Prepare For Even More Volatile Weather in 2017 (engadget.com)

An anonymous shares a report on Engadget: Ice isn't just great for keeping your drinks cool at parties, it also helps keep our planet cool by reflecting some of the sun's heat away. But thanks to our steadfast refusal to address climate change, there's going to be a lot less ice in the Arctic next year. Scientists are observing record high temperatures in the Arctic circle that's likely to lead to record low levels of ice coverage in 2017. Long story short, we're currently melting the wall that's helped stop the seas boiling for all of these years. Normally, by November, the global temperature has dropped sufficiently that ice can form again in the Arctic ready for the following summer. This year, however, climate scientists saw a spike to -7 celsius (19f) -- 15 degrees celsius (27f) warmer than usual. While the readings have fluctuated since November 11, they're expected to rocket up again in the next few days.

Comments

Anti-science bullshit is the new normal here

[CajunArson]

"Long story short, we're currently melting the wall that's helped stop the seas boiling for all of these years."

Yes, that bullshit is what passes for "science" on Slashdot these days and if you dare to point out that bullshit is bullshit you can be blacklisted as an "anti-science" nazi for failing to show proper piety to the religion of Global Warming -- oops I mean "Climate Change".

Re:Anti-science bullshit is the new normal here

[slashkitty]

Indeed. If slashdot is going to venture out of tech space, at least they could do is stick to science. This is just a dumbed down scaremonger piece. It has no place in scientific discussion. (other than maybe to point out what is NOT science)

Re:Anti-science bullshit is the new normal here

[Mashiki]

Don't worry. We already know that there will be no more snow by 2010, the telegraph told us so. Oh, and we're going to run out of food by 1980, and the end of natural gas is here too...courtesy of 1985.

Re:Anti-science bullshit is the new normal here

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, but our industry should already be dead because sulfur emission controls would have dealt a death blow to it. And these nice salmon tartar? It doesn't exist because fishing quotas have made fisheries extinct. And these damn industry-killing CFC regulations were the cherry on top, because of them we don't have air conditioning anymore.

Should I continue with the tropes from the other side?

Re: Anti-science bullshit is the new normal here

[Jakune]

In America, that is currently the partisan universe we live in. You can basically bring it up from either with little to no scientific proof or any sort of true data on any topic. And that is what is being done by most, whether it be the politicians, leaders, or the sheeple following those people that call other people sheeple for following someone else. Instead of seeing something on the media "Global Warming is a hoax" or "Global Warming is melting the ice caps" and then looking into it. They just say, this is what fox/cnn/msnbc/cbs/etc says and there for that is what I believe. And to answer the question... Horrible, living in that universe is Horrible and makes me fear the future (Idiocracy anyone?)!

Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump won - get over it. He's going to give us the best weather ever.

Re:yeah right

[Bayoudegradeable]

Haven't been any hurricanes in 10 years? I'm guessing you live in Iowa; hence you didn't see any hurricanes. You are aware that the strongest hurricanes ever observed in the Pacific have been forming regularly? Just because the US hasn't seen a catastrophe doesn't mean "there haven't been any hurricanes for 10 years." This has nothing to do with "politically correct shit." It has to do with science. Don't take my word for it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The seas are NOT going to boil.

[emil]

Anyone with a cursory understanding of climate over the geologic ages knows that ice at both poles is rare:

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

Permanent ice is actually a rare phenomenon in the history of the Earth, occurring only during the 20% of the time that the planet is under an icehouse effect.

Humans as a species do not have any serious ability to harm the planet. We can easily make it completely unsuitable for human life, however.

Re:The seas are NOT going to boil.

[mce]

Say again? :-)

Not Worried

[31415926535897]

I'm not worried anymore. Trump said he'll be tough on volatile weather. I know it will be the most serene weather we've ever had.

And if it doesn't cooperate, he'll build the biggest wall you've ever seen on the east border of California. That will kill two birds with one stone. (Not that trump has only one stone...He definitely has two and they're the biggest and best stones you've ever seen).

Re: yeah right

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you positive that those trees fell down due to "wind"? Correlation does not equal causation you know. Maybe those trees were just tired. Or, maybe they got drunk and passed out. Quit blaming everything on this "wind" hocus-pocus.

re: human race wiped out?

[King_TJ]

The fear-mongering that we're going to successfully wipe ourselves out by not immediately embracing solar or wind energy, or electric cars, or whatever the faux solution-du-jour is ..... That's as much B.S. as this sensationalist garbage that our oceans will begin boiling if the polar ice melts.

If we succeed in destroying ourselves as a species on Earth, it will probably be with a nuclear war. But even that is a situation that essentially peaked in the 1980's, and nations have taken steps to back-pedal from it since then.

You're not helping

[belthize]

Stupid ass hyperbole (seas boiling) is not helping.

Increases in CO2 are real, impacts to global temperature due to CO2 are real, impacts to life (human or otherwise, positive and negative) due to rising temperatures and ocean levels are real.

Hollywood-esque hyperbole just confuses the issue and makes it trivial to lump all information into the same cesspool of misinformation.

Super sciency lead in

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"Ice isn't just great for keeping your drinks cool at parties..."

Was this written for 3rd-graders?

Thanks for the credible scientific lead in. I mean, I had NO IDEA that ice was good for anything beyond keeping my drinks cold at parties. And now it turns out it's got something or other to do with the planet? Well I'll be damned. Can't we just go to the mini-mart and buy a few more bags?

Re:You lied

[Freischutz]

You said: the claims after Katrina hit 11 years ago that THE GULF COAST would see hurricane after hurricane, claiming there would be 3, 4, maybe over half a dozen per year and offered these links as articles that made this claim. Let's take a look.

Story 1

This article says nothing about the Gulf coast being hit by 3, 4, maybe over half a dozen hurricanes per year. Just that as there is a observable and measurable correlation between oceans warming and hurricanes growing more frequent and severe.

Story 2

This article mostly talks about the fact that hurricanes may become more intense and that a category 6 will eventually have to be created if that happens because hurricanes with windspeed ranging from 257.5 kph to 407 kph are being lumped together into category 5. It goes on to speculate that dumping the category system might be a better idea than creating a category 6. Towards the end it even says: This oscillation means the Atlantic is expected to cool in the future, obscuring links among hurricane activity and global warming. Perhaps counterintuitively, recent computer modeling studies predict fewer tropical cyclones if the ocean heats up further as a result of global warming. But they also predict intensification of the ones that do form, albeit with limited confidence. Frequency drops by 6 to 34 percent this century, according to 2010 review article in Nature Geoscience, whereas intensity rises 2 to 11 percent. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) , i.e. fewer hurricanes but the ones we'll get will be more severe. Nothing about the Gulf coast being hit by 3, 4, maybe over half a dozen hurricanes per year.

Story 3

The independent isn't really a scientific source but all this piece says is that somebody found evidence that warmer oceans seem to be linked to an increase in hurricane frequency and that in a warm year hurricanes are twice as likely as in a cold year. The real news here is that somebody found a way to extract data about hurricanes from old measurements made before the satellite age. They say nothing about the Gulf coast being hit by 3, 4, maybe over half a dozen hurricanes per year.

Story 4

Still nothing about the Gulf coast being hit by 3, 4, maybe over half a dozen hurricanes per year. It does talk about more hurricanes but the frequency is nothing like you claim: ”If this trend continues, it is realistic to expect a ten-fold increase in hurricanes like Katrina. That amounts to once every two years,”

Story 5

And yet again nothing about the Gulf coast being hit by 3, 4, maybe over half a dozen hurricanes per year. This guy talks about improvements in computer modelling since 2005 and seems to be making the case that global hurricane frequency will not increase but that the severity of the hurricanes we do get will increase. I.e. about the same number of hurricanes but they'll be more destructive.

Yea, you did a search.

Found all these in less than 1 minute, and everyone voted you up because they want you to be right, but obviously you are not. I like the one claiming Category 6 hurricanes will be hitting any day now.

Bonus speech by Al Gore saying the same thing.

Read that long winded piece and it is mostly a regurgitation of d