Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Massive permafrost thaw documented in Canada, portending huge carbon release

insideclimatenews.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 254 posts

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

#191

Post by hueving »

mgbmtl wrote: post #70
hueving wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>That's a lot of people to move and things to rebuild. Op did say "the current round of civilization".

If that's the bar for civilization ending, then civilization ended when people came to the US, ended again when they expanded out to the West, etc.

Just because people on the US coasts move means little to the 60 percent of citizens that don't live near the ocean.

And again, it's not going to happen overnight. A wall of water isn't coming in that will force everyone to put their things in a car and go. It will be slow build-up that slowly forces people out as they decide it's to expensive to mitigate.

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

#192

Post by sheeshkebab »

shripadk wrote: post #127
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…

> Actually, the biggest danger is that political instability brought on by climate change will lead to nuclear war Can you please elaborate on this point?

The dipshits in Russia, China and US will push buttons in their briefcases and we are all going to burn (or die of starvation soon after).

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

#193

Post by FrozenVoid »

raverbashing wrote: post #189
FrozenVoid wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, escalating death of plankton and growth of anoxic zones are more important: it will cause systemic collapse of marine food chain. Storm damage can be mitigated(e.g. netherlands) http://www.sciencealert.com/ocean-oxygen-levels-are-dropping... https://phys.org/news/2017-02-black-sea-short-term-oxygen-lo... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/31/bay-beng...

Well, it's evolutionary pressure in action. Plankton will survive, and the ones who survive will have more food available Algae will probably avail of the increased CO2 concentrations as well.

Evolution doesn't care if specific X species survives in its niche, but X species could be much more important than Y species. Extinction of keystone species(plankton X) will trigger dieoff down the food chain. Survivor species(plankton Y) which exploits extinction event environment don't have to contribute to the food chain: https://www.ecomagazine.com/news/science/indian-ocean-fish-d...

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

#194

Post by nmeofthestate »

Gatsky wrote: post #147
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 is a precarious idea. It requires global collaboration, and investment of huge resources. As the climate changes, and life becomes more difficult, the likelihood of global collaboration and large investment arguably decreases rather than the other way round. Ideally, we need a climate change solution that can be enacted in a decentralised fashion by large numbers of motivated people without much need…

>Geo-engineering is a precarious idea. It requires global collaboration, and investment of huge resources.

You've more or less just described global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. If and when those efforts fail, Geo-engineering might turn out to provide a cheaper and more effective partial solution.

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

#195

Post by coldpie »

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?

The latest IPCC report summary for policymakers is a relatively quick and easy read of the current-ish state of the art.

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

#196

Post by coldpie »

greggman wrote: post #84
hackuser wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 w…

After the fact that I don't like children, reducing my contribution to climate change is the #2 reason I chose not to have children.

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

#197

Post by monochromatic »

rebuilder wrote: post #177

This seems like a huge issue, and frankly I'm terrified by it. That said, what's with the article? Where are the numbers? How much of a contribution is this likely to have on atmospheric CO2 levels? All this says is "bad news everyone", but doesn't quantify it.

> The study didn't address the issue of greenhouse gas releases from thawing permafrost

The article breathlessly pretends this isn't the case.

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

#198

Post by monochromatic »

rebuilder wrote: post #177

This seems like a huge issue, and frankly I'm terrified by it. That said, what's with the article? Where are the numbers? How much of a contribution is this likely to have on atmospheric CO2 levels? All this says is "bad news everyone", but doesn't quantify it.

> The study didn't address the issue of greenhouse gas releases from thawing permafrost

The article breathlessly pretends this isn't the case.

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

#199

Post by marknutter »

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.

Behold the death of science.

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

#200

Post by dredmorbius »

Udik wrote: post #150
aaron-lebo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hurricanes? New Orleans will never recover. That same season saw a couple other storms that were just as strong but luckily missed worst case scenarios. I wouldn't be shocked if cat five hurricanes became pretty common in a couple of decades due to warmer waters, and one or two of those a year would devastate coastal economies. But I'm not a weatherman...

And these statements are based on what? There have been some major earthquakes around the world in the last 20 years, are they also caused by global warming? Do you project an increase in them in the next 20 years? Here's a page with good, updated information about global warming and hurricanes: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/

Melting icecaps over Greenland and Antarctica will almost certainly result in seismic, and potentially volcanic activity, as the continental plate rises, having been relieved of kilometers worth of ice cap.

Though the timescale will likely be on the order of decades or centuries, not 20 years.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080314-warmi...

Post reply on HN