The concurrence of three climatic events • Hacker News Board

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#71

Post by matthewdgreen » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

c1sc0 wrote: post #40

matthewdgreen wrote: post #16

"The end of global industrial civilization is where we are headed right now, not at some future dystopian moment. I wish I had a hopeful word to end with. But I don’t." That's a pretty terrifying ending. Many of these trends (reducing sea ice causing increased ocean warming, burning of forests and permafrost) may be irreversible once things pass a certain point. At very least we may need to engage in some sort of lar…

IF the correlation between sulphuric oxide contents in shipping fuel and these measures changes are true then we have the solution in the article right there. The best day to start solar radiation management was yesterday, the second-best is now.

I don't actually disagree with this. My concern is that right now the public is very far from accepting the idea that we should engage in these projects, and they only exist at the research stage. Worse: convincing the world to accept near-term SRM (or even "use dirtier fuel again" SRM) may be a tough sell, since some portion of the world isn't convinced that climate change is very serious, let alone an existential threat that needs immediate action. Even if SRM works and is safe, getting from our current situation to one where we deploy SRM could take years, and I'm getting worried that we might not have those years.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#72

Post by pyrale » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #26

> The IPCC suggests that current sulfur aerosol levels are contributing in the neighborhood of 0.5° C to total global cooling, offsetting warming that would otherwise rapidly occur. > By cleaning up shipping fuels, massive regions of the world’s oceans that were protected from heating by shipping sulfate aerosols are now experiencing rapid warming. This includes the main shipping routes between Asia and the Western U…

Climate change is just one of the things that will get us if we don't find a way to live in our environment. We can't just fuck every other issue to solve that one problem, and hope everything will be fine.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#73

Post by roflyear » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

hunter2_ wrote: post #55

vichu wrote: post #12

I fear that this is the year "wet-bulb temperature" becomes a term regular households across the world become deeply familiar with. It may be as ubiquitous as the term "social distancing" became. I've always naively thought that climate disaster was still 10-20 years out, but it seems like it's going to begin in earnest now and instead be completely catastrophic after these next 10 years. What can I as an individual…

I am very familiar with how a wet-bulb thermometer works and some of the ways it's useful (like at altitude for weather forecasts, and as one of the ways to build a hygrometer) but I'm struggling to make the connection that you've made as to why it'll be a household term. Mind explaining?

At a certain wet bulb temp humans cannot cool themselves off - they die without access to some other means to get cool (like cold water, air conditioning, etc).

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#74

Post by LatteLazy » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #26

> The IPCC suggests that current sulfur aerosol levels are contributing in the neighborhood of 0.5° C to total global cooling, offsetting warming that would otherwise rapidly occur. > By cleaning up shipping fuels, massive regions of the world’s oceans that were protected from heating by shipping sulfate aerosols are now experiencing rapid warming. This includes the main shipping routes between Asia and the Western U…

This baffles me too but it is the way of things. Smart people refuse to support action unless they're 100% sure no one will dislike it. Meanwhile morons wreck things without pause or consequence. I don't know what it is but I think it will doom our species. You see the same thing from climate change to deficits to wars.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#75

Post by volkl48 » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #26

> The IPCC suggests that current sulfur aerosol levels are contributing in the neighborhood of 0.5° C to total global cooling, offsetting warming that would otherwise rapidly occur. > By cleaning up shipping fuels, massive regions of the world’s oceans that were protected from heating by shipping sulfate aerosols are now experiencing rapid warming. This includes the main shipping routes between Asia and the Western U…

> But if every fraction of a degree matters, shouldn't we also be at least continuing if not scaling up these these albedo-increasing changes?

Acid Rain is also a bad thing with bad consequences.

While I'm not necessarily that opposed to cautious attempts at some geoengineering, I don't think "scale up the sulfate emissions" is a viable solution.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#76

Post by coldtea » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #16

"The end of global industrial civilization is where we are headed right now, not at some future dystopian moment. I wish I had a hopeful word to end with. But I don’t." That's a pretty terrifying ending. Many of these trends (reducing sea ice causing increased ocean warming, burning of forests and permafrost) may be irreversible once things pass a certain point. At very least we may need to engage in some sort of lar…

Don't worry. Magically awesome, yet uninvented, or in perpetual "in the next ten years" state technology, with Star Trek scope, will save us with a technical solution. If not, we're all just going to Mars in 10-15 years, with colonies and terraformings. Even if we haven't managed to even get back to the moon for 50 years.

That's what everybody insisted for the past 20-30 years, so must be true. All we need to do is keep expanding consumption/production!

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#77

Post by vsareto » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

cpr wrote: post #15

[flagged]

>Average Antarctic sea ice concentration in February 2023, the month when sea ice reaches its summer minimum extent. Compared to median conditions from 1981–2010 (yellow line), the most recent minimum was the lowest on record throughout the month.

???

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#78

Post by oldstrangers » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

kfrzcode wrote: post #32

vichu wrote: post #12

I fear that this is the year "wet-bulb temperature" becomes a term regular households across the world become deeply familiar with. It may be as ubiquitous as the term "social distancing" became. I've always naively thought that climate disaster was still 10-20 years out, but it seems like it's going to begin in earnest now and instead be completely catastrophic after these next 10 years. What can I as an individual…

Keep calm, carry on, adapt. Slow-moving crises are not crises, they're problems, not emergencies. ---- Here, have some literature, down-voters! ---- [1] Nine long and nearly continuous sea level records were chosen from around the world to explore rates of change in sea level for 1904–2003. These records were found to capture the variability found in a larger number of stations over the last half century studied prev…

Slow moving relative to your sense of time, sure. Extremely fast moving on a planetary timeline.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#79

Post by roflyear » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #61

vichu wrote: post #12

I fear that this is the year "wet-bulb temperature" becomes a term regular households across the world become deeply familiar with. It may be as ubiquitous as the term "social distancing" became. I've always naively thought that climate disaster was still 10-20 years out, but it seems like it's going to begin in earnest now and instead be completely catastrophic after these next 10 years. What can I as an individual…

I dount it'll help you much to move. We've got drought and fire here in Sweden already. Never rains anymore. Slaugherhouses fullbooked already becauae the probability of being able to keep the livestock fed and watered looks pretty bad already...

These issues are going to impact livestock around the world - which is a big contributor to global warming. I suppose some issues are self-correcting.

Re: The concurrence of three climatic events

#80

Post by pc86 » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

DrThunder wrote: post #38

He forgot the 4th event - Social Contagion Resulting in Climate Sensationalism. Can we please have a realistic discussion on climate change? I'm so sick of these "scientists" acting like we're in "Day After Tomorrow" and every normal weather event is suddenly a precursor to the Armageddon that'll take us all out in the next decade or less. You scientifically cannot look at individual weather events and determine they…

> Can we please have a realistic discussion on climate change?

No we can't, because of the people who actually care about it, half are "everyone is going to be dead before your toddler goes to college unless we dismantle capitalism across the globe" and half are "humans haven't caused any warming at all and dumping trillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere has zero measurable effect I bet you voted for Biden." Both are idiots, but the problem is if you're not in one of those camps, and you want to have a rational discussion about climate change, you're in such a small minority you look like the crazy one.

Even here where I'd like to think the users are generally intelligent, the thread is either jokes, apocalyptic predictions about billions of climate-migrants, or nonsense about communism.

It would be interesting to compare this trend in US politics as a whole and how it can also be applied to this specific issue (and other divisive issues like gun rights or abortion rights) if it wasn't so goddamn depressing.