Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse

thatjoescott.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 103 posts

Re: Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse

#71

Post by vdupras »

tim333 wrote: post #59
SupremumLimit wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ignorance of this comment is breathtaking. How are the crops going to grow if the temperature drops by 15 degrees Celsius? What marine and terrestrial ecosystems can survive a sudden catastrophic change like that? What’s going to happen to the weather patterns after this planet-scale shift? How do you “adjust” to the collapse of your food supply and entire ecosystems?

Grow the crops somewhere else? The earth's climate has always changed - the sea was 100m lower 20k years ago and much of Europe covered by ice. But it doesn't change so much over one human lifetime.

20k years ago, humans hadn't invented agriculture. Our whole civilization has existed in one particular geological time, an exceptional one. There is absolutely no indication that it's flexible enough to be transposed in another, and particularly not at that speed of transition, which is, in geological time, exceptionally fast.

Re: Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse

#72

Post by danaris »

lelanthran wrote: post #70
danaris wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those prawns can be replaced by food that is grown in other places that are viable, whether newly viable or always viable is irrelevant. But those prawns are gone. The people whose livelihood depended on them have lost that. The people for whom they were a staple have lost that, no matter how replaceable they may be. Sure, given time , we may be able to find replacements for the things we lose to this drastic clima…

> What you're positing—that as various areas of the planet warm and cool, there will be perfect balance in what arable land we lose and gain I am not , and never did propose that. I am arguing that there is no model that I am aware of that predicts a such dramatic NET reduction in arable area that society collapses. If you know of such models, now would be a good time to make me one of the lucky 10k :-) The only ones…

You said

> some other spot will, necessarily, become viable.

and provided no basis for that claim.

Not "some other spot may become viable." Not "the amount lost will be minimal." Not "we will be able to get by with less." You made an extremely strong claim, that for every lost place to fish, we will, definitely, necessarily, be granted another.

That is what I was responding to. Indeed, I quoted it in my first message here.

Re: Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse

#73

Post by throwaway290 »

The text below the youtube video is not a transcript of the video, it's more like a short summary. The video is much longer than that.

I didn't appreciate how he slid into a sponsored block without saying that he slid into a sponsored block. Not only that, he never says it's a sponsor, not within this 2 minute sponsor block, not before or after. The only way to know it is by looking at chapter titles or by guessing by the changed style of the video with graphics and "link below" stuff (so if you're just listening you'd never know). Even if it's relevant to what you're saying (you can pick your sponsors so that's a given) it should be explicitly marked. Even if you think they do a good thing (presumably you would think so, you picked them as a sponsor) it should be marked. Even if it was a non profit (it's not a non-profit).

Re: Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse

#74

Post by lelanthran »

danaris wrote: post #72
lelanthran wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What you're positing—that as various areas of the planet warm and cool, there will be perfect balance in what arable land we lose and gain I am not , and never did propose that. I am arguing that there is no model that I am aware of that predicts a such dramatic NET reduction in arable area that society collapses. If you know of such models, now would be a good time to make me one of the lucky 10k :-) The only ones…

You said > some other spot will, necessarily, become viable. and provided no basis for that claim. Not "some other spot may become viable." Not "the amount lost will be minimal." Not "we will be able to get by with less." You made an extremely strong claim, that for every lost place to fish, we will, definitely, necessarily , be granted another. That is what I was responding to. Indeed, I quoted it in my first messag…

> You said

>> some other spot will, necessarily, become viable.

You are correct, I did say that, but that's because the probability of that is so close to 1 that it's not worth splitting hairs about.

Can that fail to happen? Sure, but for the planet to heat up even by an exceptionally high 10c and have few places near the average is a vanishingly small possibility, and would almost certianly require a change in the earth's orbit.

> and provided no basis for that claim.

Re: Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse

#75

Post by danaris »

lelanthran wrote: post #74
danaris wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said > some other spot will, necessarily, become viable. and provided no basis for that claim. Not "some other spot may become viable." Not "the amount lost will be minimal." Not "we will be able to get by with less." You made an extremely strong claim, that for every lost place to fish, we will, definitely, necessarily , be granted another. That is what I was responding to. Indeed, I quoted it in my first messag…

> You said >> some other spot will, necessarily, become viable. You are correct, I did say that, but that's because the probability of that is so close to 1 that it's not worth splitting hairs about. Can that fail to happen? Sure, but for the planet to heat up even by an exceptionally high 10c and have few places near the average is a vanishingly small possibility, and would almost certianly require a change in the e…

But...that's just a complete non sequitur.

The proposition wasn't "all the viable land/fishing spots will be destroyed". No one has been arguing that.

It was "when we lose this viable fishing spot, another spot that was not viable will become viable".

And there is zero basis for that.

So either you have massively failed to state your position clearly, or you are so blatantly moving the goalposts, the dragmarks can be seen from space. Which is it?

Re: Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse

#76

Post by DangitBobby »

t0bia_s wrote: post #58
adlotsof wrote: post #2

There was this movie, 'dont look up'

There is also narrative to scare society. Because frightened people are easier to manipulate with.

So how do we tell the difference between something actually scary and something designed to manipulate us?

Re: Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse

#77

Post by roryirvine »

lelanthran wrote: post #70
danaris wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those prawns can be replaced by food that is grown in other places that are viable, whether newly viable or always viable is irrelevant. But those prawns are gone. The people whose livelihood depended on them have lost that. The people for whom they were a staple have lost that, no matter how replaceable they may be. Sure, given time , we may be able to find replacements for the things we lose to this drastic clima…

> What you're positing—that as various areas of the planet warm and cool, there will be perfect balance in what arable land we lose and gain I am not , and never did propose that. I am arguing that there is no model that I am aware of that predicts a such dramatic NET reduction in arable area that society collapses. If you know of such models, now would be a good time to make me one of the lucky 10k :-) The only ones…

Net land area suitable for arable production may well remain roughly constant, but only over timescales much longer than a human lifespan due to the speed at which ecological succession operates.

For instance, when permafrost melts the land left behind is extremely uneven, covered in marshy hollows and collapsing pingos. Where soil exists, it is thin and biologically inert. Primary succession to the point where it is suitable for intensive arable production will take at least a millennium, even if there are no further changes to the climate.

Now, it's likely - human ingenuity being what it is - that we'd be able to use that new land for some form of agriculture well before that, perhaps even within a century or two. But if we do, it'll be through something like genetically-engineered moss and sedges, not intensively growing wheat and corn in northern Siberia!

Re: Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse

#78

Post by DangitBobby »

andreapaiola wrote: post #40

There is no clear or remotely clear timeline. There is no clear or remotely clear solution. So, there is no actionable. We don't know enough.

That's not true. We suspect this will eventually happen if climate emissions aren't eventually stopped or reversed. So the action is the stop or reverse climate emissions.

Re: Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse

#79

Post by coldtea »

d_silin wrote: post #20
coldtea wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The house will burn down" "Don't be alarmist, it's just the curtains that are on fire. Besides, there's a good chance it might rain".

Literally in the article: “Our paper says that the Atlantic overturning has not declined yet. That doesn’t say anything about its future, but it doesn’t appear the anticipated changes have occurred yet.” The study is a stark contrast to a 2018 study that said the AMOC had declined over the last 70 years." ... “Our results imply that, rather than a substantial decline, the AMOC is more likely to experience a limited d…

No, but you might be the only person here who missed "The team found that the AMOC will only weaken by about 18 to 43 percent by the end of the 21st century."

The idiotic article then downplays this horrific numbers because "Yeah, 43 percent is a lot, but it’s nowhere near what other climate models project". As if even a 20%-25% is not very bad already.

And that's just one cherry-picked study, whereas the majority of the studies predict worse outcomes. But sure, let's pick the sole nicer looking as the comforting winner - the "just" 18%-43% reduction "nice" one.

Re: Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse

#80

Post by roter »

> ... potential collapse of the Atlantic Gulf Stream, also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC.

The Gulf Stream is not also known as the AMOC. The nature of the Gulf Stream (intense surface current flowing off the eastern coast of North America) is largely driven by wind torque (westerlies in the mid-latitudes, easterlies in the tropics and polar regions) with the intensification due to Coriolis and coastal friction. What we're talking about collapsing is the overturning part largely driven by the differences in salt & temperature between the surface and the abyss. This overturning intensifies the heat transport from tropics to poles and pulls the Gulf Stream farther north:

  All Ireland is washed by the Gulf Stream
  -- Ulysses, James Joyce
Post reply on HN