Slashdot Mirror
For the First Time On Record, Human-Caused Climate Change Has Rerouted an Entire River (washingtonpost.com)
A team of scientists on Monday documented what they're describing as the first case of large-scale river reorganization as a result of human-caused climate change (Editor's note: could be paywalled; alternative source). From a report: They found that in mid-2016, the retreat of a very large glacier in Canada's Yukon territory led to the rerouting of its vast stream of meltwater from one river system to another -- cutting down flow to the Yukon's largest lake, and channeling freshwater to the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska, rather than to the Bering Sea. The researchers dubbed the reorganization an act of "rapid river piracy," saying that such events had often occurred in the Earth's geologic past, but never before, to their knowledge, as a sudden present-day event. They also called it "geologically instantaneous." "The river wasn't what we had seen a few years ago. It was a faded version of its former self," lead study author Daniel Shugar of the University of Washington at Tacoma said of the Slims River, which lost much of its flow because of the glacial change. "It was barely flowing at all. Literally, every day, we could see the water level dropping, we could see sandbars popping out in the river."
"The researchers found only a minuscule probability that the retreat of Kaskawulsh glacier — which retracted by nearly half a mile from 1956 to 2007 — could have occurred in what they called a “constant climate.” They therefore inferred that the events in question could be attributed to human-caused climate change."
Nah, because through the power of bigger engineering, we can put the bastard back. The Miss would have jumped over to the Atchafalaya channel years ago if it wasn't for engineering intervention.
Also I wonder how on-clock we believe these cycles have been coming in the past. Have they all been well within that 15% estimated drift of today? 15% doesn't sound like much for a system so incredibly complex. I may be wrong.
Sounds like you don't really know just how fucked thing have become. Using ice core samples, they were able to calculate how much atmospheric CO2 there was in the past. Here's a graph of it including our really fucked present.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
In many parts of the world from India and Bangladesh, Indonesia and South America, rivers changing course is a common occurrence and the residents there have learned to build their houses on stilts to avoid flooding. As silt builds up and dams the flow of part of a river on mostly flat terrain, the water will find a new path of least resistance to the sea.
Also:
- Watch sea levels rise
- Watch unprecedented king tides and storm surges destroy billions in coastal property
- Watch millions of coastal & river delta farmers lose their farms due to salt
- Watch global threat levels rise from increased resource conflicts
- Watch temperatures rise
- Watch tropical diseases spread to new areas
- Watch unique and valuable reefs bleach and die
- Watch billions of tourism dollars disappear
- Watch rainfall patterns change drastically
- Watch farmers try to cope with drought & floods like they've never seen before
- Watch rising ocean acidification attack crucial food-web ecosystems
- Watch rising risks of runaway feedback from e.g. Siberian methane traps
- Watch deniers eventually change their tune to "oh well, it's too late to do anything now"
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Good or bad, what proof is there, this is indeed "human-caused"?
You can at least start with the IPCC report for a round-up of the science, then look at the scientific journals that have been published since then for any updates that have been made.
Good or bad, what proof is there, this is indeed "human-caused"?
It's not like you intend to read it.
No sig today...
Good or bad, what proof is there, this is indeed "human-caused"?
Whose fault is it if you are ignorant of the basic science of climate?
Well:
1) If you measure all the sources of radiative forcing, you see that the natural ones are pretty much negligible with respect to the current warming, where as the "human-caused" ones are large.
2) There have been papers that split the warming into the warming that would have happened from natural forcing, and that which would have happened from anthropogenic forcing. ((paper). Satisfyingly, the warming that has happened from the sum of the forcings, is approximately the sum of the warmings from each forcing. So it's nice and additive, therefore statements like "x% of the warming of the past y years is anthropogenic" are meaningful. Such as "80% of the warming of the past 100 years is anthropogenic" or "110% of the warming of the past 50 years is anthropogenic".