Unfortunately, that's just linear extrapolation from current rates. Ice sheet collapse can be extremely nonlinear, accelerating rapidly. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05003-z.pdf?origi... Or watch any of Eric Rignot's presentations in youtube. The term is Marine Ice Sheet Instability. This video in my opinion gives a fun demonstration of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLdaAKIkpKA Miscommunicating sea…
False, the long term NOAA models are far more complex than simple extrapolation (though that is of course a part of any forecast) and they certainly aren’t linear. Feel free to read up on them yourself: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/sealevelr...
> Actually, they're powered ultimately by the difference between polar and tropical temperatures, correct? No, vast majority of energy is from warm surface waters vs temperatures up into the troposphere.
Once an individual cyclone gets going, that makes it stronger, yes. But what happens to cyclones? They don't just sit in the same place. They move, generally speaking, from the tropics towards the poles. That's what cyclones are doing from the perspective of the climate system as a whole, which is what the post I responded to was talking about: they're transporting energy from the tropics to the poles. (Of course the…
> Once an individual cyclone gets going, that makes it stronger, yes.
No, that's what makes and maintains a cyclone. Trade winds primarily just move it.
I have no idea if trade winds are expected to fade with climate change, that's an interesting question. There will always be differentials, though, so I don't think there's reason to assume hurricanes/cyclones will stay put.
> Unless you haven't been paying attention, the most recent IPCC report basically says, "We're fucked, its gonna happen now no matter what." Yes, the IPCC is finally coming around to using the words irreversible and abrupt in their assessments. > You can play with the current IPCC model, change where the clouds form, and get an ice age. I don't recall seeing any mention of a potential pathway to an ice age in any IPC…
I am responding to the assertion that "sometimes you need a good amount of fear or anxiety to kick you in the ass..." This supposition is not merely factually false, but is actually dangerously harmful, especially to one's mental (but also physical) health. First, what's important to realize is, when you say it can be positive, you are thinking of incidental stressors. But that's not the case here. The sort of fear/a…
This is an interesting dilemma, and I am aware that people are now seeking professional help for climate anxiety and that it can be a serious problem in some cases. However, I don't think this is a valid reason to discourage climate emergency headlines because the overall harm that is caused by our climate related activity is significantly higher than harm caused by anxiety. Without bringing serious, alarming attention to the issue, there's no way it will be addressed. I don't condone denial. But to the previous poster's point, if the situation has completely gotten away from us, then there's no point in suffering the anxiety because there's nothing to be done but await the end times. However, most people aren't on board with the hopeless abandon mindset at this time. Like so many other aspects of this problem, there's no easy solution, and it's complicated. I think the same could be said of our COVID response. Absolutely caused constant anxiety. And it was absolutely necessary. And it did encourage beneficial behaviour. The alternative is ignorance and more death.
Once an individual cyclone gets going, that makes it stronger, yes. But what happens to cyclones? They don't just sit in the same place. They move, generally speaking, from the tropics towards the poles. That's what cyclones are doing from the perspective of the climate system as a whole, which is what the post I responded to was talking about: they're transporting energy from the tropics to the poles. (Of course the…
> Once an individual cyclone gets going, that makes it stronger, yes. No, that's what makes and maintains a cyclone. Trade winds primarily just move it. I have no idea if trade winds are expected to fade with climate change, that's an interesting question. There will always be differentials, though, so I don't think there's reason to assume hurricanes/cyclones will stay put.
I think we're talking past each other. You're talking about individual cyclones; I'm talking about the overall effects for cyclones in general.
Unfortunately, that's just linear extrapolation from current rates. Ice sheet collapse can be extremely nonlinear, accelerating rapidly. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05003-z.pdf?origi... Or watch any of Eric Rignot's presentations in youtube. The term is Marine Ice Sheet Instability. This video in my opinion gives a fun demonstration of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLdaAKIkpKA Miscommunicating sea…
False, the long term NOAA models are far more complex than simple extrapolation (though that is of course a part of any forecast) and they certainly aren’t linear. Feel free to read up on them yourself: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/sealevelr...
> Global mean sea level, or the average height of the ocean surface, has risen 6 - 8 inches (15 - 20 centimeters) since 1920. In the continental U.S., relative sea level has risen about 10 - 12 inches (25 - 30 centimeters) over the same period. Observational data from tide gauges and satellites also show that sea level rise, both globally and along the continental U.S., is accelerating, with more than a third of that rise having occurred in the past two and a half decades (see NOAA and NASA portals for altimeter-based global rates and NOAA for local tide gauge rates).
So, 30% of the normal one foot per century (somewhat less worldwide) happened in the last 25% of the time. That’s not a big acceleration, that’s measurement error.
And yet this report says the rate of rise will nearly triple over the next thirty years. This is simply not plausible.
Generally, the report reduced the predictions. Also, they eliminated the 2.5 meter (!) scenario.
False, the long term NOAA models are far more complex than simple extrapolation (though that is of course a part of any forecast) and they certainly aren’t linear. Feel free to read up on them yourself: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/sealevelr...
Thanks, I was wrong. The report is good reading.
But you must have seen something I didn’t. See my comment nearby.
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…
> because "on record" represents a nanosecond of geologic time
We are concerned with human survival, not geological history, and human civilization has exsited within the current nanosecond. We don't want to be geological history.
Sorry Chuck, but when a post starts with “I’m not an X, but…” it often ends up being X. If we did in 40 years what took thousands or millions of years to happen naturally, it’s worrisome.
That's fair. When I'm being precise I try to be clear that I both understand and believe the science of climate change due to human activity is valid, and I believe and understand the science that says the climate changes due to non-human activity as well. I know people who take the position that climate has always changed and that humans are not a part of that (or I think even more perversely that humans are part of…
Sorry to hear about the weight struggle. My personal experience is that it's a very habit dependent and hard to conquer thing.
And yes, we can’t possibly convince everyone. We shouldn't try. Long term thinking is really hard.
We need top down public policies informed by science. Heavy tax incentives and disincentives.
We should definitively try seeding the oceans, but planet scale engineering is some scary shit. The stakes are as high as can be and calculating all possible outcomes is next to impossible. It's also hard to start small and scale. So, very much needed and terribly dangerous.
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.
That says nothing about how bad it will be. Almost all houses get destroyed on a similar time frame anyway simply because people don't want to keep using old houses. They're often only designed to last 50 years.