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NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

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Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#111

Post by tajen »

Xylakant wrote: post #106
NumberCruncher wrote: post #105

I like this quotation: >> We're all human. Oh, we all do our duty when there's no cost to it. Honor comes easy then. Yet sooner or later in every man's life there comes a day when it's not easy. A day when he must choose. People like to talk about human driven climate change but do not want to pay the price of stopping it. I have seen a demonstration against climate change in Germany. There weren't any banner with th…

I don't own a car - not entirely for ecologic reasons, but that's one of them. I do most of my short-distance trips by bicycle, I'll use a car-sharing offer when I need to transport heavy stuff, though I currently consider buying a cargo bike to replace that use. I'm in the fortunate position that this is possible for me since I live in the city, have proper public transport, can walk to the supermarket and in a pinc…

> I'm in the fortunate position that this is possible for me since I live in the city

I can't approve. You've made the choice. You've paid for this choice. People keep claiming that I'm lucky to live close from my work and not have children. I was a choice, and blaming it on chance undervalues the effort we make (i.e. paying twice the price for housing and/or only choosing among jobs within a certain radius of public transports).

> I believe action against climate change cannot be effective at an individual level

Yes. After travelling the world, I've seen that there will always be another Mythbusters show to waste cars, another person who'll have an unfair advantge on me by using air conditioning and long-distance travel, and another child born in the world who deserves the same amoung of energy luxury I've lived in.

Unless all countries pass a tax on petrol usage (I mean a huge tax which will make cars, meat and heating too expensive for 95% of the population), we're doomed.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#112

Post by NumberCruncher »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #72
M_Grey wrote: post #11

I suspect that we can expect a lot of bad news to emerge over the next few decades, as the promise of climate change becomes the reality of climate change.

On the other hand, people have been saying that for last few decades, and the bad news hasn't had much impact.

>> Reminds me of that fellow back home that fell off a ten story building. [...] as he was falling people on each floor kept hearing him say, "So far, so good." /The magnificent seven/

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#113

Post by andy_ppp »

Arnt wrote: post #110
jczhang wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh yeah I'm confused by this part as well. Can anyone clarify?

Quoting Vice's source: "The analyzed records have an average twentieth century rate of approximately 1.6 mm/yr, but based on the locations of these gauges, we show that the simple average underestimates the twentieth century global mean rate by 0.1 ± 0.2 mm/yr."

So the margin of error is greater than the discovered difference? And because of that it could actually be lower not higher? Strange.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#114

Post by spdionis »

deftnerd wrote: post #27
elorant wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me wonder. Could it affect seismic activity?

Indeed it can! "rapid deglaciation promotes earthquakes ... rebound stress that is available to trigger earthquakes today is of the order of 1 MPa. This stress level is not large enough to rupture intact rocks but is large enough to reactivate pre-existing faults that are close to failure." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound#State_of_...

I wonder if this is related to the streak of big earthquakes happening currently in Italy.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#115

Post by Shivetya »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #72
M_Grey wrote: post #11

I suspect that we can expect a lot of bad news to emerge over the next few decades, as the promise of climate change becomes the reality of climate change.

On the other hand, people have been saying that for last few decades, and the bad news hasn't had much impact.

It is always in how the numbers are used, cherry picking by both sides. However the real take away here is that they figured out they were wrong yet again. Of course they lean towards the more extreme each time but even some publications indicate that Antarctic changes are due to natural variability.

Then lets play with sea rise, the fear is always that some islands will wash away and port towns will be at further risk. Yet studies of the Marshall islands show the reverse, the islands continue to grow in the majority. What about changes leading to flooding, changes in rain fall patterns, and the like. Well the common trend is to over exaggerate unique events as if they were common place, ie Katrina leading to years of violent hurricanes wrecking the US (oops). Sixty years of studying rain falls in some central US states show no changes, the recent floods in Louisiana weren't even unusual. Even China has had an area in drought for centuries.

In other words, the climate does change but we don't know all the variables and people's whose very jobs depend on income from both studying it and "fixing it" (read : GE) will always push the numbers that support their side. Just like big oil will try to claim that oil isn't the leading cause; its cows btw.

So take it all with a grain of salt. Articles on Vice lean one direction and one direction only and tend to exaggerate . however those inclined to always believe this type of alarmism won't think otherwise.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#116

Post by adrianN »

neilsharma wrote: post #108

Slight tangent, but how does one with SWE/product skills get involved in climate work? There seems to be some research every other day indicating how disastrous global warming is going to be, but a dearth of jobs outside of solar installation or academia.

Make the Linux kernel more efficient, save a bazillion CPU cycles in datacenters all over the world.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#117

Post by Arnt »

andy_ppp wrote: post #113
Arnt wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting Vice's source: "The analyzed records have an average twentieth century rate of approximately 1.6 mm/yr, but based on the locations of these gauges, we show that the simple average underestimates the twentieth century global mean rate by 0.1 ± 0.2 mm/yr."

So the margin of error is greater than the discovered difference? And because of that it could actually be lower not higher? Strange.

The old number had a margin of error too. It's not strange, just a sign of thorough math.

What they say is approximately "1.5-1.9 with values near 1.7 being most likely", so in layspeak and round numbers, the chance that actual number is higher is 90% and that it's lower is 10%.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#118

Post by adrianN »

TakerofVita wrote: post #69
yequalsx wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author made a mistake by interchangeably using "sea ice" and "ice sheet ice". However, your correction itself isn't strictly correct. Melting sea ic can change sea levels by changing the density of the water in the ocean. Also, by melting it changes the amount of sunlight that is reflected. The increase in sunlight reaching the oceans will cause thermal expansion of the water.

I would think that the fact that it is fresh water vs. salt water wouldn't impact sea level on the basis of changing density. Take two situations: 1. A mass of sea water is replaced by the same mass of fresh water. Sea levels/volume would increase as the average density would be lowered. (this is not the case) 2. A volume of fresh water is added to the ocean. Then V_total = V_ocean + V_freshwater.

Volume is not necessarily conserved when mixing liquids. Check the Science Guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84k206qaVRU

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#119

Post by adrianN »

blueprint wrote: post #14

Duh. The important thing at this instant is to develop a self-sufficient extra-terrestrial colony or a means by which some people can survive far above the surface of the Earth for 30-80 years. Life on Earth itself has less time than most people are even ready to know. Something on the order of 1-10 years left. There are massive changes coming which will destroy all human civilization on Earth. Global warming is just…

Earth has been warmer before without all the catastrophic effects you describe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EPICA_temperature_plot.sv...

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#120

Post by XaYdEk »

Qantourisc wrote: post #100
XaYdEk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar and wind based energy production is not going to fully or even mostly replace our gas/coal burners because they lack constant and predictable outputs. Also, we have neither infrastructure for storing power at this level, nor would it be economically feasible. Hydro and geo-thermal are better sources in this sense, but neither are abundant and have their own drawbacks. '- promote the use of electricity and natur…

"lack constant and predictable" We can solve this with batteries, which we have so far not been able to succeed in to do at large scales. There has been some small scale success with liquid batteries, using cheapish elements. Which in theory is feasible to scale up.

Technically yes, economically difficult for most nations, if it's approached at this level.

Germany has had an interesting approach to solar, where they subsidized solar panels for homeowners. I think it is the smarter approach because you incentives individuals to go green, rather than trying to implement a top down solution.

And even so, we will need to keep power plants on call for redundancy and high load purposes.

There is a video about peak power usage in England which I found fascinating (though this is a rather unique case) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=slDAvewWfrA

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