below the "normal" orbital plane on one side of the sun, gravity as it continued in orbit would cause it to shoot up above the orbital plan on the other side of the sun. What GP is proposing (i.e., the earth somehow maintaining a stable orbit in a plane below the center of the sun) is impossible.

Re:Considerations...

[Anonymous Coward]

But I have a hypothesis regarding this scenario.

Great! You've reached the first step. All you need to do now are all of the other steps of learning orbital mechanics, making a bunch of measurements, calculations, and simulations to see if you're right. If you are you'll go down in history as smarter than the 100's (1000's?) of thousands of scientists and astronomers since Galileo that would disagree with your theory. And if you're wrong you will have learned a lot of cool stuff about gravity and the cosmos. Win Win! Good luck!

Re:Considerations...

[Layzej]

I think there's a fairly well accepted theory that the Antarctic land ice is melting quicker, reducing the salinity of the surrounding water, which helps to freeze the surface in the winter.

It's not so cut–and–dried. Eric Steig explains: "A basic problem, though, is that the greatest discharge of meltwater is occurring in the Amundsen Sea, exactly where sea ice is declining, so while this probably is part of the story, I doubt it’s very dominant." - http://www.realclimate.org/ind...

Re:Considerations...

[Anonymous Coward]

it makes no sense from a basic orbital mechanics standpoint.

Taking a step back and humoring the post, it is possible.

Remember that, through the galactic procession, the earth moves in a helix around the linear movement that the sun takes. Imagine a pressure on the forward side of the procession. That is the most reasonable side to face resistance. Be it interstellar dust or dark matter or whatever. Given that the ratio of surface area to mass that may contact such pressure is higher in smaller bodies than large, it is plausible that the earth, along with every other planet, is slowing in its procession at a slightly faster rate than the sun. In which case, the earth might be slightly lagging behind the position that it would be in if the whole of the solar system was stationary. The idea that the south pole is getting slightly colder and the north pole slightly warmer would be the inevitable outcome.

So no, this is not impossible, if interstellar dust is present and moving at a lower rate than the solar system, this is an inevitable outcome. Now, how much of an effect would it have?

Re:Considerations...

[hey!]

Sea ice forms at -1.8C, and winter air temperatures in the Southern Ocean range from -15C to -20C. That's plenty cold enough to freeze a much higher area of the ocean than actually it does. The problem is that the sub-freezing air can't instantaneously absorb the heat of the surface water. It takes time. And therein lies a story.

Sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic both represent an equilibrium between ice formation areas and ice destruction areas. Your hypothesis is that if rising air temperatures in the Arctic mean decreased Arctic sea ice, then increased Antarctic sea ice has to mean increased air temperatures in the Antarctic. However if that were true we'd have measured those increased temperatures. But we haven't. Air and sea temperatures have actually increased in the Southern Ocean at the same time as ice extent increased. That's because air temperature is only one factor in the ice extent equilibrium.

The differential sensitivity of the Arctic and Southern Ocean ice extent to air temperature changes reflect differences in those oceans' structures. The Southern Ocean is deeper and better mixed than the Arctic Ocean, which means it's much harder to budge that enormous thermal mass with a small shift in air temperature. Instead the Antarctic sea ice is more sensitive to wind interactions, which blow ice from areas of rapid formation to areas which are warmer. The net effect of a slightly warmer but windier winter is to increase the rate of ice formation in cold areas cleared of ice.

Those wind/ice interactions are presumably present in the Arctic as well, but they're swamped by local thermodynamic effects. The the air over the Arctic Ocean is interacting with a much shallower layer of water.

So there's no actual paradox here. Just polar oceanography that's been known since the 1980s at least.

Re:Considerations...

[LynnwoodRooster]

NASA says that the interior is gaining ice, not the ice shelf out over the ocean.

Re:Considerations...

[amicusNYCL]

I have a hypothesis of my own. My hypothesis is that the people who modded OP up based on the suggestion that the center of the earth's orbit is far from the sun's center of mass (and, indeed, that it has recently changed) are the same kinds of people who think that climate scientists have no idea what they're talking about.

Re:Considerations...

[amorsen]

Come on Slashdot, I know things have been going downhill for a while, but this drivel at +5? Have we all turned collectively moronic?

Re: Considerations...

[Namarrgon]

That sounds almost plausible - but the effect, even if it were significant enough to cause such an effect (which I seriously doubt), and just happened to roughly align with our polar axis (also unlikely) would be noticed immediately.

We would see a clear bias in solar radiation (and temperatures) between the northern & southern hemispheres. This would be picked up by satellites, weather stations, observatories, everything. We would also notice that our planet's orbit wasn't quite centered (the sun's gravity would be similarly biased), and this would affect the orbital mechanics of all our various spacecraft too.

Far more likely that something terrestrial is causing the difference in effect, like the Antarctic ozone hole or the fact that one end has a continent. In fact, there are numerous scientific papers discussing exactly that.

Re:Considerations...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, how much of an effect would it have?

Probably similar to the force of the photons emitted from this dot ->. has on your face assuming your screen is backlit. (whoops, that period doubled the force!) I actually went down the interstellar dust rabbit hole a few days ago. The Earth's mass is about 20 orders of magnitude greater than the sum of cosmic dust that hits it in a year. Almost all of that dust is from the sun or already orbiting the sun. I'm guessing that's enough to move earth's orbital plane by some fraction of a proton radius.

Sorry if that all sounds sardonic, it actually blows my mind when you compare the quantum and galactic scales.

Re:Considerations...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you seem to have had a lot of replies from people who don't know all the details, though the plane change is probably pretty trivial in import compared to the distance change because of Earth's uneven orbit. This is because the Sun shines equally in all direction, so all you could achieve with this is perhaps making sunlight reach the poles a little earlier. Which matters of course, but not as much as the distance which actually increases intensity.

How ever this has had a lot of research and is captured in the Milankovitch cycles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles which discusses the effects of various changes of Earths position, axial tilt, etc. And this is actually a major part of the explanation between ice ages and interglacial periods. I'm guessing not knowing the name you didn't manage to google for the correct item though?

In any case this effect is thus obviously also the reason for our current interglacial warm period, though we passed the peak of it long ago, as in, we're about half way to the opposite position by now I believe, so the Northern Hemiphere has been getting further and further away from the Sun during Summer for quite a long time now.

That it's been getting warmer despite that says quite a bit, so we know this isn't the reason for warming. It's still added in to climate considerations though, because solar intensity obviously matters. But at the moment it's basically a neutral, slowly going to cooling effect as such, which matches current midterm reconstructions for the last few thousand years, which show a slow cooling down, probably towards what should have been the next ice age.

----

On a side note, knowing that the Earth has at times had no ice caps is part of the concern. If such minor changes at times can change the planetary climate that much, it probably won't that all 'that' much effort by us to do similar after all. Basically it's evidence for our climate being rather reactive at times and that it's probably best not to prod it to much because its bound to show a major reaction eventually.
(Also due to this past data we also know things looked really different in such cases, like sea levels typically being 200-300 meters higher, very different rainfall patterns etc. Which is a bother because rebuilding all our agricultural areas would be expensive, probably expensive in the trillions of dollar range even. I know I'd really prefer that money didn't have to go there)

Re:Considerations...

[david_thornley]

What does "the Earth is slightly lower in altitude of it's planar orbit around the sun" mean? The Earth's orbit doesn't change appreciably, and the orbital plane goes through the center of mass of the both the Sun and the Earth because it has to. The inclination of Earth's axis changes very slowly, and so does Earth's rotation. This stuff is pretty well fixed.

Re:Considerations...

[david_thornley]

First, the Earth's orbital plane is not aligned with anything in particular, like the Sun's movement through local dust clouds. Second, if there was enough dust out there to push the Earth appreciably out of its orbit, it would slow the Earth in its orbit, and Earth would deorbit like a satellite hitting significant amounts of atmosphere. We'd notice that. Third, if there was some mysterious force pushing Earth "behind", the Earth's orbit would change to be as much higher above the former ecliptic as it was pushed below, and the mysterious force would therefore be pushing against Earth in its orbit. Earth would then lose orbital speed and spiral into the Sun. We'd notice that. If we were spiraling into the Sun, also, because of continued force, we'd have bigger problems than CO2-caused global warming.

To have any noticeable effect, there would have to be an incredible amount of dust, which we'd have noticed, and we'd have much larger known problems. (BTW, dark matter can't have that effect. The effect of particles hitting other particles and exchanging energy and momentum is caused by electromagnetic repulsion, and dark matter does not interact electromagnetically - that's why we call it "dark".)

Interactive daily diagram of sea ice extent

[MarchHare]

Personally, I love this diagram. I bookmarked it a couple of years ago and I like to show it to people. Climate change is pretty obvious if you hide all the series and then reveal them one by one in chronological order.

    http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

(University of Illinois)

Re:Interactive daily diagram of sea ice extent

[Anonymous Coward]

A pack of lies.

Re:Interactive daily diagram of sea ice extent

[blindseer]

Would that be an ICE pack of lies?

Strangely

[argStyopa]

...Antarctic ice has been setting maximums.

Even more curious (to me) are the different responses:
- Arctic ice is shrinking: CLEARLY THIS IS GLOBAL WARMING.
- Antarctic ice is growing: (shrug) we really don't have any idea why this is happening I guess we'll just have to figure it out (shrug, again)

http://www.nasa.gov/content/go...

When the "record" is only 35 years, 'record setting' really isn't that big a deal.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

The opening of the Northeastern passage? A herald of climatological disaster? Well, not so much:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

Re:Strangely

[religionofpeas]

- Antarctic ice is growing: (shrug) we really don't have any idea why this is happening I guess we'll just have to figure it out (shrug, again)

If you look at the volume, Antarctic ice is shrinking. There are some good theories about why the sea ice is growing, but scientist like to be careful. In any case, growing Antarctic sea ice area isn't really helping anybody, nor is it conflicting with global warming.

Re:Strangely

[Gavagai80]

You may be ignorant of why it's happening, but everybody else knows that melting land ice in Antarctica increases the freezing temperature of sea water resulting in more sea ice. Hardly mysterious.

Re:Strangely

[Anonymous Coward]

- Antarctic ice is growing: (shrug) we really don't have any idea why this is happening I guess we'll just have to figure it out (shrug, again)

Actually, we do have an idea. Warming temperatures is causing LAND ice to melt, decreasing salinity of the antarctic ocean. As I'm sure you know, we use salt on roads to melt ice because salt lowers the freezing point of water. Therefore if there is less salt in the water it will freeze at a higher temperature, hence more sea ice

http://rsta.royalsocietypublis...

Re:Strangely

[Layzej]

Eric Steig provides a good summary of our current understanding: http://www.realclimate.org/ind...

Re:Strangely

[NetNed]

Sooooo why isn't the same thing happening in the Arctic then?

Re:Strangely

[LynnwoodRooster]

I guess NASA is wrong then about Antarctica adding 80+ billion tons of ice per year. Density of ice is fairly stable versus temperature so the volume of ice is actually increasing quite a bit. But then, maybe NASA doesn't know what it's doing.

Re:Strangely

[Anonymous Coward]

um.... the ocean temps are a product of heatwaves not AGW.

hhttps://science.slashdot.org/story/16/03/29/040240/ocean-temps-predict-us-heat-waves-50-days-out-study-finds#comments

Re:Strangely

[amorsen]

Because the Arctic doesn't have an ice-covered continent. Duh. Greenland can only do so much.

Re:Strangely

[shawn2772]

Sooooo why isn't the same thing happening in the Arctic then?

The Arctic land ice can't melt, because there isn't any. Land, I mean.

Re:Strangely

[Xyrus]

...Antarctic ice has been setting maximums.

Even more curious (to me) are the different responses:
- Arctic ice is shrinking: CLEARLY THIS IS GLOBAL WARMING.
- Antarctic ice is growing: (shrug) we really don't have any idea why this is happening I guess we'll just have to figure it out (shrug, again)

Bullshit. Antarctic ice increases were predicted as a result of warming several decades ago. Are you that ignorant of physics? Let me help you then.

Arctic ice is floating in the ocean. Every winter it freezes, every summer it melts. To reduce the amount of ice in the arctic, you need an increase in heat. To greatly reduce the amount of ice in the arctic, you need a lot of heat. Why? Because the salinity in the arctic remains about the same, so any large increase or decrease in ice is a result of disparity in energy.

Antarctic ice is also floating in the ocean. However, there is massive ice sheet on top of a landmass in the center. So ice extent can change by two different causes. The first is the same as the arctic: heat. The second is changes in salinity. Less saline water freezes at higher temperatures.

In the Antarctic, increased heat leads to increase melting of land ice. The influx of fresh water decreases the salinity of the surrounding ocean (observed). A decrease in salinity means ice can form at higher temperatures. Thus, instead of the ice line being capped at 28F, it can push to 29F. As the salinity continues to decrease, the ice line can push even higher until it reaches a maximum of 32F. As temps continue to warm, that 32F line moves further south so the ice extent starts decreasing again.

In short, Antarctic ice is expected to continue expanding until the salinity min/temperature max lines meet, at which point further warming will result in a net decrease of extent due to the increase freshwater runoff from the Antarctic land ice.

http://www.nasa.gov/content/go...

When the "record" is only 35 years, 'record setting' really isn't that big a deal.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

The opening of the Northeastern passage? A herald of climatological disaster? Well, not so much:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

You're quoting the register. As a reliable scientific source. You're beyond help.

Re:Strangely

[phantomfive]

When the "record" is only 35 years, 'record setting' really isn't that big a deal.

That's a good point.

Re:Strangely

[Layzej]

Antarctic ice increases were predicted as a result of warming several decades ago

I don't think that's true. Do you have a citation for that?

Re:Strangely

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, not so much. Try again.

Re:Strangely

[HiThere]

You left out a crucial word.
...Antarctic sea ice has been setting maximums.

This is a bit puzzling, but several researchers think they have the answer as to why. Unfortunately, they disagree, so more research is needed. However this does not imply that the Antarctic land ice sheets have stopped melting. So the point you intended to make fails.

Re:Strangely

[Anonymous Coward]

Density of (pure) water ice.
Not density of seawater (a mixture of salts, alkaloids, minerals, and water) ice.
Besides, density isn't the relevant metric. It's salinity vs freezing temperature.

that's also a single study from just one group at NASA.
it does not represent the totality of NASA's thoughts or research on the subject.
Quoting it out of context, out of any perspective, or peer review or verification or commentary, to serve a political point, is highly unethical of you.

In all likelihood that NASA study is correct. Yet in all likelihood the statement is hardly as simple as you make it out to be. For instance, that study is of a single year. As such it doesn't yet overturn the previously established multiyear trends of "east gaining some ice, but offset by the west losing more at a faster rate".

Astounding evidence from such a reliable source

[Anonymous Coward]

as the Snow and Ice Data Center at UC Boulder, an institution that exists by of and for leftist activists who proselytize global warming. They are hopelessly corrupt. Ignore them.

An Inconvenient Truth

[Anonymous Coward]

They came to document global warming and shrinking polar ice caps – but now they’re desperately waiting for the US Coast Guard to rescue their ship after it got stuck in record-breaking Antarctic ice.

The Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star left Australia Sunday and is steaming toward Antarctica to rescue crew members from the scientists’ Russian ship – and a Chinese vessel that came to its aid and also got stuck.

  See moar - Proof Positive We're All Gonna Die!

Run! Run for your lives! Yeah, up a couple of steps should do it.

What may future hold

[Kotroloni]

Interesting. Makes me think of what may happen in the future.

Antarctic ice cap

[GeorgeRowe]

I recently read that the antarctic ice cap has been growing and expanding. What is the comparison between ice in antarctic expanding and ice in the arctic diminishing? I have not seen or heard and such comparison. I'll look again in case I missed it. I recall that in January 1962 the temperature at my home in Phoenix, AZ was 12deg F for long enough to freeze to the ground several young but good sized trees. That was 54 years ago. In 1950 while in high school I watched snow fall in downtown Phoenix. That was 62 years ago. Could it be that these recent (20 or so years) fluctuations are normal. Just maybe? George