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Antarctic sea ice hits lowest minimum on record

nature.com

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Re: Antarctic sea ice hits lowest minimum on record

#51

Post by AutumnCurtain »

jtsiskin wrote: post #33
ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

I am not a "denier", I can recognize that anthropomorphic activities are changing the climate over time and we're not prepared to deal with that. But this sort of article annoys me because "on record" represents a nanosecond of geologic time. There are mountains, and plant fossils [1] under the ice at Antartica, so at some point in the geologic record there was little to no ice at all! And no humans likely either, wh…

Ah yes, the “Tens of millions of years ago, the climate was also different!” silly excuse. Modern humans have been around a minuscule fraction of that time. If we are affecting the climate in ways that normally take millions of years, “there’s some plants under the ice” is the non-helpful remark

My family member worked as a petroleum geologist for Exxon-Mobil for many years, and he is fond of talking about how the climate has changed dramatically throughout the earth's history as a sort of defense against any discussion of climate change. That those changes historically went very poorly for the organisms living in affected areas doesn't seem to faze him, as though we should be desirous of a new Permian extinction. I've come to the conclusion it's a defense mechanism for him psychologically, to avoid having to acknowledge that his life's work served to destroy the natural world and threaten the peaceful existence of his descendants.

Re: Antarctic sea ice hits lowest minimum on record

#52

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

sacrosancty wrote: post #38
ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

I am not a "denier", I can recognize that anthropomorphic activities are changing the climate over time and we're not prepared to deal with that. But this sort of article annoys me because "on record" represents a nanosecond of geologic time. There are mountains, and plant fossils [1] under the ice at Antartica, so at some point in the geologic record there was little to no ice at all! And no humans likely either, wh…

The climate was far more extreme in the past than what AGW is expected to do. It doesn't matter. Climate change is expected to be a problem because of changes that are faster than humans and other species can adapt. Having said that, nobody has any idea how much of a problem it'll be for humans or even if life will be better or worse than it already is. All we have is predictions of sea level, temperature, etc. that…

well it impacts is pretty directly if your house ends up under water which will happen to a ton of people.

Re: Antarctic sea ice hits lowest minimum on record

#53

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

988747 wrote: post #47
gnatman wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just went looking for a map to see how different coastlines would look with a 200m sea level rise. It's, unsurprisingly, significant!! https://www.floodmap.net/

This map is weird. I put 20m sea rise and it shows Caspian Sea expanding, roughly doubling its size. But the thing is: Caspian Sea isn't a sea at all, it's a lake (named "sea" only because of its size), not connected to oceans in any way - why would its level rise at all? Also, it is nice to see that my family home is safe until about 350 meters rise (although it would be located on a small island in that case)

It's possible it's the algorithm has a bug for stuff like this, but I did notice that with, for example, 40m sea rise it shows a connection from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea.

Re: Antarctic sea ice hits lowest minimum on record

#54

Post by rich_sasha »

scruple wrote: post #50
arno_v wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly if you put it to 20 meters the effect globally seem insignificant. Although 80% of my own country would be flooded, so that's not great.

At 20 meters, the Bay Area, the Central Valley, Los Angeles, and parts of Orange county are significantly impacted.

Well if California goes, we might as well all pack up, civilisation is over.

Re: Antarctic sea ice hits lowest minimum on record

#55

Post by Jtsummers »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #39
stevenwoo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

something like only 10 meters is necessary to depopulate large part of Florida (due to loss land and freshwater aquifers) and turn part of central California into a salt marsh and start reducing the USA's most productive farmland.

was always curious about how below sea level works there, how much sea rise does it take before death valley becomes the new dead sea?

That is a flaw with this site, it seems to "fill in" Death Valley even with no change in sea level. The best way to read the map is to look at what new blue areas are connected to oceans, rivers, and seas. If they aren't, then it's unlikely they will be flooded as illustrated in the map at that new sea level. Death Valley, to go with that, is still detached from any oceans or rivers until almost a 600 m sea level rise.

Re: Antarctic sea ice hits lowest minimum on record

#56

Post by lijogdfljk »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #31
arno_v wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly if you put it to 20 meters the effect globally seem insignificant. Although 80% of my own country would be flooded, so that's not great.

I guess you mean the shape of the countries doesn't change much? iirc the majority of Earth's population lives on coastlines, most major cities will be inundated

They'll have a _long_ time to migrate though, no?

Re: Antarctic sea ice hits lowest minimum on record

#57

Post by pdonis »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #49
Gravityloss wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scientists know this. Paleoclimatology is one big part of climatology. But the outcome is the opposite - you should be more scared, since it shows that climate can change massively. That affects things like agriculture or sea level. What would you assume the sea level was, when those plants were alive? For example, with very quick search: "In general, world oceans were about 100 to 200 metres (330 to 660 feet) hi…

Okay, I'd like to respond to this, " ... you should be more scared, " Can you reason to that position? Here is how I see it, and perhaps that will make my position more clear. I'm going to die (so are you). Every year, the probability that I'm going to die in the next year goes up bit by bit. I don't expect to read articles that continually harp on "look how close to death you are, are you sure you don't want to eat…

> the most recent IPCC report basically says, "We're fucked, its gonna happen now no matter what."

More precisely, that climate change is going to happen no matter what. Yes, that's true.

But the report does not say we cannot adapt to climate change. It only says we can't stop it from happening. We should be thinking about how to adapt--which is just the large scale equivalent of you wearing a seat belt, looking both ways before crossing the street, etc., to adapt to the fact that there are whackos out there who don't drive carefully.

Re: Antarctic sea ice hits lowest minimum on record

#58

Post by scruple »

rich_sasha wrote: post #54
scruple wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 20 meters, the Bay Area, the Central Valley, Los Angeles, and parts of Orange county are significantly impacted.

Well if California goes, we might as well all pack up, civilisation is over.

Okay. So what do you think will happen when a significant chunk of the United States economic power is under water?

Re: Antarctic sea ice hits lowest minimum on record

#59

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #31
arno_v wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly if you put it to 20 meters the effect globally seem insignificant. Although 80% of my own country would be flooded, so that's not great.

I guess you mean the shape of the countries doesn't change much? iirc the majority of Earth's population lives on coastlines, most major cities will be inundated

Yeah, I was looking at this and thinking "At 20m, basically the entire Eastern and Southern Seaboard of the US is gone."
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