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Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

bbc.co.uk

201–210 of 225 posts

Re: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

#201
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, why trust anything. It is not as if there is some systematic way to over time iteratively improve a rational model that is testable and verifiable through a competitive process.

How would you propose testing or verifying a non-falsifiable model? Each sample of future data we have tends to show our models to be simply broken except in the most broad sense of a longterm gradual increase in temperatures. For instance from 2001 and 2010 the warming slowed to 0.11C per decade. [1] For the 17 years before then was 0.17C. There was not a single model that predicted this and, in spite of a number of…

It’s a reasonable question. The work is learning how to get a reasonable answer.

Re: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

#202

I find that the impending climate cataclysm is really starting to affect me and my day to day life in the form of crushing depression and anxiety. It's such a huge, nebulous, threatening issue that I can't even begin to think how we go about mitigating it (as preventing it entirely seems like a dead horse to flog at this point). I'd be really curious to know if anyone else is feeling like this? And how you may have g…

I person stopped caring and I think many people are starting to feel the same. While the issues are the most important to our lives and future generations, I feel totally hopeless in humanity. We simply cannot and will not organize on a broad enough level to do anything about it. It will probably take a series of miracles to make any serious impact on improving our situation even though solutions are dead simple. One google search will turn up many viable solutions to global warming but since we are dealing with deeply flawed creatures called humans, we are screwed.

At this point, I don’t know that I care at all. I will die. My offspring will die. Perhaps human extinction is the ultimate cleansing that needs to happen. But then again, who cares if Earth remains habitable. Who cares if by some odd chance the only planet in the universe to support complex life (highly unlikely) loses that life? What are we on universal scale if NOTHING. perhaps a being that cannot stop a stoppable and foreseeable suffering should seize to exist. Isn’t this what evolution is all about? The fit survive the unfit parish.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my fellow human beings. We have overcome some amazing challenges on personal and societal scales but perhaps we have met one we are not capable of overcoming? 1 or 0, we struck out.

Re: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

#203
post #123

So i assume we have all had homework at one point in time? Does this not just feel like homework for the planet, and we are Ll procrastinating because we think we can cram it out at the last minute? How do we shock ourselves into action? This is the question i keep asking myself.

If you consider the world a classroom and the problem homework then none of the 30 students are aware they have homework. The cockroach in the corner of the room knows but everyone else didn’t get the memo. My point being - I will argue that majority of the world is unaware of impending doom - either for reasons of lack of education and awareness or out of pure ignorance. People forget that modern life as you and I know it does not apply to a large population of this planet who are blissfully unaware or don’t have the resources and capacity to do anything about it if they were.

It certainly doesn’t help that our political and value systems have been set up to promote greed and corruption. Look at Trump, he has to be reasonably educated right? But does he give a damn? And if not, why not? The same goes for all the senators.

Re: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

#204
post #147
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of attempts to think about other systems, implement them, and advocate for change. They all lack something important: success. Also ironically it is a market of competing ideas to markets.

> They all lack something important: success. Are you sure? The increasing automation will perhaps give us a future where most people don't have to work and we'll still have plenty of food, shelter, social interaction and entertainment - the latter is almost free in this digital world. Maybe it is just me, but it's as if one can start to see the contours of it forming, slowly, though, as many of the remaining automat…

When I was 18, microcomputer advocates were predicting 3-day working weeks because of all the hum-drum work computers would do for us.

I'd like to believe in your dream and I'm not saying it won't come to pass, but we'll have to redesign our culture to stop fetishising hard work first.

Re: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

#205

I find that the impending climate cataclysm is really starting to affect me and my day to day life in the form of crushing depression and anxiety. It's such a huge, nebulous, threatening issue that I can't even begin to think how we go about mitigating it (as preventing it entirely seems like a dead horse to flog at this point). I'd be really curious to know if anyone else is feeling like this? And how you may have g…

Read Hans Rosling’s ”Factfullness.” It’s the antidote to that crushing feeling of hopelessness. Though admittedly, it feels like I need to constantly reread it to stay hopeful.

Re: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

#206

I find that the impending climate cataclysm is really starting to affect me and my day to day life in the form of crushing depression and anxiety. It's such a huge, nebulous, threatening issue that I can't even begin to think how we go about mitigating it (as preventing it entirely seems like a dead horse to flog at this point). I'd be really curious to know if anyone else is feeling like this? And how you may have g…

Read Hans Rosling’s ”Factfullness.” It’s the antidote to that crushing feeling of hopelessness. Though admittedly, it feels like I need to constantly reread it to stay hopeful.

Unfortunately, Hans Rosling's research has dealt with the last few decades, which saw massive socioeconomic improvements that humanity bought on environmental credit. The next few decades are going to be about whether or not we will be able to pay back that debt.

Re: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

#207
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do that stuff but it's not going to save the world. To save the world we need: a substantial price on carbon, a faster path to developing advanced nuclear power (in addition to continuing renewables deployment), a major rollout of lab-grown meat as soon as it's affordable with decent quality, negative emissions methods both technological (direct air capture) and biological (kelp, reforesting), and maybe some kind o…

We need to start with a revenue neutral carbon tax.

Yes – probably one of the best organizations to donate your time to: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/

Carbon pricing is what really is going to set things in motion on a large scale.

Re: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

#208

The oceans have a mass 1000 times that of the atmosphere. So if they were predicting 2C increase in the heat of the atmosphere wouldn't that be .002 deg Celsius in the ocean? Can you even measure that give the vastness of the ocean?

It's more complex than that. To heat up by those 2C, water takes over 4 times as much energy as air does. On the other hand, most of the warming happens in the upper layer of the ocean, which is a big issue because it messes with the ocean's circulation.

Re: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

#209
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, why trust anything. It is not as if there is some systematic way to over time iteratively improve a rational model that is testable and verifiable through a competitive process.

How would you propose testing or verifying a non-falsifiable model? Each sample of future data we have tends to show our models to be simply broken except in the most broad sense of a longterm gradual increase in temperatures. For instance from 2001 and 2010 the warming slowed to 0.11C per decade. [1] For the 17 years before then was 0.17C. There was not a single model that predicted this and, in spite of a number of…

Whether or not the world has been warmer in the past is entirely and completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that we are provably massively accelerating the current warming, causing changes to weather, water and food systems we rely on for our survival. If we don't make equally massive sacrifices to fix this, we will lose our food, water, and land. This isn't the time for middlebrow devils-advocate games, it is the time for action.

Re: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated'

#210
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you propose testing or verifying a non-falsifiable model? Each sample of future data we have tends to show our models to be simply broken except in the most broad sense of a longterm gradual increase in temperatures. For instance from 2001 and 2010 the warming slowed to 0.11C per decade. [1] For the 17 years before then was 0.17C. There was not a single model that predicted this and, in spite of a number of…

Whether or not the world has been warmer in the past is entirely and completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that we are provably massively accelerating the current warming, causing changes to weather, water and food systems we rely on for our survival. If we don't make equally massive sacrifices to fix this, we will lose our food, water, and land. This isn't the time for middlebrow devils-advocate game…

Why do you think we'll lose our food, water, and land? Let's start with a couple of important maps. This [1] is a map of where US farmland is. This [2] is where US water resources are. So of course we need to consider these things in terms of climate change. I quite like the simulator the NOAA has set up here [3]. It lets you increase or decrease water levels and dynamically see the effect. Perhaps the most surprising thing though is this [4]. That's an article that illustrates what the world would look like if somehow literally all ice in the world melted, some 216 feet of sea level rise. And indeed the world would be quite reshaped, but the surprising thing is by how little. Suffice to say you wouldn't need to start building an ark. And as an relevant aside, sea levels have already risen more than 400 feet since the the most recent interglacial warming period started some ~20,000 years ago. [5] Somehow, life went on.

To be clear I 100% agree with you on changes, but not losses. And I am in no way playing devil's advocate. I think the things I've asked, and said, are reasonable. They're completely authentic in any case, and I am 100% open to changing my view. If anything I've said is inaccurate in any way, or any question technically unreasonable - please do share. Apologies on the excessive amounts of links here, but I find this is a topic where disinformation is excessive and so I think it's important to cite most facts.

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[1] - https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_MEDIA/nrcs143_010966....

[2] - https://water.usgs.gov/ogw/gwrp/activities/images/StudyLocat...

[3] - https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/

[4] - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-s...

[5] - https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_09/

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