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Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

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Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#61

Post by flukus »

hackuser wrote: post #46
tornadoboy55 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the common sentiment is 'the best time to take action was 40 years ago. The absolute limit was 20 years ago. There's no stopping it now, even if we reduce our emissions to zero . The latent emissions in the atmosphere will already bone us. I'm glad I live in the Netherlands. We're a very rich country, and we have been battling water for more than a thousand years as a people. Places like Bangladesh will be comp…

> the common sentiment is 'the best time to take action was 40 years ago. The absolute limit was 20 years ago. There's no stopping it now My impression is that this is the latest fallback position intended to stop/delay us from acting (I don't know that the parent commenter intends it that way; this isn't a criticism of them). In rough order: 1) There is no global warming 2) There is global warming, but it's not caus…

6 is GOTO 1.

The mouse wheel of denial.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#62

Post by TillE »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #29
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #20

I'm curious how much this phenomenon might affect CO2 levels compared to the deforestation of the Amazon, which I have read in the past is the single most disastrous human action when it comes to climate. The Amazon forest is vast and produces a significant percentage of the world's oxygen. The balance we have seen the past few thousand years is being upset not only by industrial pollution but by depriving the world…

even the most inhospitable places on earth (even post global warming) are far far more hospitable than the best places on mars.

Right. You can at least breathe in Antarctica.

And terraforming Mars would be several orders of magnitude more expensive than even a massive readjustment of Earth's climate.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#63

Post by btilly »

kaybe wrote: post #34
btilly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that this is a joke? Elon has stated in all seriousness that he personally puts global warming at above a 1% chance of being a species-threatening event for us, and that we need to become a multi-planetary species to reduce the odds of extinction. He doesn't think that wiping out our species is a likely or even very probable. Just high enough that there is no better way that he can spend his time tha…

The thing is, even Earth at its worst is still by far the most habitable planet in the system. The biggest issue we have with climate change is that we and the biosphere are set up for it to be this way, and adaption is slow. We might have to move many cities and the agriculture, and somehow manage with a biosphere that takes many generations to adapt.

The problem comes if, for example, ocean acidification causes a run-away chemical reaction that makes agriculture fail on a large scale, making civilization collapse.

All such possibilities are low. But they aren't 0. Elon's personal judgement is that combined they exceed 1%.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#64

Post by vtange »

Mizza wrote: post #58
neotek wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't a 5 - 8 degree rise catastrophic though? Genuine question.

For any Americans paying attention, please keep in mind that that's 8C, not 8F.

8C ~= 14.4F for reference

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#65

Post by rootusrootus »

oddity wrote: post #51
lend000 wrote: post #41

Geo-engineering projects could not come too soon. Because of how grand they are in scale, they don't seem to get much attention from the mainstream scientific community, but it seems feasible technologically (albeit expensive) to put forth major projects to reflect sunlight over deserts and capture significant amounts of carbon from power plants and oceans, amongst numerous other creative approaches. https://en.wikip…

The common objection I've heard to geo-engineering projects is that they are incredibly difficult to reverse should the need present itself due to detrimental effects discovered part-way along. Does this objection still apply to the current popular proposals?

I recall a proposal to put sulfate particles (I think!) in the upper atmosphere, sort of like what happens with a big volcano, to try cooling things off. The downside is you have to do it constantly, the upside is that if you don't, it fades relatively quickly. So we could try it out on a pretty large scale and stop if we don't like where things are going.

But that's from memory, and I could be recalling the details wrong.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#66

Post by mikegioia »

TillE wrote: post #62
throwaway2048 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even the most inhospitable places on earth (even post global warming) are far far more hospitable than the best places on mars.

Right. You can at least breathe in Antarctica. And terraforming Mars would be several orders of magnitude more expensive than even a massive readjustment of Earth's climate.

Expensive? By all measurements it's impossible.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#67

Post by hueving »

lisper wrote: post #59
neotek wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't a 5 - 8 degree rise catastrophic though? Genuine question.

Depends on what you consider catastrophic. 5-8C means you lose both the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, so you get 60m (200 ft) sea-level rise, so you totally lose all the coastal cities, and the current round of civilization is almost certainly done for. But homo sapiens will probably survive, and so civilization will probably eventually be rebuilt. It won't be the end of life on earth under any circumstances. Act…

Why would civilization be over? The sea rise wouldn't happen over night and people would move or build walls.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#68

Post by graeme »

lend000 wrote: post #41

Geo-engineering projects could not come too soon. Because of how grand they are in scale, they don't seem to get much attention from the mainstream scientific community, but it seems feasible technologically (albeit expensive) to put forth major projects to reflect sunlight over deserts and capture significant amounts of carbon from power plants and oceans, amongst numerous other creative approaches. https://en.wikip…

How well would geoengineering work, considering the acididation of the oceans? I haven't seen any proposals to handle that, yet it seems like a fairly major consequence all on its own.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#69

Post by gravelc »

neotek wrote: post #52
idoh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The feedback loop peaks out at a global temperature increase of 5-8 degrees celsius, if the models and past events are to be believed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene–Eocene_Thermal_Maxim...

Isn't a 5 - 8 degree rise catastrophic though? Genuine question.

5-8C would lead to mass starvation. Our agricultural systems are built on extremely well adapted crop varieties for the regions they grow in. The lead-in time for generation of new crop varieties is very long (even with genetic modification). Rapid catastrophic climate change, with major associated changes in pest and disease prevelence, would simply overwhelm our ability to generate adapted crop varieties to maintain yield. Add to that more extreme weather events. Then on top of all this, investment on agricultural science has been declining for years, precisely at the time when plant breeders should be focusing on what is happening 20-30 years from now.

Re: Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

#70

Post by mgbmtl »

hueving wrote: post #67
lisper wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you consider catastrophic. 5-8C means you lose both the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, so you get 60m (200 ft) sea-level rise, so you totally lose all the coastal cities, and the current round of civilization is almost certainly done for. But homo sapiens will probably survive, and so civilization will probably eventually be rebuilt. It won't be the end of life on earth under any circumstances. Act…

Why would civilization be over? The sea rise wouldn't happen over night and people would move or build walls.

That's a lot of people to move and things to rebuild. Op did say "the current round of civilization". I also agree that lots of things changing at once are likely to create instability, with negative economic and social impacts (unless governments massively intervene, which I suspect many in the US would not appreciate).

I'm sure walls are an option, but they will be expensive to maintain and it doesn't take much to have big consequences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drainage_in_New_Orleans

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