Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by drdrey » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 2:09 AM UTC

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.

We already have tremendous political instability in the US and Europe right now caused in part by a not-so-great-but-not-devastating economy and the Syrian refugee crisis. Imagine a worldwide crisis with tens or hundreds of millions of people losing their homes and livelihood, how is that going to play out?

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

#82

Post by owenversteeg » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 2:12 AM UTC

mbroncano wrote: post #38

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…

Although I'm not Dutch I profess a lot of affection to the Netherlands and I lived there for a bunch of years. Having said that, it is IMHO possibly the worse place to be in case of a massive increase in the sea level. My house in Den Haag is 10ft below the sea level, maybe 5 miles away from the sea. That's scary no matter how you put it, despite the best engineering effort from my friends at Rijkswaterstaat.

So I am Dutch and currently living in the Netherlands. I think it's something the Netherlands will definitely survive. As a general rule of thumb, a country can spend 50% of GDP for a few years - and end up OK afterwards - on something that's threatening the survival of the nation. The US spent 40% of GDP on WWII, for example. The Dutch GDP is almost a trillion dollars. I think that half a trillion dollars is enough to protect a small country that a) already has good water infrastructure, b) is only 42,000 km2 (25% or so of which is already water), and c) a lot of the threatened area is not terribly densely populated.

In contrast, Bangladesh's land area is ~150,000 km2 vs ~30,000 km2 for the Netherlands (figures off the top of my head.) Bangladesh's population is concentrated in places with extraordinarily bad water infrastructure and in the parts of the country most at risk for flooding. Their population is literally ten times larger... and despite having a 'low' growth rate it is growing at about two million additional people PER YEAR. Bangladesh's total GDP is also less than a quarter of a trillion dollars. To add to that, the Bangladeshi government is undoubtedly less skilled at leading massive public works and infrastructure projects to save 160,000,000 people (most of which live in poverty) from having their home flooded.

Put it this way, you have two choices. Choice A: you live in one of the wealthiest countries on earth, world renowned for its water management, and you're packed next to a lot of other wealthy people in a union with a lot of other wealthy countries. Your government says it will spend thirty thousand dollars per year - for every man, woman, child, baby, grandmother, you name it - to save your ass from global warming, and they have a history of winning against the water. Even if your country completely ceases to exist, you are bordered by two very wealthy countries where all your citizens have permission to live and work permanently, with no visas or administrative mess. These countries are big enough, and have faced enough of a population decline, that they'd each survive taking in 8 million or so highly educated, wealthy, English-speaking people with extremely similar culture and beliefs. Hell, we're so closely integrated with Belgium that we just peacefully swapped land! [0]

Or, you live in one of the poorest countries on earth, which has semi-friendly relations with a few other countries scattered around the globe. Your government says it will spend $400 - less than the price of a new smartphone - to try to save you from having your home wiped out by rising sea levels. This government's history of water management reads like a bad joke: their latest lauded efforts are to try to get water from a hundred and sixty kilometers away, and forty percent of the capital's population live in slums that regularly flood with sewage. The neighboring countries are all dealing with population problems of their own: they're also wealthier, and at least somewhat hesitant to take in one hundred and sixty million impoverished people.

I know personally I'm a hell of a lot more scared for Bangladesh.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/world/europe/belgium-neth...

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

#83

Post by akuchling » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 2:20 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #40

AaronFriel wrote: post #28

As no one has mentioned it in the comments, the belief that this is concerning is related to the "Clathrate gun hypothesis"[1]. Essentially, low temperatures have allowed vast quantities of methane and carbon dioxide containing compounds to accumulate for millennia. If the temperatures rise above a critical threshold, a positive feedback loop would exist between temperatures and global warming. Positive feedback loop…

Interesting. Can anyone recommend a book that gives a good overview of current climate science? And what hypothetical scenarios may exist in the future?

I always suggest Spencer Weart's extensively hyperlinked "The Discovery of Global Warming", available online from the American Institute of Physics: http://history.aip.org/climate/index.htm

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

#84

Post by greggman » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 2:23 AM UTC

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…

I'm curious what you expect people to do and what you're doing yourself.

I worry about climate change and so do most of my friends but I see ZERO action on any of our parts. Example: Nearly all my friends FLEW to GDC this week, many of them that's a HUGE amount of CO2 added to the atmosphere just so we can have fun, network and party. Then we go to BBQ and hamburger restaurants and eat lots of beef which we're told we shouldn't because it's the biggest resource user for the smallest amount of food. Many of them upgrade their $!000 phone every year as well as several other electronic gadgets creating lots of electronic waste.

My point is, even the majority of "believers" won't change their behavior. At most if you're lucky they might start carrying their own bag to the grocery store yet still probably have 15+ pairs of shoes for "fashion" (yet another industry people claim is bad for the environment"

If the believers won't change their behavior what chance is there the non-believers will do anything?

If the only solution is "vote for a world government to geo-engineer the planet" well that's never going to happen.

Is the only rational thing to do, figure out where the new beachfronts will be and start buying property while it's cheap (like Lex Luthor from the first Superman movie)

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

#85

Post by refurb » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 2:30 AM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #74

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…

> Geo-engineering projects could not > come too soon And also, treating climate-change deniers like a cross between holocaust deniers and flat-earthers can't come soon enough.

Jesus! I'm glad people don't take that stand in other areas of science. If we did that 20 years ago we never would have found out that ulcers are caused by bacteria.

"Ulcers aren't caused by stress, they are caused by bacteria!"

"Heresy!! String him up!!!"

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

#86

Post by imbeau » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 2:31 AM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #65

oddity wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A lot of that technology relies of aerosols which would exacerbate the ocean acidification process. Get engineering is really hard to get right

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

#87

Post by gravelc » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 2:33 AM UTC

drpgq wrote: post #77

gravelc wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 maintai…

Don't we pretty much already have a massive oversupply of calories?

In a perfect world where food distribution isn't affected by things like spoilage, lack of transport infrastructure, politics, trade barriers, diversion of food crops to biofuels, monopolies, war etc. etc., we may have an oversupply. In reality, it's not even close, given that yield increases in staple crops like wheat are beginning to flat-line, and population growth marches ever onwards (and millions are lifted out of poverty to the middle class).

The Green Revolution was through picking all the low-hanging fruit - hybrid crops and synthetic fertilizers. Increasing yield to match demand is already looking like an issue without the effect of catastrophic climate change. Other issues occurring in the next 20-30 years include encroachment of cities into prime arable land, land degradation, and increased cost/reduced availability of phosphorous fertilizers.

It's a massive issue that barely registers on the public conscience, and we may hit the perfect storm soon, particularly if a new nasty rust or plant virus pops up on the scene at the same time.

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

#88

Post by kurthr » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 2:36 AM UTC

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.

Florida is porous. You can build walls but they don't do much. The water will rise to cover the entire peninsula. Long before that tides and storm surge will destroy all of the surface roads to coastal cities. I wouldn't lend money there for longer than 30years.

http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/florida.shtml

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

#89

Post by philipkglass » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 2:38 AM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #33

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…

Ok, then is there any proposed plan to remove the excess CO2 from the air and oceans?

Accelerated silicate weathering seems like the best bet. Naturally occurring silicate compounds of magnesium and calcium react with ambient CO2 in the presence of water to form stable carbonates and silicon dioxide:

CaSiO3 + CO2 -> CaCaO3 + SiO2

The thermodynamics are much more favorable than "combustion-in-reverse" (trying to reform hydrocarbons from CO2). The products are stable and the process can deal with point CO2 sources, distributed sources, atmospheric CO2, and ocean acidification -- the whole shebang.

But the natural kinetics of silicate weathering are very slow. Kinetics can be improved by orders of magnitude if you grind the silicate minerals to dust; it's a surface area limited reaction. Kinetics get better yet if you apply the mafic rock dust to e.g. acid sulfate soils used for agriculture in the tropics. Those soils already need a pH boost to avoid crop stunting by soluble aluminum. Doing the adjustment with silicates instead of limestone means a two-for-one benefit (crop productivity plus drawing down CO2). But I think that to see widespread adoption there will have to be some targeted donor aid to poorer countries; ground limestone is cheaper than ground silicates if you don't care about CO2 abatement, and the rich world's farmers don't have a lot of acid sulfate soils in need of treatment within their home countries.

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

#90

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Mar 02, 2017, 2:38 AM UTC

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.

Because a 60 meter high seawall around pretty much all of the country would be a bit problematic material wise alone (you'd have to chop down a couple of major mountains, assuming you have those), coupled with the slight problem of then having to get rid of all the water landing in your nice new bathtub by precipitation.

A seawall isn't just a wall, it's more like a dike if it is to survive and that means it has a width many times larger than it's height.

And then there is seepage to contend with. This is anything but a trivial problem and we have never done engineering on that scale before.

The easiest solution would be to move to higher ground.