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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

#61

Post by libraryatnight »

ryandrake wrote: post #11

Every time there's an article about climate change, it's always about how we're "close to the point of no return." It's felt like the Truck Almost Hitting The Pole GIF[1] for like 10 years now. Has anything actually gone past the point of no return? I'll almost be relieved when we're officially inevitably fucked... at least these "nearly there!" articles won't keep popping up. 1: https://tenor.com/view/truck-crash-te…

I imagine to the people watching and warning it's a lot more visible and obvious. I also think there's varying degrees of fucked, so we're already fucked, but we can be more fucked so even as things indeed get fucked we still read articles about how there's still fucking on the docket.

I think a lot about this article from Harpers in 2015: https://harpers.org/archive/2015/04/rotten-ice/

In it there are scientists that more or less say we were in mitigation phase then, not prevention.

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

#63

Post by pharmakom »

ryandrake wrote: post #11

Every time there's an article about climate change, it's always about how we're "close to the point of no return." It's felt like the Truck Almost Hitting The Pole GIF[1] for like 10 years now. Has anything actually gone past the point of no return? I'll almost be relieved when we're officially inevitably fucked... at least these "nearly there!" articles won't keep popping up. 1: https://tenor.com/view/truck-crash-te…

I’m sure we will feel that way in 50 years time :)

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

#64

Post by imwithstoopid »

BirAdam wrote: post #59
imwithstoopid wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

live like its 1880 buy stuff as if the garbage man does not exist...in 1880 they didn't have trash removal buy one set of clothes you wear pretty much every day until they fall off of you buy a few tools that will last you forever no more disposable anything, remember the trash man doesn't exist wash clothes by hand cook everything yourself, even better grow your own food sorry no biking, rubber is an industrial proc…

This would mean massive deforestation to heat and build with wood. That means much more carbon than most people currently produce with less land taking it in. Burning wood ain’t the answer. Also, 1800s was the era where coal became available for businesses and the wealthy, and that’s also a bad idea. To suggest no major energy source would likewise be bad as billions would die.

Okay 1680

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

#65

Post by CatWChainsaw »

Lammy wrote: post #58
CatWChainsaw wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Degrowth. There is no way to square this circle. Sorry.

“Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.”

Had to look that up, a quote from the now-destroyed Georgia Guidestones, apparently. Hard to tell what your message is when there's literally nothing but the quote to give you context.

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

#66

Post by vlunkr »

ryandrake wrote: post #11

Every time there's an article about climate change, it's always about how we're "close to the point of no return." It's felt like the Truck Almost Hitting The Pole GIF[1] for like 10 years now. Has anything actually gone past the point of no return? I'll almost be relieved when we're officially inevitably fucked... at least these "nearly there!" articles won't keep popping up. 1: https://tenor.com/view/truck-crash-te…

Applies to the Doomsday Clock as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock

Someone ought to make a parody clock at this point.

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

#67

Post by bell-cot »

BirAdam wrote: post #53
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…

Well, if that’s an accurate measure of sea level rise, then ocean salinity would drop significantly and cool the planet very rapidly, and by quite a bit. Not sure what outcome of that would be, but dramatic sudden cooling would likely devastate agriculture.

Are you thinking of this theory? Greenland Melts ==> North Atlantic Salinity Falls ==> North Atlantic Ocean Currents Disrupted ==> Local Cooling of Northern Europe

If so, sed 's/cool the planet/cool Northern Europe/' Though yes, it'd be locally pretty dire for agriculture. Maybe they could switch to farming fish in all the newly-flooded lowlands...

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

#68

Post by kulahan »

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…

Climate change is genuinely one of the few things where grassroots movements (pun not intended) can have an outsized impact. Kill your lawn, replace it with native plants, and you can create an absolute oasis for animals that are losing more of their habitats year after year.

This can be a refuge for thousands of animals, give you tons of cool stuff to watch go on in your back yard, and it'll almost certainly save you money as the plants won't struggle to grow and thrive in your area.

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

#69

Post by realworldperson »

gridspy wrote: post #29
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…

No, the story is that we begin the melting by raising the earth's temperature a little. You'd think that if we reduced our carbon emissions, the ice would stop melting. > But once the ice crosses the threshold, it would inevitably continue to melt Bear in mind that the atmosphere retains carbon dioxide for ~50 years, that other melt events are dumping methane into the atmosphere from permafrost. It's not just one fac…

[dead]

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

#70

Post by graeme »

gridspy wrote: post #29
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…

No, the story is that we begin the melting by raising the earth's temperature a little. You'd think that if we reduced our carbon emissions, the ice would stop melting. > But once the ice crosses the threshold, it would inevitably continue to melt Bear in mind that the atmosphere retains carbon dioxide for ~50 years, that other melt events are dumping methane into the atmosphere from permafrost. It's not just one fac…

>You'd think that if we reduced our carbon emissions, the ice would stop melting.

People think of climate change like a river. You reduce emissions, you reduce the size of the emissions, you reduce the size of the problem.

But it's more like a bathtub. Emissions are the water filling the tub, but the real problem is the water level already in the tub. If you reduce emissions, you reduce the size of the flow into the tub. But....water is still flowing in and the water is still rising.

If we had zero emissions it would take earth systems much much longer than 50 years to bring things back down to where they were.

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