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The melting of Antarctica

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The melting of Antarctica

#31

Post by IvyMike »

Karunamon wrote: post #8
[deleted] wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

This, right here, is representative of a problem. Given what the global scientific consensus is (AGW is real, ice is melting, humans are to blame), it is my first impression that your graph and stance is probably crap, but I don't know enough about climate science to make a reasonable argument one way or another (or even interpret the data for that matter). What's a layperson to do? You can learn basic Python in an a…

To explain the issue: sea ice floats, is thin, is seasonal, and correlates to wind speeds since it is mostly just the top of the ocean freezing due to evaporation.

But sea ice does not really matter if you care about sea level. Ice cubes melting in a glass does not really impact the level of drink in your glass. What does matter is the thick glaciers over landmass, which, when they melt, add water into the ocean.

Re: The melting of Antarctica

#32

Post by dang »

jnevill wrote: post #26
forrestthewoods wrote: post #7

Why is Antarctica melting more now than when the ozone hole was a major issue in 90s? That was centered on Antarctica and has been largely fixed I think. Why is this happening now and not then? Or is now because of then? Can anyone provide a clear answer? (edit: wtf? why would anyone downvote this? it's a legit and perfectly fair question.)

Legit and perfectly fair questions can also be incredibly stupid. So... that's it. Your question is legit and perfect fair (whatever the hell that means), and it's also brain-numbingly stupid.

> brain-numbingly stupid

This comment violates the HN guidelines. Please follow them when posting on this site:

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Re: The melting of Antarctica

#33

Post by fixermark »

To bring this iceberg around a bit closer to tech culture...

California is already being hit by drought, and NASA's climate change models suggest the drought can be expected to get worse as the temperature shift due to AGW increases [http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/todays...]. Silicon Valley is, of course, located in California. Does / should this news make people bearish on further deep investment in the Valley if a possible consequence of resource loss is a destabilization of that region (I don't mean "Mad Max", but one would assume that water rationing will have some negative impact on the startup scene in CA)?

Re: The melting of Antarctica

#35

Post by dang »

hackuser wrote: post #30
orik wrote: post #15

This is a very click-bait-ey title. Maybe it could be changed to something more appropriate for HN? edit: This post used to read as "The melting of Antarctica was already really bad. It just got worse." It has since been changed.

> This is a very click-bait-ey title. Maybe it could be changed to something more appropriate for HN? It's the actual story title. Since Bezos bought them, my impression is that the Washington Post has published much more click-bait and strident writing. It's sad to see that from what used to be one of the best news sources in the world. Ten years ago there were three top-notch serious news sources in the U.S. IMHO,…

The HN guidelines ask submitters to use the original title unless it is misleading or linkbait. Since this one was the latter, we shortened it.

Re: The melting of Antarctica

#36

Post by Jtsummers »

jnevill wrote: post #26
forrestthewoods wrote: post #7

Why is Antarctica melting more now than when the ozone hole was a major issue in 90s? That was centered on Antarctica and has been largely fixed I think. Why is this happening now and not then? Or is now because of then? Can anyone provide a clear answer? (edit: wtf? why would anyone downvote this? it's a legit and perfectly fair question.)

Legit and perfectly fair questions can also be incredibly stupid. So... that's it. Your question is legit and perfect fair (whatever the hell that means), and it's also brain-numbingly stupid.

It's not reasonable to call this a "brain-numbingly stupid" question. The question is legit for someone who has either not studied or not read about the subject matter, but primarily is aware of it via news reporting and random discussions. It's somewhat fair, though still impolite, to call it ignorant. It's fairest to call a question (or questioner) confused. But ignorance and confusion are things that we can fix: by answering the posed question or providing a source to material that can answer the question.

Best solution? Don't call someone's question ignorant or stupid. Instead, be a decent human being and help alleviate the confusion by answering the question.

Re: The melting of Antarctica

#37

Post by epistasis »

tomjen3 wrote: post #27
Karunamon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, right here, is representative of a problem. Given what the global scientific consensus is (AGW is real, ice is melting, humans are to blame), it is my first impression that your graph and stance is probably crap, but I don't know enough about climate science to make a reasonable argument one way or another (or even interpret the data for that matter). What's a layperson to do? You can learn basic Python in an a…

I haven't the first clue about climatology. It seems like magic to me that you can see the climate twenty years from now, but not e.g. whether it is going to rain next week. Still other things like e.g anesthesia is also magic to me, but I know for a fact that it works. What bugs me about GW research is lack of focus on mitigating GW, other than by cutting greenhouse gasses (ain't gonna happen) and especially things…

>It seems like magic to me that you can see the climate twenty years from now, but not e.g. whether it is going to rain next week.

If that seems magical to you, then most of the world should seem like magic rather than science. We can predict all sorts of things over long time scales that we can't predict over short time scales, and we do it all the time. We can't predict turbulence or the exact way that steam will rise from a hot cup of tea, but we can predict the amount of steam and the average speed of its rising.

And if you think that you have any sorts of technical chops, familiarize yourself with things like the Lorentz attractor, for which we can not predict exact trajectories, but we can predict where the two attractors are.

Re: The melting of Antarctica

#38

Post by astrodust »

keithwarren wrote: post #34

"Global sea level rise of 11 feet" I would really like to see a more clear explanation as to how they extrapolated that estimation from the data.

The Antarctic ice sheet is not only gigantic, larger than the continental United States, but it is kilometers thick.

Take the fraction of the volume that's anticipated to melt and spread that over the ocean, and you get that 11 foot number.

The Wikipedia page, for what it's worth, estimates that the sea level would rise 70 meters if the whole thing melted. Plus, if Antarctica melted, then all ice would've melted, including Greenland, so we'd be even more screwed.

You're right that there's not enough data here, though. I'm sure the calculation is far from simple since the ice-sheet varies dramatically in terms of topology both on the surface and underwater.

Re: The melting of Antarctica

#39

Post by happyscrappy »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #7

Why is Antarctica melting more now than when the ozone hole was a major issue in 90s? That was centered on Antarctica and has been largely fixed I think. Why is this happening now and not then? Or is now because of then? Can anyone provide a clear answer? (edit: wtf? why would anyone downvote this? it's a legit and perfectly fair question.)

> wtf? why would anyone downvote this? it's a legit and perfectly fair question

Because all science operates on the principle that theories are subject to reinterpretation upon new evidence, all science except climate change, whose dogma is not to be questioned.

Re: The melting of Antarctica

#40

Post by PhearTheCeal »

keithwarren wrote: post #34

"Global sea level rise of 11 feet" I would really like to see a more clear explanation as to how they extrapolated that estimation from the data.

Right from the abstract:

"We estimate that at least 3.5 m of eustatic sea level potential drains through Totten Glacier, so coastal processes in this area could have global consequences."

With calculations done here: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/ngeo...

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