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Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

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Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#31

Post by imwithstoopid »

scrollaway wrote: post #25
mbgerring wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quit your job and go to work full time on climate. Start here: https://climatebase.org

This is the only correct answer from all of these. The highly educated are far more likely to make a significant difference especially if they have knowledge that spans multiple fields.

exactly, fly all over the world and tell the dirt poor uneducated masses about the dangers of carbon emissions!

and then realize the dirt poor uneducated masses already have a low carbon footprint because THEY'RE DIRT POOR

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#32

Post by alex_young »

zamfi wrote: post #7

Let me preface this by saying that I believe climate change and decarbonization to be one of the critical challenges of our time. That said… This article’s title and its content are completely at odds. Here’s a critical passage: > As the ice sheet melts, its surface will be at ever-lower elevations, exposed to warmer air temperatures. Warmer air temperatures accelerate melt, making it drop and warm further. Global ai…

From the same page:

  Previous research identified global warming of between 1 degree to 3 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) as the threshold beyond which the Greenland Ice Sheet will melt irreversibly.
We're already at 1.2c above pre-industrial levels. Although it will take a long period of exposure to warm air for the ice to melt, we've already been doing that for a long time. It doesn't seem reasonable to say we have hundreds of years to figure out a solution.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#33

Post by lozenge »

zamfi wrote: post #7

Let me preface this by saying that I believe climate change and decarbonization to be one of the critical challenges of our time. That said… This article’s title and its content are completely at odds. Here’s a critical passage: > As the ice sheet melts, its surface will be at ever-lower elevations, exposed to warmer air temperatures. Warmer air temperatures accelerate melt, making it drop and warm further. Global ai…

Stopping emissions (which isn't even in the Overton window) means CO2 concentration will slowly reduce.

"Between 65% and 80% of CO2 released into the air dissolves into the ocean over a period of 20–200 years. The rest is removed by slower processes that take up to several hundreds of thousands of years, including chemical weathering and rock formation. This means that once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide can continue to affect climate for thousands of years."

During the time of elevated CO2 levels, the temperature continues to rise.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#34

Post by kfrzcode »

neerd wrote: post #10

Does anyone have suggestions for how an individual can feel like they’re actually doing something. I already make donations to organizations that advocate for climate activism, vote at local and national level for candidates what support climate action, and in my own live I try to be conscious about the environment impacts or my lifestyle and purchases. Despite all that I still feel like I'm changing nothing. I still…

Turn off the feeds; don't listen to the talking heads. I'm not saying to be ill informed or under informed, but curate your information feeds such that they're challenging you to do due diligence; read journal articles that cite sources and avoid anything that has an advertisement like the bubonic plague.

Distend social media and focus on high-quality, low-throughput content. Rationality is not based in the vox of the masses.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#35

Post by Arnt »

zamfi wrote: post #7

Let me preface this by saying that I believe climate change and decarbonization to be one of the critical challenges of our time. That said… This article’s title and its content are completely at odds. Here’s a critical passage: > As the ice sheet melts, its surface will be at ever-lower elevations, exposed to warmer air temperatures. Warmer air temperatures accelerate melt, making it drop and warm further. Global ai…

Temperature is a function of elevation. It's saying that if you move the surface down by removing the top layer of material (ice), the temperature at the surface increases, all else being equal including the temperature at sea level.

The effect is real, and big enough to feel with the naked skin. One generally says one kelvin per 100m elevation, although the Greenland surface will be different from that rule of thumb.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#36

Post by xupybd »

neerd wrote: post #10

Does anyone have suggestions for how an individual can feel like they’re actually doing something. I already make donations to organizations that advocate for climate activism, vote at local and national level for candidates what support climate action, and in my own live I try to be conscious about the environment impacts or my lifestyle and purchases. Despite all that I still feel like I'm changing nothing. I still…

I strongly believe engineers will solve this not politicians.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#37

Post by awb »

neerd wrote: post #10

Does anyone have suggestions for how an individual can feel like they’re actually doing something. I already make donations to organizations that advocate for climate activism, vote at local and national level for candidates what support climate action, and in my own live I try to be conscious about the environment impacts or my lifestyle and purchases. Despite all that I still feel like I'm changing nothing. I still…

Leading by example is a great place to start.

Otherwise you have to make green choices a win/win or change people’s minds.

EVs are a good example of a win/win. Most people weren’t willing to sacrifice range or power in their vehicles. But now that the range and power is there and electricity is cheaper than gas it’s more of a win/win.

Changing minds is a lot harder.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#38

Post by Scarblac »

neerd wrote: post #10

Does anyone have suggestions for how an individual can feel like they’re actually doing something. I already make donations to organizations that advocate for climate activism, vote at local and national level for candidates what support climate action, and in my own live I try to be conscious about the environment impacts or my lifestyle and purchases. Despite all that I still feel like I'm changing nothing. I still…

Friends of mine work at a company called Satelligence ( https://satelligence.com/ ).

They use satellite data to check that various countries and companies keep their promises. E.g., a country receives money based on the promise that some rain forest is protected, then they are paid to check that no logging takes place there.

That's one of the few use cases for software that I believe can actually help.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#39

Post by lozenge »

neerd wrote: post #10

Does anyone have suggestions for how an individual can feel like they’re actually doing something. I already make donations to organizations that advocate for climate activism, vote at local and national level for candidates what support climate action, and in my own live I try to be conscious about the environment impacts or my lifestyle and purchases. Despite all that I still feel like I'm changing nothing. I still…

Don't have kids.

You feel like you're changing nothing because you are. It's logically impossible to have an impact as one person of billions.

Re: Greenland ice sheet is close to a melting point of no return

#40

Post by Scarblac »

gridspy wrote: post #30
Scarblac wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, once the CO2 is in the air and stays there, the warming will happen. Then hundreds of years later the threshold is passed and then even removing it from the air (something we can't do) won't help anymore. Once we've emitted enough CO2 to reach 2 degrees warming, it will almost certainly happen that all the ice melts. And there's a point where that will be certain, even if we learn how to remove all CO2 we emitt…

Fortunately the CO2 does eventually leave our atmosphere, given about 50 years.

That's a lot faster than the numbers I usually see (e.g. Google says 300 to 1000 years).
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