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A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

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Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#111

Post by card_zero »

anonym29 wrote: post #108
card_zero wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two reasons why temperature increases can't be stopped (without actually sending the heat away somewhere, such as into space): the first one is lag in the system if we cut emissions to zero, and the second is natural change in maybe 300 million years. Why bother mentioning the second of those?

This is a strawman. The natural change happens orders of magnitude faster than 300 million years. Also, is there a way to move heat into space that doesn't require adding more heat into the atmosphere than is removed from the expulsion? Or do you just mean this as a hypothetical example?

Well yeah, I just took the time interlude since the carboniferous and projected it into the future. But what's the real answer to how soon it would naturally get troublesomely hot, when worked out properly, and why is it still not very soon at all?

Heat into space: I was thinking of "PDRC":

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

> If only 1%–2% of the Earth’s surface were instead made to radiate at [~100 W/m2] rather than its current average value, the total heat fluxes into and away from the entire Earth would be balanced and warming would cease.

Which is, you know, a nice fantasy and theoretically works. Like a solar shield, but terrestrial.

Edit for those thinking that even 1% is an unfeasibly large area: yes. It's about 5 million km², which is about one-fifth of North America. Maybe scatter the panels around the ocean?

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#112

Post by giantg2 »

hliyan wrote: post #32

I recently finished rewatching The Three Body Problem in which (spoilers follow) the world panics and goes into overdrive because an alien invasion is due in... 400 years. If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real. Granted I was a climate change skeptic myself until about 10 yea…

"and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real."

There will always be outliers who don't believe something. But even for the people who do believe climate change is real, there is a huge variance of how we should address it. Most people have more immediate problems. Many take the same type of argument as the infinite population growth is good crowd - future tech will save us.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#113

Post by no_wizard »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #80
jackyinger wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The skepticism is from people who are making money emitting CO2 and don’t want to stop making money in the same old way. It is well documented that oil companies have been sewing skepticism for decades, go figure.

The idea that a producer is at fault and not also the consumer paying them to do that is strange to me.

This ignores too much to be a good faith argument like lack of options to choose. Ability to choose in absence of regulation, the fact that industry spends millions to curb any regulation and I know ok missing other factors.

Individual choice is actually a small part of this wheel, almost negligible.

The vast majority of polluting is done by industry, and they also do the most not to make things better and actively often try to make things worse.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#114

Post by rwyinuse »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #42
hliyan wrote: post #32

I recently finished rewatching The Three Body Problem in which (spoilers follow) the world panics and goes into overdrive because an alien invasion is due in... 400 years. If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real. Granted I was a climate change skeptic myself until about 10 yea…

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there is no stopping human consumption. It is simply not possible to get enough people to reduce to make an impact. The failure of the environment movements over the last 60 years are proof. The only way is ‘up and out’ developing clean, cheap methods of energy generation and lobbying to get that infrastructure built out as quickly as possible. At this point, investing more in Fo…

Yep, all the talk about individual "carbon footprint" is just a distraction designed by the fossil fuel lobby. Universally in the world people who live most environmentally friendly lives are those that are too poor to consume much, not those who are the most aware, or claim to care the most about climate change.

The only way forward is developing as much solar, wind and nuclear as possible, driving down energy prices. Obviously stuff like carbon tax can help accelerate the process, but mostly it's happening because renewables have become the cheapest way of generating energy in most parts of the world.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#115

Post by no_wizard »

baq wrote: post #84
hliyan wrote: post #32

I recently finished rewatching The Three Body Problem in which (spoilers follow) the world panics and goes into overdrive because an alien invasion is due in... 400 years. If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real. Granted I was a climate change skeptic myself until about 10 yea…

We can't slow down burning stuff for energy, this is politically untenable. ...so the answer is to accelerate the burning, but not for the sake of burning more, but to focus on getting to true clean energy sources which will allow us to economically unwind the mess before the whole house of cards collapses, i.e. fusion + global scale solar (maybe even space solar and microwave beam down) + boatloads of batteries.

Steady state nuclear power plus wind and solar would. In today’s world, make the grid more reliable and greener than ever.

Nuclear should not be off the table. It’s safe, it’s well understood, it’s reliable and is a very cheap way to create base load capacity that renewables like solos and wind can build out on top of

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#116

Post by giantg2 »

hypfer wrote: post #85
tialaramex wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Below replacement would be terrifying if there were one thousand humans, it would be worrying if there were a million, and at least worthy of consideration if there were a hundred million, but there are almost ten billion simultaneous humans, we're fine.

On a humanity-level: yes. On an individual state-level: no.

"On an individual state-level: no."

This might actually be a yes if you believe in the potential impact of automation and AI.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#117

Post by no_wizard »

anonym29 wrote: post #104
awjlogan wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your car can go at 0 kph and 100 kph. It’s the rate of the change that kills you, not the speed.

Poor analogy. 23° C global average temperature increase, even slowly, will end a lot of life if nothing is done to address impacts. The rate of change isn't what causes those deaths; for 23° C warming, the terminal metric is indeed itself what kills, not the rate of change getting there. That said, another section I've largely left out above is that it's effectively impossible to coordinate global action to meaningfu…

Voluntarily convince? Yes, I agree asking other nations to afford something on top of struggling to afford things is not easy.

However, a global reparation fund would make a difference. Not entirely unheard of for richer nations to fund these things for poorer ones

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#118

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hliyan wrote: post #32

I recently finished rewatching The Three Body Problem in which (spoilers follow) the world panics and goes into overdrive because an alien invasion is due in... 400 years. If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real. Granted I was a climate change skeptic myself until about 10 yea…

> If the current climate trends continue, vast areas of the Earth may not be suitable for habitation within half that time, and we still can't seem to convince some people this is real

The areas to be rendered “uninhabitable” in our lifetimes are all poor. Hence the disconnect.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#119

Post by giantg2 »

no_wizard wrote: post #113
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that a producer is at fault and not also the consumer paying them to do that is strange to me.

This ignores too much to be a good faith argument like lack of options to choose. Ability to choose in absence of regulation, the fact that industry spends millions to curb any regulation and I know ok missing other factors. Individual choice is actually a small part of this wheel, almost negligible. The vast majority of polluting is done by industry, and they also do the most not to make things better and actively o…

People want the products. Industry wouldn't exist, or not at this scale, without that. The easiest way to see this is air travel. The vast majority of it is unnecessary - business trips that could be a zoom call, vacations, shipping, etc. People got to every place on earth using trains and ships before air travel. Possible exceptions are medical transport and some types of products, which are tiny by comparison. So yeah, pretty much all on the consumer choices.

Re: A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown

#120

Post by giantg2 »

tialaramex wrote: post #101
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that a producer is at fault and not also the consumer paying them to do that is strange to me.

Blaming the consumer is a time-honoured way to ensure nothing is done. The consumer can't pick options which don't exist, so the producer says oh well, you can either burn coal or you can go without light - there's no mention that the producer doesn't have to burn coal to make electricity, just straight to blaming you for wanting light.

They have renewable only energy plans. So the choices do exist. Not to mention that the choice to go without something is a valid choice. If one believes strongly enough about something, then they will sacrifice for it.
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