Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

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Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

sulam wrote: post #145

dredmorbius wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The resilience of humanity may actually be inversely proportional to its population. Yonatan Zunger, of Google, writing nearly five years ago, tossed out a fact that's stuck with me since: the response of "large animal" populations to global temperature changes: "When the biota of a planet get rewritten, the creatures that require the most delicate maintenance die first. This tends to mean really big creatures, that…

Before you get too happy about PETM, realize we are putting CO2 into the atmosphere at six times the peak PETM rate. We are in for a rough ride over the next several hundred years.

I'm not happy about either.

The good news, if there is good news, is that the present rate of human induced CO2 injection is not likely to be continued for too much longer.

Of course, it it induces further injections, things may get interesting.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

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Post by emiliobumachar » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 2:05 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #14

mr_overalls wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is that scientists have understood the risks of global warming for decades, and yet our civilization (maybe I'm just speaking for the US here) seems impotent to effectively coordinate a response to this slow-motion threat. It could be our own Great Filter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

Are there credible models that suggest Earth will turn into Venus or something? It would take a hell of a lot more to end humanity than it would take to "merely" hurt/kill the most vulnerable segments of our population (which is what I thought the stakes were).

I think the worst case scenario is the rising of the sea level by tens of meters over decades, destroying all coastal cities. Think the Syrian refugee crisis, but hundreds of times more people.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

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Post by Flozzin » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

corpMaverick wrote: post #2

It is not just a bomb that can blow the arctic. It can destroy all human civilization. And at this point, we may have lost any ability to do anything. Edit: Doom scale... 1 Inconvenient storms. 2 More frequent natural disasters. 3 Destroying coastal cities. 4 Causing hunger, wars and mass migrations. 5 Decimating human population. 6 Destroying human civilization. 7 Destroying all humans on earth. 8 Destroying all lif…

Does anyone have any good resources on why humans do this. Some christians love to talk about the book of revelations. There's a huge segment of the population in the US that loves the idea of a zombie apocalypse. What is the human fascination with the world ending?

Directly to corpMav's post. Settle down buddy. 8 and 9 won't happen unlesss the earth get's hit by an asteroid of epic proportions or is finally consumed by an ever expanding sun. And 6 and 7 are also extremely unlikely, to a point of being laughable.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

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Post by nerdponx » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #93

nerdponx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a socialized system you'd have the same thing, except perpetuated by bureaucrats instead of businessmen. If anything, capitalism has an advantage in that it's at least theoretically possible to mitigate the effect of greed on politics. Throwing all your eggs into the government basket gives you no such recourse.

The general population controls so little of the economic might that this just isn't true. We could pool our votes to change the course of politics. If we pooled our dollars nobody would care.

There's nothing stopping you from pooling your votes right now.

Ownership of capital has basically nothing to do with it. If the means of production are owned by "the workers", all that ends up happening is each group of workers sends a representative to manage their share of the means of production. Unless you have a true Athenian direct democracy, it reduces to exactly the same system, just less diversified.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

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Post by SEJeff » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 2:27 PM UTC

hwillis wrote: post #280

SEJeff wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Velociraptors have two rows of teeth in addition to a 2.5" retractable middle claw theorized to be used for slashing or stabbing attacks. Many dogs would have a size advantage, but all would have fewer teeth and generally soft padded paws with no serious claws. Even with the smaller size, the Velociraptors seemingly have the advantage. The "Fighting Dinosaurs" fossils give some credence to the claw being used to pier…

Met my first Rodesian Ridgeback (god that's such a dragon name) about a year ago. He was youngish but still ~3 ft at the shoulder, tall enough that he had to lower his head to sniff my crotch (and I'm 6' tall), which he was very interested in (I'm male). Owner didn't discipline or train him at all. I think he was just supposed to guard the horses, and fuck anyone else who wandered onto the property. Pretty friendly r…

Punching a large dog wouldn't do much of anything to it, as you allude to. The largest muscle in your body is in your legs, your quadriceps in specific. A Tae Kwon Do (my primary martial art) front snap kick or Muay Thai style semi-circle round kick to the face or ribs (as they leap) could incapacitate them. If you are able to hit them before they have ahold of you, that initial crushing blow might prevent them from wrecking you. That said, I'd NEVER want to try even after 8+ years of martial arts. Much like a knife fight, the standard isn't whether you got stabbed or not, but if you lived. It would be rough regardless!

Those are huge dogs and aren't afraid to scrap. I'd still happily take on one of them for my life given the choice vs a velociraptor :)

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

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Post by razorunreal » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

goatlover wrote: post #39

jjoonathan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there credible models that suggest Earth will turn into Venus or something? It would take a hell of a lot more to end humanity than it would take to "merely" hurt/kill the most vulnerable segments of our population (which is what I thought the stakes were).

No, the Earth has been a lot warmer and colder in the past. We've had massive volcanoes going off for thousands of years, we've had iceball earth, we've had crocodiles and palm trees in the arctic. The Earth's systems always balance out over the long run. We don't stay trapped in ice ages or hot phases.

That's less comforting when you realise that cyanobacteria likely caused an iceball phase, nearly wiping itself out in the process.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

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Post by pacala » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 3:22 PM UTC

dashundchen wrote: post #108

pacala wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US emissions have plateaued two decades ago [0]. Emissions are growing unchecked elsewhere, a combination of population explosion and rapid industrialization. [0] http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/03/31/chinese-co2-emis...

Just because emissions aren't growing doesn't mean the US should do nothing, especially considering our outsized historical contributions that have lead to current CO2 levels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... As one of the largest emitters per capita(more than double CO2e pp vs the EU), and at almost 15% of world emissions, there's a ton that can be done. A few items that are huge emiss…

Per capita, USA emissions have declined by 21% since 1980 [0]. Is it enough? No! All the items you're suggesting should be tackled.

But we can't have an adult conversation only focusing on one element of the equation and literally ignoring the elephants in the room. The total emissions of USA are 14.34%. Cutting them to zero would be insufficient to stop the global growth to CO2 in the atmosphere. Worse, in a few years the emissions of the rest of the world would grow to compensate the zero-emissions USA and we'd be back to square one.

I have yet to see a realistic plan for a carbon-balanced world economy even in a zero-emissions USA scenario.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

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Post by sulam » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 4:00 PM UTC

wiz21c wrote: post #270

sulam wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite serious about the historical record. This is not FUD, this is data. The historical record shows that the last time atmospheric CO2 concentration was at the level we are at currently, several things were true. 1) temperatures were 4-5C higher. 2) there was no permanent surface ice anywhere on the planet as far as they can tell. 3) mean eustatic sea level was anywhere from 50 to 200m above current levels. htt…

When I read the paragraph 55 of the article, I think that it tells a different story. Basically, it's 20-30 meters higher seas; a good part of it coming from tectonic stuff. And they also say that sea level increase appeared before warming.

The volume of the ocean basin is something that I haven’t been able to find data for one way or the other. The timeline is different — there is a lot of data and of course it doesn’t all line up perfectly. The generally accepted reference timeline, which is based on a single south Atlantic core sample, is calculated using an assumption about the annual rate of sediment deposition. There is evidence that mid ocean sediment deposition dropped during PETM while coastal deposition increased. This is likely because the oceans become inhospitable due to increasing acidity and warming caused the same thing we see today — increased evaporation rate and warmer air being able to hold more moisture as water vapor leads to increased rainfall and therefore river flows increased generally. There have been attempts to try and correct for this factor using iron deposition variability which may correlate with planetary precession and other techniques, some of which change the timeline fairly drastically at the scale we’re talking about.

Long story short — yes this is an oddity but there’s not a well accepted explanation for it and there is reason to question whether we have the PETM timeline correct for the area of interest. (the onset is quite sudden, geologically speaking, although not as sudden as the data we are producing right now!) I would encourage you to do more reading and build an opinion based on the sum of evidence rather than that one paper, which I linked to simply because it has an accessible graph for sea level variability compared to today.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

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Post by mygo » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

_abattoir wrote: post #219

mlloyd wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God that is hard to read. The guy might be thought a genius but I got absolutely nothing from that passage save the penguins.

I'm sure you, the guy who writes snarky tweets and codes web forms, have a lot more going for you in the annals of history than an internationally recognized titan of literature.

I’m not th OP, but, still, doesn’t change the fact that his stuff is hard for me to digest.

I don’t care how many stars a chef has. If his food is hard for me to swallow, well, I don’t like his cooking. And that’s okay. I don’t have to eat his food. And I don’t have to read Lovecraft’s works. And I don’t have to be a Nobel Laureate to have an opinion. And you don’t have to listen to my opinion.

Re: Scientists In Alaska Find Mammoth Amounts Of Carbon In The Warming Permafrost

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Post by Nomentatus » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

Nomentatus wrote: post #224

mlloyd wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God that is hard to read. The guy might be thought a genius but I got absolutely nothing from that passage save the penguins.

Then you understood it perfectly. Froth, penguins. The rest was poetic repetition.

Downvoted by those who must have fantasized that I abhor poetic repetition and therefore don't like Lovecraft's writing. I adore poetry, and only the most admirable poetry can leverage and benefit from repetition. It's a terrific passage. However, perhaps it's understandable that Lovecraft fans would reflexively indulge in a fantasy about what I wrote and why, however...