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Sea Levels May Rise More Rapidly Due To Greenland Ice Melt

Posted by BeauHD on from the cause-and-effect dept.

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.

50 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. Good by nagora · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Washington D.C. is very near sea-level, isn't it?

    --
    "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
    1. Re:Good by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

      ...for the fish, enjoy more water!

      That is incompatible with them due to temperature or chemical composition being off from what they evolved to survive in. Eventually they'll evolve again but fish levels will probably fall (or at least diversity will fall- there will likely be some species for whom the change is beneficial).

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  2. I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is an extremely confused response. This essentially says that the more scientists are concerned about a problem the less you are concerned. If you keep seeing a lot of different articles and ways something might be a problem, and one isn't personally a subject matter expert, deciding to then dismiss all of it is the opposite of good logic. That said, it is true that by nature of media coverage the less concerning predictions about climate change get less attention in the general media, so you might not see them as much, but that doesn't change the fact that the broad consensus is pretty severe. Studies like this are trying to figure out just how severe that is, and even the mild predictions are pretty serious. Honestly, your response comes across a little as someone who has decided that you aren't going to bother making any even small changes in your lifestyle and then found a justification for it.

    2. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by gtall · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Thank you for that well-reasoned screed on how we don't need to do anything about the problem we've created for ourselves and future generations. We should have a monument erected to chisel your words in granite: To future generations: piss off, we don't care about you.

    3. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So how would you recommend that new knowledge is shared with the public so that you would actually believe it ?

    4. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      [citation needed]

      I would have given money, changed my lifestyle, my purchasing habits, whatever was required - and I did, for a time.

      That's not how it works. What's needed is for you to vote for people who will do something about it, and convince others to do so as well. Nothing you can do on a personal level means jack diddly shit.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by Mashiki · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Thank you for that well-reasoned screed on how we don't need to do anything about the problem we've created for ourselves and future generations. We should have a monument erected to chisel your words in granite: To future generations: piss off, we don't care about you.

      That's not what they said. They said, that rampant fear mongering simply makes them not give a fuck because the same thing has been pushed over and over and over and over again to the point for the last 40-60 years that if it had happened like they said, the world would be: On fire, drowned, and everything would be both dead and alive, while starving from a lack of oxygen and burning alive because there's no ozone layer, while there would be no more snowfalls, and massive snowfalls all at the same time and in the same country. If you're unable to see just how many decades and the level of alarmist crap has been going on, you haven't been paying attention.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    6. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      You should improve your critical thinking skills. Whether it is a "legitimate concern" or not, is completely unrelated to whether "they" are Chicken Littling it.

    7. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by dasunt · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      Scientists have been making warnings, and of course the news reports the most extreme scenarios, distorting the picture.

      But oceans are 30% more acidic than pre-Industrial levels, the area covered by arctic sea ice is trending downwards, and sea levels have a measurable rise.

      It won't be the end of humanity, but it is already developing into an expensive problem to fix, as well a politically destabilizing problem as global climate change creates new winners and losers.

    8. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by MrMr · · Score: 2

      The scientists doing this research are quite serious, and are actually trying to get rid of the speculation. Sea level is a thing around here and has to be managed, no matter what the causes are of variations. One interesting line from the abstract is for instance: "We find that the initiation of increases in GrIS melting closely follow the onset of industrial-era Arctic warming in the mid-1800s, but that the magnitude of GrIS melting has only recently emerged beyond the range of natural variability". Probably not something that a Guardian journalist would pick up.
      I also noticed that, although I paid for this research, Nature wants to charge me for seeing its results.

    9. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And there it is in a nutshell. "Climate change" is only cared about as a tool for obtaining more political power.

      You only use Slashdot as a means of demonstrating your lack of reading comprehension, and basic logic skills.

      Climate change is a reason to obtain more political power, because that's necessary to prevent those who claim not to believe in it (like Trump, who's building a seawall specifically to protect his golf course from climate change-related sea level rise) from continuing to obliterate the biosphere upon which we all depend for survival.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    10. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by Gilgaron · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The worse it gets the more fields of research start seeing trends. For example, in microbiology/epidemiology we're seeing that climate change has changed where various disease vectors can live. The entomologists are noting vastly decreased biomass of insects, and so on. So, as things continue to get worse, you will see more impacts from a greater variety of scientists discussed, with increasingly dire predictions of a worse case scenario. So it goes from "it is getting warmer" from the climatologists, to "the ocean is acidifying" from the marine biologists, "diseases are spreading" from the microbiologists. In between, any armchair guy can correlate these things and decide that the earth will snowball into Venus. He may be wrong about the scale, but something less like desertification of the equatorial regions wouldn't exactly be a good thing. Also, if you're familiar with chemical titration, you'll be aware that systems can buffer changes to a degree, and then further inputs will affect change in the system linearly instead. As various buffer systems get overwhelmed, the pace of change will increase.

    11. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by Gilgaron · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Any concern requiring a coordinated response is used to obtain political power, otherwise joint action will be confused. See also: the military, agricultural subsidies, transportation infrastructure. What remains to be seen is if we can affect action with less than a WWII style national mobilization, which would be preferable to avoid, or if we'll just continue to ignore the problem until even such an action would be ineffectual, build some protein farms, and live out Bladerunner 2049.

    12. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by penandpaper · · Score: 2, Insightful

      TBH, I am over it. Future generations will be fine. Just like generations that came after the Black Death, the Fall of Rome, and the Late Bronze Age collapse. If future generations do hold a grudge it will be because they have inherited the bad habit of judging the past with modern morals, ethics and understanding.

    13. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And there it is in a nutshell. "Climate change" is only cared about as a tool for obtaining more political power.

      No. Climate change is a serious problem that is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to fix without giving political power to people who are concerned about it. Nice try casting a rational response into something sinister though.

      --
      Happy people make bad consumers.
    14. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by BCGlorfindel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is an extremely confused response. This essentially says that the more scientists are concerned about a problem the less you are concerned. If you keep seeing a lot of different articles and ways something might be a problem, and one isn't personally a subject matter expert, deciding to then dismiss all of it is the opposite of good logic. That said, it is true that by nature of media coverage the less concerning predictions about climate change get less attention in the general media, so you might not see them as much, but that doesn't change the fact that the broad consensus is pretty severe. Studies like this are trying to figure out just how severe that is, and even the mild predictions are pretty serious. Honestly, your response comes across a little as someone who has decided that you aren't going to bother making any even small changes in your lifestyle and then found a justification for it.

      I largely share the parent's conclusions, and am pretty convinced it's the most rational response too.

      If we walk back to Gore's noble prize for an inconvenient truth and the IPCC's work, at that time those calling for action and change all cited the scientific consensus, that the science was settled. Anyone with a dissenting opinion on the impacts or the best course of action was called a denier.

      The thing is, the crowd trying to push an agenda of carbon taxes, industry cutbacks, etc has repeatedly dragged out scientific studies like the above out to declare that we must act now because, oh no, it's even worse than we feared.

      The rational crowd though is starting to question how come the scientific consensus that was so settled, is now being overturned on a seemingly annual basis, and maybe those pushing for change and dragging this reports into the spotlight are just playing chicken little to get their agenda through.

      An easy example, the most recent IPCC 5AR(2013, so 7 extra years of research since Gore's Nobel prize), says the following on sea level rise to 2100:
      For the period 2081–2100, compared to 1986–2005, global mean sea level rise is likely (medium confidence) to be in the 5 to 95% range of projections from process-based models, which give 0.26 to 0.55 m for RCP2.6, 0.32 to 0.63 m for RCP4.5, 0.33 to 0.63 m for RCP6.0, and 0.45 to 0.82 m for RCP8.5. For RCP8.5, the rise by 2100 is 0.52 to 0.98 m with a rate during 2081–2100 of 8 to 16 mm yr–1.
      We have considered the evidence for higher projections and have concluded that there is currently insufficient evidence to evaluate the probability of specific levels above the assessed likely range. Based on current understanding, only
      the collapse of marine-based sectors of the Antarctic ice sheet, if initiated, could cause global mean sea level to rise substantially above the likely range during the 21st century. This potential additional contribution cannot be precisely quantified but there is medium confidence that it would not exceed several tenths of a meter of sea level rise during the 21st century.

      Scenario 8.5 is to show the worst case, if emissions are still accelerating in 2100, and has it's range of 0.52m to .98m sea level rise by 2100. That's what the "settled" science says, but then along comes a headline claiming things are happening much faster, even "increasing exponentially as a result of manmade global warming".

      The good news for the scientific crowd though, is if you read closer, the Nature article linked does acknowledge the IPCC work and makes far more modest claims, merely that this may alter future IPCC corrections. This is in contract to the chicken littles writing the headlines.

      Ignoring all of the oh-no it's even worse and now it's even more important to act crowd is a good idea, they are generally trying to use deception to manipulate people.

    15. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      First of all, the US is one of the countries which is doing the least to help out with climate change. Note in contrast for example, that Sweden is reaching its 2030 goals for renewable energy by the end of the this year https://www.thelocal.se/20180716/sweden-to-reach-2030-renewable-energy-goal-in-2018. Moreover, the US per a capita CO2 production is over twice that of the EU and about three times the world average https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions. We're doing less than other countries, and have more that we can easily do. But many of the things that one can do, like eating less meat, getting a hybrid or electric car, getting home solar panels, will not just be good for the environment, but will save you money.

    16. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by penandpaper · · Score: 2

      the next generation will ruin civilization ... One generation complaining about another has been a static theme in human history.

      Considering nearly all civilizations have collapsed into ruin, a few generations were correct about the younger ones ruining everything!

    17. Re:I've stopped paying any attention to this shit by JoshuaZ · · Score: 2

      I don't care about Europe and what they are doing.

      That's a strange claim to make given that you just said in your previous comment that "If everyone in the US became Luddites and lived to pre-industrial standards, it still woudln't matter because other countries will not be as determined." My point about Europe was in response to you claiming that you apparently care precisely about what other countries are doing.

      I care about my standard of living and what I can do. Per capita doesn't mean shit to my life and I don't want my standard of living lowered. I probably have a lower average carbon consumption so why should I concern myself about per capita when, again, it doesn't matter what the US does if other countries don't care.

      You appear to engaging in some degree of inconsistency, where you in one sentence say that you don't care about what other countries are doing and then argue that it doesn't matter what the US is doing if other countries aren't doing anything, when my entire point was that other countries are doing all sorts of things. And yes, per a capita does matter: it is a sign that very small changes in lifestyle can have a large impact. I don't know why you think you have a lower average carbon consumption (I presume you mean output not consumption there)- compared to whom? Certainly not the Europeans or most other people on this planet.

      I enjoy eating meat and I will eat it when I want. I don't have money for a new car or solar panels. Do you have any suggestion that doesn't cost money or seem like Lent?

      So in other words, you don't want to do something which will save money for you, even if you don't have much money right now, and you are willing to keep doing things which you know cause damage to everyone in the long-term, including yourself, so you can occasionally have tasty food. Do you not see a problem with that? In any event, I'm not even trying to suggest you don't eat meat, but eating less meat is a major way one can help out.

      You don't know what I have done or how I live my life but expect more money and more action. Fuck off. Because right now, it seems like you are preaching a religion. "Give up the loins of your decadence and forfeit the pleasures of life before God. Fasten your belts and shiver in winter for warmth and eat not the swine or drink the milk of Bos taurus. Carbon Tax will save thy children in the last days before the coming apocalypse. You will be blessed tenfold the tithing you pay toward Gods son the Green Savior. We are all carbon using sinners and must suffer to redeem our souls. In the name of God, his Green Son, and the Holy Carbon Tax. Amen."

      It is true that I don't personally know what you've done with your life. However, it is pretty clear from this conversation that you are unwilling to do any of the major steps that would actually be helpful. I'm not sure also why you have so much anger over this that you feel a need to tell someone who is commenting on what one can practically do to "fuck off." You appear to be also making some very bad pattern matching here. Yes, many religions engaged in self-denial and similar activity. That doesn't mean that reducing one's use of a specific resource can't make sense, and it doesn't mean that deliberately reducing consumption of some types of goods must somehow be a religion. The actual science and facts are that this can help. Simply ignoring the massive CO2 output created by meat consumption and regular cars and the like and labeling it a "religion" isn't a substantial or productive argument.

      Note, I don't deny AGW or think the science is wrong or w/e. I don't like the Fear mongering, harping hippy hypocrites, and the solutions those people bring.

      I don't know who the harping hippy hypocrites are in this context (if you mean the sort of people who claim to care about AGW but then try to block nuclear power plants, yeah, such

  3. Worse impacts? by gazelam · · Score: 2

    With that much fresh water entering the north Atlantic, it could well shift the North Atlantic current and that could more drastically affect the climate of Europe and create some dramatic cooling there. That might, in the long run, be worse for Europe than the rising sea levels.

  4. Re:Jesus tapdancing Christ, stop with this shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Fucking hell, slashdot, must every other article be about global warming or trump or full communism now???

    FUCK OFF

    Um, sorry. As a person of a younger generation that will need to deal with the accumulation from this shit storm, NO. So sorry that you need to be bothered with news stories about the mess that you have helped create. Yup, it was far easier when we pretended we could talk about effects to far off future generations. It was incredibly wrong AND some of these "far off future generations" are now old enough to be able to understand that we are getting screwed over.

  5. Re:Right after the next ice age... by Phillip2 · · Score: 2

    CO2 in the atmosphere has gone up and down over the years with a natural cycle; we should be at a peak now. Looking at the climate on the scales of 10,000's of years, you would predict that it would be getting colder and this is, indeed, what was predicted back in the 70's. However, instead of peaking, CO2 has gone up and up. Hence the predictions have changed. The change caused by human production of CO2 has massively outweighed any natural cycle.

    Predictions change as either knowledge or the world changes. Since the 70s, both of these have happened.

  6. Re:Crime against humanity by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  7. Re:Crime against humanity by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

    Off the top of my head: Al Gore & Leo DiCaprio

    Other "Lear Jet Liberals": Madonna, Brad & Angelina, John Travolta (owns five jets), Barbra Streisand.

  8. Re: Jesus tapdancing Christ, stop with this shit by jd · · Score: 2

    Ok, so you think there's no difference between a delta of x and a double diffetential of e^x.

    Your maths teacher should be fired if you're that grotesquely incompetent when it comes to rates of change.

    But you're not that stupid. Nobody is. So stop acting as if you were.

    --
    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)
  9. Re:Jesus tapdancing Christ, stop with this shit by sdinfoserv · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "As a young person", you're more part of the problem then us older folk - in the US anyway. If you would actually get out and vote, get people in office who would do something, then we could change it. Sitting back, blaming previous generations is rather pointless when you refuse to exercise your rights and the tools within the system itself, is really the root cause in the US, namely elected owned assholes.

  10. Re: Jesus tapdancing Christ, stop with this shit by jd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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)
  11. Re:Jesus tapdancing Christ, stop with this shit by nagora · · Score: 2

    And the facts are that nothing has changed much.

    Your facts are out of date.

    --
    "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
  12. Re: Crime against humanity by jd · · Score: 2

    Sorry, neither are scientists. None of the others listed are, either.

    Nor have you shown you'd give a damn if they'd sailed to the major conventions, or used the Internet to dial in.

    All you'd do is whinge they were taking bandwidth from your online games.

    Give me real names and a real reason to think you'd actually care about their choice.

    --
    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)
  13. Re:Right after the next ice age... by Freischutz · · Score: 2

    CO2 in the atmosphere has gone up and down over the years with a natural cycle; we should be at a peak now. Looking at the climate on the scales of 10,000's of years, you would predict that it would be getting colder and this is, indeed, what was predicted back in the 70's. However, instead of peaking, CO2 has gone up and up. Hence the predictions have changed. The change caused by human production of CO2 has massively outweighed any natural cycle.

    Predictions change as either knowledge or the world changes. Since the 70s, both of these have happened.

    CO2 levels over the last 10.000 years according to ice core data: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qtL...

  14. Re: Sloppy models? by jd · · Score: 2

    And yet you offer no proof of this omission and no proof of substantial deviation. The models have been highly accurate sibce the 1990s and far more accurate than the skrptics since the 1890s.

    And yet that part doesn't bother you.

    The fact that the science has been fundamentally sound for 114 years doesn't enter your equation.

    What concerns you is a vague, meaningless statemwnt about something that probably never happened.

    Honestly, that's pathetic.

    --
    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)
  15. Re: all fake news by jd · · Score: 2

    Nobody claimed that for 2013. Fictional claims make you look stupider than you already are.

    The sea levels have indeed been rising, in line with actual prediction.

    --
    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)
  16. Re:Tell the truth by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    Whoever told you either of those two things is an idiot and no one in the mainstream scientific community believes that it will never snow again in those locations. What they probably said (or what the scientists said before twisted by someone somewhere) was, snow will be more rare- but also more extreme when it does occur in those locations.

    Its the warmest year in the US by FAR, until you include Alaska that year then it was one of the coldest ever.

    Yeah, and this coincides with the earlier point. As the global temperature rises, the cold polar air isn't staying put over the poles anymore- it drifts down one spot- that makes one part of the globe to get unseasonably cold and another part unseasonably warm. So yes- winter now is seeing both an increase in extreme heat AND extreme cold. It's also possible to have a highest global temperature on record whilst the US has a particularly cold season. Global climate change refers to the globe- not local weather conditions. Don't confuse local weather with global change.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  17. Re:Crime against humanity by PPH · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  18. Denialists lost the severity gamble, HARD. by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Denialists would often ask, "what if these imperfect estimates are too high?" and scientifically-minded people would counter with "what if these imperfect estimates are too low?" In the last few years it's been obvious that they were mostly too low (as in conservative) across the board. Oddly enough the constant unfounded accusations of bias toward climate science has created a real bias toward conservative estimates, as scientists all fear overestimating and becoming the deniosphere's celebrated Chicken Little.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    1. Re:Denialists lost the severity gamble, HARD. by GameboyRMH · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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
  19. Re:When was Greenland Green? by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

    Just asking...

    Greenland has not been green during human habitation of the island. It was called "Greenland" not because it was green but because it was easier to convince people to move there with that name rather than if it was called "Freezingcoldbarrenpieceofshitland".

    Seriously, that's why it was called Greenland, because it sounded pleasant and made getting colonists to go there easier.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  20. Re:Jesus tapdancing Christ, stop with this shit by hey! · · Score: 2

    It couldn't be "full communism" because almost nobody knows what that means now. We live in the Golden Age of Bullshit, where words are used for how they make you feel, not what they mean.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  21. Re:Crime against humanity by dryeo · · Score: 2

    How about the people/industries that finance them? Hippies on their own are poor and have little affect.
    Exxon for example, upon realizing that global warming was real back in the '70's, made the decision to finance the anti-nuke camp to maintain their industry.

    --
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  22. Re:Jesus tapdancing Christ, stop with this shit by Immerman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  23. Re:Any day now we are all going to drown! by hey! · · Score: 2

    OK, here you go: between 1993 and 2014, global sea level rose 2.4 inches according to NOAA.

    This amounts to a background increase of 1/8 inch per year and is mostly due to the ocean's thermal expansion.

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    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  24. Re:Jesus tapdancing Christ, stop with this shit by bob4u2c · · Score: 2

    Wow, let's look back one century to the grand year of 1918.

    Top of the line car was a Studebaker Special Six, with a whopping 29.4 HP engine. Yep, that looks and performs like every car we drive today (actually I kind of like the design, wouldn't mind owning one myself).

    Miles of paved road. I can't find any data back to 1918, but starting in 1960 the USA had about 1.2 million miles of roads, 2016 puts that about 2.7 million miles now.

    Bridges, I can't find exact numbers per year, but I do see that at least 15 new bridges are built every year.

    So yeah, I guess no Infrastructure construction or maintenance has happened since 1918! Seriously you must be deluding yourself! Bridges alone are built to last 50 years, which means that since 1918 if we didn't build any new ones or maintain any of them we should have no bridges 100 years later. I find that hard to believe as I crossed one just getting to work.

    Word of advice, things change all the time. There are things you notice, like a new shopping mall, or new track of housing that goes up in less than a year. Then there are other things you don't notice, like the height of all the trees in your neighborhood that eventually grow so tall they snap power lines, the number of planes flying overhead, rivers cutting a grand canyon out of solid rock over millions of year. Just because things aren't changing rapidly around you doesn't mean it isn't happening. Old infrastructure is changing all the time, it just tends to look old because people want to keep it that way (take aluminum house wiring with new copper runs, gas lamps replaced by street lights, old cars with modern engines, retrofitted building with steel frames, historic roads with new reinforced beddings). Take a common item you probably see every day, the light bulb. Ten years ago the common type was probably an incandescent, 5 years ago most likely a CFL, now you will probably see LED bulbs. To the casual eye they all look the same.

  25. Re:Jesus tapdancing Christ, stop with this shit by hey! · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  26. Re:Tell the truth by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

    That came out of the mainstream scientific community, and was promoted by the various government meteorological offices and so forth. In the case of the UK, the MET openly stated that kids wouldn't know what snowfall was by I think it was 2015 or something.

    It's much more likely that a journalist twisted the words of a scientific study to be more "newsworthy" than for any scientist to say that. Most of the sensationalist science stories are exaggerated from less sensational science studies to make them more shock-value.

    Polar air hasn't ever stayed at the poles.

    No, it hasn't, but hasn't historically moved so far from the poles with regularity as it does now. It's almost a guarantee that somewhere far from the poles will have an astoundingly cold winter and somewhere else will have an astoundingly warm winter now. What used to be a rare occurrence is now happening every year and it's travelling further than what used to be the norm.

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    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  27. Re:Crime against humanity by ClickOnThis · · Score: 2

    So, you have your own rationalization for doing nothing.

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    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  28. Re:Jesus tapdancing Christ, stop with this shit by sdinfoserv · · Score: 2

    https://www.npr.org/2016/05/16...
    http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...
    Eat Shit yourself fucktard. The level of how much you "like" something, has zero impact on its validity.

  29. Let's test that by BCGlorfindel · · Score: 2

    ...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.

    Sounds like a testable hypothesis. In the last century global temp has risen around 1C after having remained comparatively stable prior to that. One could take global crop yields, and compare the annual trends against the change in global temperature.

    The trouble is, that your hypothesis of increased crop failure, and presumably decreased global yields(else if yields don't drop who cares), presupposes that all other things remain equal...

    Of course, global crop production has been trending persistently upwards as temperatures have also trended up. Numerous advances in crop technologies and techniques being a portion, and additionally regions impacted by climate change where conditions become too warm/cold/dry/wet for one crop are rotated for others. Farmers don't stubbornly plant the same crop for decades when conditions change, even if that would make projecting trends easier...

    1. Re:Let's test that by Immerman · · Score: 2

      If weather patterns changes smoothly that would work - however it doesn't appear that will be the case. The problem is that when weather becomes unstable you can no longer use last year's weather to predict the coming year.

      Think of it this way - if for the last decade there were 5 years where corn would have survived, 3 years for wheat, and 2 for soy - and they were all jumbled up, then what should you plant this year? Corn maybe? You've got a 50% chance of getting a crop, if the last decade is representative, but that's still not very good odds. And of course slow growing tree crops and the like can't be readily picked up and moved from year to year, so we'll likely lose most of those, or at least make them much more expensive (hope you're not too attached to coffee or nuts)

      Similarly, if we cross the tipping point to a hothouse Earth, and could just jump a few millenia into the future, things would probably look pretty rosy. All of Canada and Russia, Northern China, etc. will likely be warm and fertile. The problem is not the destination, it's the long, unpredictable journey to get there.

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      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  30. Let me stop you right there by presidenteloco · · Score: 2

    "Global warming deniers" and "highly intelligent people" are mutually exclusive categories.

    Oh wait, maybe there's a tiny intersection in the venn diagram, where they overlap with the "selfish machiavellian lying assholes" category. They say they deny it, but only to further their selfish ends of not having to make any lifestyle or policy changes. If they are intelligent, they know their denial stance is just posturing for effect.

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    Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?