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Sea Levels May Rise More Rapidly Due To Greenland Ice Melt
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Rising sea levels could become overwhelming sooner than previously believed, according to the authors of the most comprehensive study yet of the accelerating ice melt in Greenland. Run-off from this vast northern ice sheet -- currently the biggest single source of meltwater adding to the volume of the world's oceans -- is 50% higher than pre-industrial levels and increasing exponentially as a result of manmade global warming, says the paper, published in Nature on Wednesday. Almost all of the increase has occurred in the past two decades -- a jolt upwards after several centuries of relative stability. This suggests the ice sheet becomes more sensitive as temperatures go up.
The researchers used ice core data from three locations to build the first multi-century record of temperature, surface melt and run-off in Greenland. Going back 339 years, they found the first sign of meltwater increase began along with the industrial revolution in the mid-1800s. The trend remained within the natural variation until the 1990s, since when it has spiked far outside of the usual nine- to 13-year cycles.
The researchers used ice core data from three locations to build the first multi-century record of temperature, surface melt and run-off in Greenland. Going back 339 years, they found the first sign of meltwater increase began along with the industrial revolution in the mid-1800s. The trend remained within the natural variation until the 1990s, since when it has spiked far outside of the usual nine- to 13-year cycles.
Once upon I time, I thought it was a legitimate concern. But they've Chicken Littled it way beyond anything I have patience for at this point. Every week or two, we get another 'report' speeding up the timeline to armageddon by 25-50% or adding another foot or two to predicted sea level rise. I can only take so much before I have no choice but to write this whole thing off as fear mongering. To what end, I don't know, but it's clearly obvious at this point that it is - nothing is this dire. Nothing.
Look, I don't want to hand our offspring a big shitburger after we're gone. I don't want them to hate us and look back on us with disgust. But there's no way things are as bad as they say. I would have given money, changed my lifestyle, my purchasing habits, whatever was required - and I did, for a time. But after years of constant escalation of rhetoric, I am done. I'm not going to waste any more of my time or effort on this. Things will be fine, we'll adapt, some people will have to move, some species will die out. But life will go on. At this point we've turned it into a bigger issue than climate change ever was. Adios.
What I'd like is to -- someday -- see all these deniers, excuse seekers, carbon lobbyists, oil burners before a court, accused of crimes against humanity.
And then, the likes of Trump, the Kochs, most of the political class, Bannon, all that ugly bunch doing services in those places in the world where damage is highest (I'm not for jails, mind you).
Instead of a miniscule bad effect, why don't you work against serious degradations to the human condition, like dictatorships all over, who leave their citizens magnitudes worse off than the worst effects of global warming?
For that matter, lets see politicians who send out political favors for kickbacks, grinding industry to a halt worldwide in favor of their connected friends, be tried, if you're worried about bad effects on humanity.
It's fun to disasterbate because it makes us feel special and open to secret knowledge! What's that word? Tuned in? No, that's the 1960s. His eyes open; his sails unfurl? No, that's the 24th century.
Woke! That's the current term. You're woke!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Tell the truth, at least occasionally.
I've been told the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2032, it was a misprint from an alarmist advertisement with no scientific backing, but was reprinted EVERYWHERE about 10 years ago.
It will never snow in DC again, then DC is crippled by snow that year.
It will never snow in UK again, then the UK is crippled by snow.
Its the warmest year in the US by FAR, until you include Alaska that year then it was one of the coldest ever.
Sea temps are going up faster than expected, first person who double checks it finds they lied (Just 2 weeks ago)
Polar bears going extinct, Canada is now having issues with Polar Bear overpopulation in areas.
It just never stops with the EASILY provable lies they tell. You can go ahead and say those are journalists, but none of you AWGers are calling out the lies and it made you lose credibility. You knew they were lies, and called people names for pointing it out, because the lies supported your agenda, not realizing it wrecked credibility. You've lost most people because of that.
I have also been on the Earth a long time. Making measurements.
Ice is there, yes. A few hundred miles less ice on the glaciers. I assume that you can tell the difference between an ice cube and an ice sheet. Or is it all filed under ice?
Bloody hell.
Storms have always been there. In different places, with different moisure content.
Maybe the Khmer Empire thought the same as you, just before they died horribly. They'd moved the atmospheric rivers by several hundred miles. Sure, there was rain. Just not near them, because they were idiots.
Don't copy them.
The temperature has risen to levels that are higher than what they should be given prevailing conditions. But that's not as important as the gradient. The gradient has never occurred in historic times, or indeed any time since the last asteroid strike.
But you ignore that and assume all gradients are equal, all numbers are equal.
They are not.
The Khmer discovered this too late. This time, you're plsying not with millions of lives but billions. Ignorance isn't going to save even one of them. There is no plea bargain with physics.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
But we have a zero carbon alternative. Build nukes.
What I'd like to see is all the hippies and foot draggers who run around with their hair on fire about global warming, but then stall technical solutions, to be hauled before a court and accused of crimes against humanity.
Have gnu, will travel.
New flash - the entire history of the modern human species has occurred in a single ice age - the current Quaternary Ice Age started about 2.6 million years ago, about a half-million years before homo erectus evolved.
You may be thinking of the latest glacial period within that ice age, and yes, we were possibly coming out of that before our carbon-based economy gathered anything like its current momentum. However, we've accelerated the process considerably by adding major new forcing factors in the form of deforestation, desertification, and significantly boosting the heat retention of the atmosphere - and that's changing things considerably faster than normal, and there is a very real risk that on our current course we'll cause the ice age to end, and the Earth to transition to it's opposing quasi-stable hothouse state.
And while the Earth is always changing, it's the speed of that transition which can be a problem - most trees and other plants can't migrate very quickly, and if the climate lines move faster than they can, they likely go extinct, and take much of their associated ecosystems with them. And we're already in the midst of one of the larger extinction events the planet has seen thanks to pollution, over-hunting and ecosystem destruction. A second, independent extinction event on a similar scale may well reduce biodiversity to the point of ecosystem collapse. It's happened several times before, and it can take the planet many thousands of years to recover. Bad news for anyone who wants to eat regularly in the interim.
Perhaps even worse, at least for us, is that it's looking like such transitions don't happen smoothly. As the thermal engines driving weather destabilize, weather patterns become less predictable from year to year, and the rate of crop failure increases considerably as a result. And when people get hungry, wars break out.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
What "full communism" means is a society without any government at all -- or classes or money for that matter. If you look at "communist states", they actually have all of these things: social classes, currency, and some degree of private ownership.
In fact, in a certain sense "communist state" is a contradiction in terms. Communist regimes knew this, and justified their existence as a vanguard revolution that would bring about communism in the long term. This really wasn't any better, since communist ideology see communism as a natural and historically inevitable outcome of capitalism.
If you look at how "communist states" actually arose, they didn't arise out of a popular adoption of communist ideology. That comes later. Indigenous communist revolutions never happened in functioning democracies; they came in societies dominated by wealthy oligarchs, dictators or warlords. I see a lot of parallels with the anti-elitism of Trumpists. They're not ideologues; they're just fed up with the elite and want the swamp drained.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Three conservative rags and a conservative think-tank flying in the face of science with cherry-picking and strawmen, I think that says it all.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel