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Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

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Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#301

Post by altacc »

jppope wrote: post #182
altacc wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a continuous 24/7/365 process. They have a drilling season each year, I believe about 6-8 weeks, have drilled at 2 different sites and been interrupted by the pandemic.

why was ice drilling interrupted by the pandemic?

International travel was not easy nor reliable during the pandemic, with many borders de facto closed or severely restricted, with quarantines, tests, etc.. needed. The drilling season involves moving an international team from each of their home countries to Greenland, then back again a few weeks later. So practically impossible to make sure the drilling season could happen with the crew required and then get them home again.

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#302

Post by this_steve_j »

seattle_spring wrote: post #280
Ilnsk wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I were a cloud person.

This thread likely reads very interestingly for those with the "Cloud to Butt" [1] chrome plugin [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cloud-to-butt-plus...

I didn’t install the plug-in, but made a mental substitution and reread the thread. Now I am chuckling like a grade schooler over some madlibs and dribbled coffee down my shirt.

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#303

Post by Moru »

Insanity wrote: post #241
Ilnsk wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I were a cloud person.

When I read that first sentence, I thought “what has cloud (software) to do with this”

I once was told I was using the word clustering wrong (I was doing k-means, not computers).

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#304

Post by slashdev »

Miraste wrote: post #281
slashdev wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand if we only have 2-3 degrees of warming, if that’s enough to prevent the next ice age, didn’t we just dodge a massive icy bullet? Might we not one day thank ourselves for doing something reckless and stupid that actually worked out? Yeah a warmer climate brings all kinds of horrible changes. But food still grows in the northern hemisphere. A colder climate is arguably even worse for us. By the way, t…

There's no bullet to dodge. Minus human intervention, the next ice age would be in 50,000 years. Humanity will be either some unrecognizable scifi trope or, more likely, long gone by then. Planning for it is pointless. The time scales for anthropogenic climate change and the previous temperature cycles are so different as to not be comparable.

I’m not saying to plan for it.

I’m just saying that a silver lining of the mess we’ve made is that we probably won’t have that ice age in 50,000 years. We’ve likely disrupted the cycle.

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#305

Post by slashdev »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #284
slashdev wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand if we only have 2-3 degrees of warming, if that’s enough to prevent the next ice age, didn’t we just dodge a massive icy bullet? Might we not one day thank ourselves for doing something reckless and stupid that actually worked out? Yeah a warmer climate brings all kinds of horrible changes. But food still grows in the northern hemisphere. A colder climate is arguably even worse for us. By the way, t…

What I gathered is that if the gulf stream stops, warm water will no longer flow north and the ice sheets will grow explosively, triggering an ice age (the kind where thick ice sheets flow southwards). That would pretty much wipe out anything built in the northern half of Europe... although granted, I don't know if it was like a kilometer high ice sheet rolling our way or how fast it went in previous ice ages, it mig…

Early onset of glaciation via warming instead of cooling. Counter intuitive idea.

It’s unclear that it would play out that way. One could look at what happened the last time it stopped to get some idea, but things are different this time. We have a lot more atmospheric CO2.

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#306

Post by rsynnott »

arp242 wrote: post #201
briantakita wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem angry, so I'm going to try to explain (from my perspective) why someone may have the perception that you reacted to. There is plenty of criticism over relying on mathematical models that fail to accurately predict the future (all of the glaciers were predicted to have melted 3 years ago, snow was supposed to have been a thing of the past, etc.), cherry picking data, questionable measurement & sampling, not c…

> all of the glaciers were predicted to have melted 3 years ago I don't think any mainstream models predicted that? Which model was that? Also remember that our actions are influenced by models. "If current trends persist, then in 20 years [...]" may very well be true, but if we take action based on those predictions (e.g. change the trend) then the outcome will be different. You can see this clearly in population le…

Also, the ozone holes, acid rain, and things like Y2K. “This thing would have been very bad, but we (expensively, with great effort) fixed it, so it was okay” somehow becomes, in the public imagination, “this was not a real thing”.

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#307

Post by sanderjd »

zosima wrote: post #289
sanderjd wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, no agriculture is an even bigger problem than no power.

You don't think modern agriculture and energy are intimately related? I'm honestly a bit shocked.

I do think they are, but it's also (obviously) the case that if an eruption blotted out the sun and disrupted wind currents, having the ability to keep generating power would not help much because the plants and animals we eat would all die.

And what's with the weird tone? It's a super banal point that our food requires sun. I highly doubt you're "shocked" by it.

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#308

Post by acdha »

biofox wrote: post #283
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the added burdens of... - managing licenses across multiple devices - limiting the people you can share code with to ones that are willing to deal with licenses - budgeting for an ongoing subscription / renewing as needed ...I'd say that even $10/year is too much. Ecosystems that create collaboration barriers like these are no place for important work.

The support and documentation for MATLAB is really unparalleled though. Worth every penny when you want to focus your time on being productive, rather than banging your head against the language.

That sounds like a welcome change from the 2000s where we had to hound them for even obvious flaws.

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#309

Post by wheelerof4te »

saltymug76 wrote: post #279
wheelerof4te wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"75,000 years ago: Toba Volcano supereruption that may have contributed to human populations being lowered to about 15,000 people." The key question is: How much CO2 did that super-eruption emit into the atmosphere? In our hurry to attribute climate change to our meager impact on this planet, we tend to forget what horrors an eruption of this magnitude can cause. And who knows how many of them happened during the pas…

If you're trying to minimize human caused warming with the rare eruption of super volcanoes, it's pretty weak.

Where is the evidence of human effect on the climate change? There is a huge effect on pollution, but hardly any on the global climate.

Re: Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock

#310

Post by orangepurple »

zosima wrote: post #264
dredmorbius wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An eruption significant enough to impact solar and wind generation globally will also affect other critical requirements of humanity, and the Earth's ecosystem, globally. Which is to say: You Will Be Having Bigger Problems. Recovery from regional meterological catastrophes is well within human capabilities.

Bigger problems than no power in the worst year imaginable. Give me a break.

You are thinking too far ahead. There is a real risk of persistent cloud cover and ash in many places without total crop failure.
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