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Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

economist.com

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Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#101

Post by cool_look »

jackmott wrote: post #72
Shivetya wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well fortunately the Antarctic is gaining mass, so things happen. We are still only 12k years out an ice age and learning as we go. Natural variability is quite boring so it doesn't make headlines as much as it should. the real reality is that the Paris agreement is a horrid piece of do nothing legislation that lets the major developing powers do what they want all the while getting the nod of acceptance from the UN…

No, there is an Antarctic ice sheet that is gaining mass. As a whole, Antarctica is losing ice mass. As is the case for global ice mass balance. Chart of satellite gravity measurements for Antarctica: http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Antarctica_Ice_Mass.g...

so that chart is from 2003 - 2009 ... and that is evidence of what exactly?

6 samples of a multi century phenomenon and you are ringing an alarm bell !

the chart smacks more of searching around for a chart that shows a decline to prop up the "ice is in trouble narrative".

ice extent ( recovered from 2008/12 ) , ice age ( recovered again from 2012 ), ice thickness ( recovered ), ice refreeze date ( recovered ), polar bear population ( highest its ever been )

now its ice mass that is the panic chart of the day. but 6 samples, its just not enough

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#102

Post by yungchin »

hbt wrote: post #69
snowwrestler wrote: post #60

I don't actually believe this, but it occurred to me the other day as a funny way to look at a very sad situation: What if Trump does believe global warming is real, but recognizes that we're too late to stop its worst effects? What if he expects the world to go to hell over the next 50 years and is focused on protecting the U.S. specifically? What would he do? He'd build a wall across the lower border of the U.S. to…

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this. No one has a solution for climate change that doesn't involve changing personal habits. People don't want to do that. Eating less meat or a carbon tax (i.e taxing the working poor) is not a solution. It's admitting defeat. People don't need to "believe in climate change". We simply need to build a solution that is much better than what they have available now. What that…

> Eating less meat or a carbon tax (i.e taxing the working poor) is not a solution.

As for taxing the poor, that's fixable: the legislation should have all revenues from a carbon tax returned as per-capita "rebates" (I'd think of it as a Basic Income paid for by polluters).

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#103

Post by linkregister »

ced wrote: post #89
snowwrestler wrote: post #60

I don't actually believe this, but it occurred to me the other day as a funny way to look at a very sad situation: What if Trump does believe global warming is real, but recognizes that we're too late to stop its worst effects? What if he expects the world to go to hell over the next 50 years and is focused on protecting the U.S. specifically? What would he do? He'd build a wall across the lower border of the U.S. to…

recognizes that we're too late to stop its worst effects I see this sentiment a lot on HN these days. What's the reasoning behind it? If the temperature in my room increases, I'll go from feeling uncomfortable, to sweating profusely, to fainting, to death. Is there any scientific reason to believe that, say, a 4C increase gives us horrible outcomes, but a 8C increase will be "not much worse"?

Some prevailing climate models indicated that beyond a certain CO2 concentration, the temperature will continue to spiral upwards continuously, even if there are no further CO2 increases. At that point it would be necessary to reduce the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. It is far more difficult to capture CO2 than it is to abstain from releasing it at this time.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#104

Post by ocschwar »

sqeaky wrote: post #32
Shivetya wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well fortunately the Antarctic is gaining mass, so things happen. We are still only 12k years out an ice age and learning as we go. Natural variability is quite boring so it doesn't make headlines as much as it should. the real reality is that the Paris agreement is a horrid piece of do nothing legislation that lets the major developing powers do what they want all the while getting the nod of acceptance from the UN…

On a geological timescale we are in a cooling trend, but what non-biased source grants credence to the idea that CO2 and Methane aren't warming things right now in greater amounts? It seems entirely reasonable that anthropogenic climate change is a bigger deal than ice ages and we could prevent one.

We could indeed prevent the next ice age.

We would be idiots to do it, but we could. (An ice age would push a temperate climate onto the fucking Sahara. That's a lot of new farmland...)

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#105

Post by NumberCruncher »

sqeaky wrote: post #71
NumberCruncher wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a higher CO2 or methan level for 100 years is on a geological timescale a rounding error. There were times in earth history (vulcano eruptions, meteor impacts) where life had to face a rapid and drastic climate change. And we are still here.

I think you are unaware of the scope of the problem. (also I did not and cannot downvote you) The amount of life and species lost to human activities already makes the past few thousand years a major extinction event in line with the 5 other major ones. With this fact in mind taking the stance that this is OK because "life had to face a rapid and drastic climate change" is the moral equivalent of saying killing most…

Moral is a human construct and as such it is subjective.

Anyhow, I said that the life on earth survived a couple of disastrous events and still flourishes. Life will flourish wether the coast is under water or not. There were times when there wasn't any coast at all, or it was somewhere else. And does it really make a difference?

You won't see anything of the war of resources except you live for 200 years. You may take care too much about things you will never see and can not have an impact on.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#106

Post by [deleted] »

sqeaky wrote: post #71
NumberCruncher wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a higher CO2 or methan level for 100 years is on a geological timescale a rounding error. There were times in earth history (vulcano eruptions, meteor impacts) where life had to face a rapid and drastic climate change. And we are still here.

I think you are unaware of the scope of the problem. (also I did not and cannot downvote you) The amount of life and species lost to human activities already makes the past few thousand years a major extinction event in line with the 5 other major ones. With this fact in mind taking the stance that this is OK because "life had to face a rapid and drastic climate change" is the moral equivalent of saying killing most…

[deleted]

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#107

Post by DennisP »

sqeaky wrote: post #33
anon1253 wrote: post #31

My worry is that Trump doesn't deny it (well he does publicly), but rather privately realizes that it's already far too late. There's nothing we can do, collapse of global civilization before mid-century is probably inevitable. So what can you do, well ramp up every dirty trick you can think off … because it doesn't really matter and it makes you look good with the public (sorry to say, it does, climate change is sti…

Carbon sequestering is not as hard as it would seem. We have several technologies, but we can also just plant trees.

First we'd have to stop the massive deforestation that's happening right now. A lot of that is for agriculture, so we'd have to find another way to feed those people.

We might also want to stop clearcutting vast forests in the Southeastern U.S. to ship wood pellets to Europe, which burns them.

Then we'd have to save the rest of our existing forests, many of which are struggling due to various effects of climate change, including heat stress, drought, topsoil loss, disease, and forest fires. Many large forests are net carbon emitters now.

After we've done all that and finally stopped losing trees, we can think about having more trees. We'll need space for them, so that means reducing agricultural area even more. We've been emitting about ten billion tons of carbon every year for quite a while, so it's going to take a lot of land.

We're also running out of fish in the ocean, so with that food source going away we're going to need more from agriculture than we get now.

"Just plant trees." Like many, perhaps even most purported climate change solutions, it sounds great until you work out the scale.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#108

Post by blueprint »

ced wrote: post #89
snowwrestler wrote: post #60

I don't actually believe this, but it occurred to me the other day as a funny way to look at a very sad situation: What if Trump does believe global warming is real, but recognizes that we're too late to stop its worst effects? What if he expects the world to go to hell over the next 50 years and is focused on protecting the U.S. specifically? What would he do? He'd build a wall across the lower border of the U.S. to…

recognizes that we're too late to stop its worst effects I see this sentiment a lot on HN these days. What's the reasoning behind it? If the temperature in my room increases, I'll go from feeling uncomfortable, to sweating profusely, to fainting, to death. Is there any scientific reason to believe that, say, a 4C increase gives us horrible outcomes, but a 8C increase will be "not much worse"?

The answer lies in the fact that the amount of heat to get the surface of the Earth from 1 -> 3°C is not so huge, but when the amounts of heat to get the surface temperature to 4-6° exists in the Earth there will be tremendous tectonic activity.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#109

Post by spacehacker »

dharma1 wrote: post #56

This graph of global sea ice area is kind of alarming: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JX41K2UK6Io/WCvyXQ6CFvI/AAAAAAAAW... More info: http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.uk/

Fortunately, sea ice does not contribute much to the sea level because it displaces about the same volume it will add when melted.

Re: Global warming: The state of the climate in 2016

#110

Post by sammydavis »

anon1253 wrote: post #31

My worry is that Trump doesn't deny it (well he does publicly), but rather privately realizes that it's already far too late. There's nothing we can do, collapse of global civilization before mid-century is probably inevitable. So what can you do, well ramp up every dirty trick you can think off … because it doesn't really matter and it makes you look good with the public (sorry to say, it does, climate change is sti…

By all reports, Trump can't stay focused on any one thing more than a few minutes, whether it was 20 years ago talking to reporters, people working for him, whatever. So he's not likely to be the person who will care about a long term, non-immediate risk.

I still can't believe someone like him can be president. If Jeb Bush had won, I would have been a little disappointed, but I would have gone to sleep and not worried that much about it. But he's terrifying. Maybe he'll just be unable to accomplish anything, so he will self-block, doing as much as obama with republican congress. More likely is he won't be in touch and pence can do whatever he wants.

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