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Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

reuters.com

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Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#31

Post by LinuxBender »

Fede_V wrote: post #27

Global warming is the single scariest existential threat our species has ever faced, and we aren't doing nearly enough to tackle it. Our future descendants will heap scorn and curses on our generation, and we deserve every bit of it. Every politician that refuses to do what is necessary or finds it convenient to play stupid language games about 'settled science' is doing incalculable harm. As citizens, I encourage ev…

I've seen a few sites that suggest much of this is based on our orbit [1]. If that is true, then the oceans may be about to dump ludicrous amounts of Co2. Hopefully we can find a way to turn that into fuel.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=milankovitch+cy...

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#33

Post by Scarblac »

andromeduck wrote: post #9
pfisch wrote: post #7

Maybe I don't understand the ramifications of this, but it kind of sounds like we missed the offramp where we just stop burning carbon. Shouldn't we just be moving to something drastic like a massive sun shade project ASAP?

We could have had nuclear but nope too scary!

The problem is that even if we had way more nuclear, we'd just use it all.

We need to start leaving carbon in the ground. Try to burn less fossil than the year before, instead of setting record after record. All green energy initiatives are just red herrings.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#34

Post by mikeash »

ngngngng wrote: post #22

[Deleting because I don't want to perpetuate apparently debunked climate change myths, sorry, I honestly hadn't seen it debunked.] Dang, my most downvoted comment was asking an honest question about climate change.

If you aren’t a denier then why are you repeating a classic, thoroughly debunked denier talking point?

https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-on-mars.htm

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#35

Post by crispinb »

magwa101 wrote: post #23

We'll adapt, but the global ecosystem is dying. It'll be cows, cats, dogs, pigs, chickens, us and stories of animals.

Depends what you mean by "we". Homo sapiens has enormous cultural flexibility (though clearly, as the worldwide ecosystem collapse shows, this doesn't scale). So groups of humans will continue to live.

But our global civilisation will inevitably collapse. No-one can predict in detail what that will entail, but we can be sure it won't be pretty.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#36

Post by hjek »

Fede_V wrote: post #27

Global warming is the single scariest existential threat our species has ever faced, and we aren't doing nearly enough to tackle it. Our future descendants will heap scorn and curses on our generation, and we deserve every bit of it. Every politician that refuses to do what is necessary or finds it convenient to play stupid language games about 'settled science' is doing incalculable harm. As citizens, I encourage ev…

https://invidio.us/watch?v=WgFc4Zhvjtg&hl=en-US&local=true&a...

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#37

Post by polyfractal »

ngngngng wrote: post #22

[Deleting because I don't want to perpetuate apparently debunked climate change myths, sorry, I honestly hadn't seen it debunked.] Dang, my most downvoted comment was asking an honest question about climate change.

Mars is a radically different planet and has its own climate. It doesn't have anything to do with the sun getting warmer though, e.g. we can't blame the sun for the Earth warming up just because Mars is also warming up.

A few of the key differences off the top of my head:

- The polar caps of mars are mostly frozen CO2 ("dry ice"), and also mostly disappear during the summer. You can see timelapse animations showing them shrinking and growing by like 90% each year. Their behavior is radically different from our frozen water ice caps, and have a huge difference in thermal mass too.

- Mars has a very thin atmosphere, mostly inactive geology, and no oceans. That means it has very little in the way of thermal buffering

- Mars goes through it's own Milankovitch cycles (changes in orbit eccentricity, axial tilt, precession) which means it undergoes it's own warming/cooling cycles just like earth. It happens to be in a warming cycle right now.

- Enormous dust storms can take over the planet for months at a time, which obviously has a huge impact on global climate

- We have a very short record of observing Mars' climate, so we can't really make long term trend analysis like we can on Earth

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#38

Post by crispinb »

theothermkn wrote: post #19

This phenomenon is curious, in a morbid sort of way. There is literally no way to stop it; we are, as Noam Chomsky fears, a lethal mutation. We developed the ability to create industrial and economic activity on such a scale, and with such sophistication, that we've overcome the planet's ability to cope, but we have no mechanism in place that seems remotely capable of remedying that situation without a global catastr…

> there's nothing you can say to any leader, politician, or pleb that can shock them into action

The notion that a bright ape, with social cognition designed for small group interaction, could scale its decision-making abilities to manage a global civilisation, was always a mere superstition.

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#39

Post by jjoonathan »

gizmo686 wrote: post #30
tasty_freeze wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do have nuclear, and have had it for decades. Concerns about what to do with the waste are indeed an issue, but the bigger problems is nuclear hasn't been cost competitive with coal and more recently natural gas. It is complex trade-off and just blaming it on NIBMY sentiment is not really engaging the issue.

At least we have plans to deal with nuclear waste. What is our plan to deal with carbon waste?

Get HBO to make a dramatic miniseries about it?

Re: Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted

#40

Post by entropea »

LinuxBender wrote: post #31
Fede_V wrote: post #27

Global warming is the single scariest existential threat our species has ever faced, and we aren't doing nearly enough to tackle it. Our future descendants will heap scorn and curses on our generation, and we deserve every bit of it. Every politician that refuses to do what is necessary or finds it convenient to play stupid language games about 'settled science' is doing incalculable harm. As citizens, I encourage ev…

I've seen a few sites that suggest much of this is based on our orbit [1]. If that is true, then the oceans may be about to dump ludicrous amounts of Co2. Hopefully we can find a way to turn that into fuel. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=milankovitch+cy...

Wouldn't orbital changes & things like solar output already be accounted for in any serious climate modeling and history?
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