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What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

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Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#231

Post by username223 »

bigbugbag wrote: post #204
username223 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like we keep discovering new positive feedback loops for global warming. Less ice means less reflection. Warmer arctic means more methane from permafrost. Desertification means less carbon capture. There was a recent article in Scientific American about likely changes in cloud formation from AGW. Some clouds reflect sun (cooling), while others trap heat (warming). Guess which are likely to increase? I doubt…

Out of curiosity what makes you doubt human will go extinct. It is quite obvious that we are collectively failing to deal with climate change and that this could be the great filter according to the fermi paradox where humans disappear. Climate change sure has the potential to remove current condition favorable to human life on the planet as it has already happened in the past. https://twistedsifter.files.wordpress.c…

I think we're adaptable and numerous enough that a stable breeding population would survive somewhere. Maybe Elon Musk's descendants will stop trying to shoot things at Mars and instead build a self-contained mini-ecosystem here on Earth. Who knows?

That's not to say it would be pleasant -- a rapid population reduction from 7 billion to under a million would not be pretty -- but extinction is hard.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#232

Post by oldandtired »

nyolfen wrote: post #108
oldandtired wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as sea-level rises are concerned, the Arctic sea ice will probably be a net sea-level fall, except around the Equator. If all of the Greenland glaciers were to disappear, well then, we would see a sea-level rise, globally. But it would be distributed unevenly across the world. The higher levels would again be around the Equator with decreasing levels the further north or south of the Equator you go. But to get…

i would think that greenland melting wouldn't happen all at once (if that's what you're saying), but rather that due to higher average ocean temperatures more of it would melt in the summer and less of it would freeze in the winter, and cumulatively over years and decades it has a net loss of ice, and perhaps eventually loses most of it. am i missing something in your argument?

It is more nuanced than that. In any relatively short time span, we may see specific effects (higher temperatures for example) and we may see other effects (increase atmospheric CO2), but this doesn't mean that over a longer term we will continue to see these effects.

The other aspect is that there are some very specific physics involved and I have yet to see any discussion over these specific effects.

We have seen, in some areas, what appears to be increasingly variable climate conditions. Yet, if one is willing to look into and take the time to investigate the appropriate historical records, these variations have occurred before and were, in fact, much stronger.

The affects from these conditions were not felt to the same extent as today because we have vastly different population distributions.

Let me give you an example.

When I was a child, we had a family regime every spring to prepare for the cyclones that would regularly hit the region in summer. As I moved into my latter teens and forward into my twenties, the regularity changed and we saw quite a diminished number and size of these events. Further time passed and the events grew less frequent but were significantly stronger.

The general consensus was that climate variation was getting worse. I dug into the available historical records for the mid 19th century to the early 20th century for the same region. I found that the events during that time were significantly stronger. We talk about category 5 cyclones today and, honestly, I rather have a category 5 than the monster cyclones from 19th century.

As far as Greenland is concerned, even with higher global temperatures (as specified by the IPCC), the amount of ice melt is still to be expected in the range of dead skin cells being rubbed off the back of an elephant. The energy requirements are just so unimaginable that if you were to put the entire world's nuclear arsenal to the task, it would barely be a pin prick.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#233

Post by username223 »

b1daly wrote: post #164
username223 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like we keep discovering new positive feedback loops for global warming. Less ice means less reflection. Warmer arctic means more methane from permafrost. Desertification means less carbon capture. There was a recent article in Scientific American about likely changes in cloud formation from AGW. Some clouds reflect sun (cooling), while others trap heat (warming). Guess which are likely to increase? I doubt…

Define screwed. I’m not sure what I think about the “climate change” issue, but I maintain a reserve of skepticism towards proclamations of apocalyptic doom. A) Humans, and all living things, are screwed from the get go. A guaranteed calamity awaits us all. I think contributes to a lack of perspective that is not helpful, and possibley harmful. On a number of levels, personal and political. B) The fact that climate c…

> Define screwed.

(1) Global warming is a runaway process already well underway.

(2) Our political and economic system are too short-sighted to deal with existential threats that will only come to fruition 100 years from now. CEOs look at quarterly numbers; political leaders think as far as the next election.

(3) Humans do not seem to naturally plan beyond their own lifetimes. This makes evolutionary sense, but we evolved back before we could cook the planet.

(4) Global warming is happening way faster than most natural selection. Fruit flies may be just fine.

> achieving meaningful reductions in military activities, if not spending, is within the realm of imaginable. It is far more doable than the level of global cooperation that is required to reduce carbon emissions.

I disagree here. There are extremely low-cost ways to wean humanity from fossil fuels. Solar energy prices have been coming down dramatically, to the point where utility companies might switch away from coal out of self-interest. A nudge in the right direction, instead of "drill baby drill" and "bring coal back," could have a huge effect down the line. Unfortunately, we seem unable to plan on those timescales.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#234

Post by Arn_Thor »

b1daly wrote: post #166
Arn_Thor wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An overly simplistic conclusion based on a pick-and-choose approach to the report. First let me quote from the summary just a few pages down: "In sum, estimates of the aggregate economic impact of climate change are relatively small but with a large downside risk. Estimates of the incremental damage per tonne of CO2 emitted vary by two orders of magnitude, with the assumed discount rate the main driver of the differe…

Uh, all of these things are happening already, and will continue to happen. The biggest causes of unnecessary misery in this world are political (which of course encompasses the physical environment.) The questions are what the best course of action would be: for individuals, neighborhoods, states, continents. We cannot escape the physical environment we live in, and to fantasize that somehow compiling a list of risk…

Yes, all of these are happening, and they're going to get worse and affect more people.

This list isn't taken out of context. It's from a detailed report outlining causes and effects, followed by policy recommendations and methods for governments to address each risk as well as mitigate climate change to reduce those risks. (It's also not out of context because I posted it in a comment thread about the effects of climate change [context])

What you're seeking is found in the report I quoted from

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#235

Post by danmaz74 »

bigbugbag wrote: post #217
danmaz74 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the temperature increases several degrees, hundreds of million - maybe even billion - of people will be displaced not just from the coastlines, but also from areas becoming desertified. Can you imagine the economic distress, humanitarian crises, and the conflicts this can generate?

I think you are downplaying it a bit here. The temperature is already well on its path of increasing several degrees. Economy will probably cease to exist. There will be no humanitarian crisis but simply people mass dying. The "conflicts" may be nukes or sticks and stones but there's also a possibility that there will be relatively few conflicts depending on the strength of the culture of selfish in the local area.

I honestly think you're overplaying it, instead. Whatever the scale of the changes, they will happen during decades, not years. "Economy cease to exist": what does it even mean? There was an economy during WWII, there was an economy during the worst of the middle ages...

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#236

Post by bigbugbag »

yters wrote: post #162
adrianN wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you don't have time to study a subject for 5+ years fulltime to become sufficiently qualified to read scientific papers and assess their results.

What if scientists regularly engage in falsifying and otherwise manipulating their results to fit their agenda? What if the very statistical methodology they follow is open to abuse? If we are to give wholesale acceptance to anyone who is an 'official scientist,' yet they could well be corrupt, how is that epistemically responsible? Furthermore, why must we blindly accept the status quo when there are legitimate diss…

No need to resort to FUD, the thing you are mentioning happen and we can look at them. One such high profile example is Andrew Wakefield study published in the lancet which is the starting point for the "vaccines cause autism" controversy.

What happened is the author got caught, found guilty of professional misconduct and removed from practicing medicine while the paper was retracted. But this had consequences as a growing and vocal fringe population used this to fuel their agenda and spread misinformation against vaccines playing a role in the resurgence of contagious diseases.

But your arguing about climate change makes no sense, climate change has been happening for a while now there's no denying it field measure all points to this; sea level rises gradually, ice cap disappear, athmosphere composition changes, mass extinction of species is happening, natural disasters are increasing, etc. Instead of wasting everybody's time on minute details and discussing attribution you should focus on what can be done to minimize the consequences.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#237

Post by bigbugbag »

oldandtired wrote: post #232
nyolfen wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i would think that greenland melting wouldn't happen all at once (if that's what you're saying), but rather that due to higher average ocean temperatures more of it would melt in the summer and less of it would freeze in the winter, and cumulatively over years and decades it has a net loss of ice, and perhaps eventually loses most of it. am i missing something in your argument?

It is more nuanced than that. In any relatively short time span, we may see specific effects (higher temperatures for example) and we may see other effects (increase atmospheric CO2), but this doesn't mean that over a longer term we will continue to see these effects. The other aspect is that there are some very specific physics involved and I have yet to see any discussion over these specific effects. We have seen,…

When you take time to investigate the historical meteorological records you find out that almost all the highest temperature records since we started recording data are concentrated after 2010.

If you have a basic scientific education you know that any example starting by "when I was a child" is anecdotal evidence and have very limited value because it is akin to confirmation bias and cherry picking.

I'm curious as why you don't apply the principles you were bradishing to the 19th century meteorological data: http://www.isws.illinois.edu/pubdoc/CR/iswscr2011-02.pdf

About Greenland ice sheet disappearing your thinking is oversimplified by looking only at energy required to melt ice. There are several other mechanisms to take into account, for example the increase in cloud cover preventing refreeze at night, or the melted cover snow and ice running into moulins to the ground which then flow under the glacier lubricating it and acceleratiing its motion and thus glacial calving, etc.

When studying a system you need to have basic understanding of second order cybernetics and feedback loops. In climate change positive feedback loop are the reasons past a tipping point there's no stopping it.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#238

Post by bigbugbag »

oldandtired wrote: post #144
adrianN wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comments criticizing evolution in favor of intelligent design will also be downvoted for the same reasons. The scientific consensus is that climate change is happening, and it's caused by us. The evidence in favor of the theory is overwhelming, so you'd have to publish a pretty substantial study, not a comment on an internet forum, if you would want to sensibly argue against anthropogenic climate change without being…

Which scientific consensus? The IPCC climate scientists with their models or the physicists, engineers, climate scientists and others who are raising the questions and the information that disputes these conclusions? There are many who don't dispute that climate change occurs, what they say is that anthropogenic effects are, at this time, unknown and that any anthropogenic causes are minor compared to the various oth…

Can you provide some sources of your claims ? For example of the people going against IPCC conclusions, as the people I know disputing their result are actually telling based on actual measurement IPCC underestimated the situation.

Same, it would be nice if you would source some of the "many" saying anthropogenic effects are minor to other causes. Why not explicting those other causes by the way ?

Same again for the actual results from field experiments not supporting evolution, please source them so we can read it ourselves and apply the principles of making our own min that you are putting forward.

I do agree that there is a religion of science or scientism increasing with time even among scientists themselves and undermining actual science, but this existing is not enough to dismiss the theory of evolution as a religious belief.

Can you also tell us what are the unanswered valid questions you're talking about ?

Right now you're talking in very vague affirmation that are unverifiable, which means your point will be dismissed as personal opinion.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#239

Post by bigbugbag »

yters wrote: post #197
bigbugbag wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reasoning is akin to a logical fallacy, capitalism being what contributes the most to climate change does not mean that anything that is not capitalism is carbon neutral. Then there are other option than capitalism/communism to consider. Look at the only carbon neutral (actually carbon positive) country on the planet: Bhutan. Neither communism nor capitalism are at play in this incredible achievement, but IINM i…

It sounds like the problem is irresponsible people, not capitalism per se.

Well capitalism is about concentration of wealth in little group of individuals. This little groups holds much power and power corrupts, hence the irresponsible people in position of power is a consequence of capitalism.

Of cours this is not the only cause, but this one is significant. From what I gather the underlying issue is one of culture of self and selfishness.

Re: What is happening in the Arctic is now beyond words, so here are the pictures

#240

Post by bigbugbag »

ThomPete wrote: post #227
bigbugbag wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your dad would benefit from a crash course in critical thinking. Climate is changing humans or not is one thing, but that current climate change is a consequence of human activity is another which as factual as the first. We even named the mass extinction accompanying the anthropocene mass extinction event to point out that it's man made.[1] The greenhouse effect is still the greenhouse effect and its meaning has not…

Everyone in this debate could use a crash course in critical thinking, not the least people who claim to be certain about things not even the scientist who debate it actually are. Pointing to a bunch of links prove nothing which any debate between respected scientist will show you. Here is an excellent debate from 2007 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-28qNd6ass addressing all your points.

Providing links is not a question of proving anything but simply sourcing the claims I make so they can be verified and allow people to check them and make their own idea.

A 1+ hour video debate without transcript is the worst possible thing. Not only it is a privacy nightmare because google but also a waste of time and energy. I'd rather read text than watch video because it is much faster, easier to understand and simpler to use (not ctrl + f to jump to a specific part of a video).

So sorry but I don't have time to spend in watching this video. Why don't you write the counter arguments addressing all the points I raised instead ?

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