NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise • Hacker News Board

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#201

Post by sethrin » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:07 PM UTC

throwaway729 wrote: post #143

nylsaar wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did the water for the ice come from? What is the optimal sea level for the governments to set? How do you calculate an energy output without knowing it's environment? Why do scientist, who are dependent on government funding, use words like 'suggest', 'surprised', or 'consensus'? The truth is that none of us know what the actual dimensions of our solar system were 5,000 years ago, nor do we know the measurement…

> What is the optimal sea level for the governments to set? I don't think anyone is suggesting or has suggested such a policy. Rather, the recommendation is "avoid changing things, especially when the outcomes are probably negative and their magnitude highly unknown". > who are dependent on government funding Plenty of scientists who are funded by non-government grants agree that climate change is real. Plenty of non…

There is only one legitimate way to criticize climate science, and that is by producing contrary facts. Everything else is noise. There are a limited number of potential facts which could overturn AGW; similarly gravity is considered difficult to disprove. The kind of mental processes which would use speculation about the future to contradict empirical fact seem antithetical to any coherent worldview, let alone a scientific one.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#202

Post by wahsd » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:14 PM UTC

And yet our only solution is the equivalent of green washing and insignificant, self-defeating feel good actions.

The reality no one wants to face is that the only immediately controllable solution is 1) to reduce the human population, which is the core driver of climate change and 2) stop moving people from low impact societies to high impact societies, stop moving them from the underdeveloped world to the developed world. Everything else is just beating around the bush and making things worse, respectively.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#203

Post by throwaway7312 » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:17 PM UTC

mrow84 wrote: post #178

tjic wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People (well, climate science researchers) have been saying that the changes are decades ahead of us, even now, but that we need to take action now and in the past to prevent these changes. Climate researchers have _not_ been implying that the bad effects are way out in the 21st century: they've made hundreds of testable predictions that catastrophe was at hand in the 80s, 90s, and aughts. We were going to see the…

Could you substantiate your claim that climate researchers have made hundreds of testable predictions over the past several decades by citing peer-reviewed literature making the kinds of statements you describe? Just to be clear, I am not asking for media reports of the scientific literature, but rather the original sources themselves, demonstrating that it is the climate scientists who have been making the kinds of…

Here is a media report quoting climate scientist Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University that Arctic sea ice may be completely melted as soon as 2015:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarm...

Language in the article is quite similar to the language in the OP of this thread: "[L]ast year Prof Wadhams said such predictions failed to spot how quickly climate change is causing the ice to thin" vs. "NASA scientists suggest we've been underestimating..."

Climate science uses the West Antarctic as its poster child of global warming. Here's a scientific study that finds "an absence of regional warming since the late 1990s", and that instead "The annual mean temperature has decreased at a statistically significant rate... These circulation changes have also increased the advection of sea ice towards the east coast of the peninsula, amplifying their effects":

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v535/n7612/full/nature1...

Of course, we don't call it "global warming" anymore since we're not really sure that's what's happening. Now we just call it "climate change", because if there's one thing climates do, they change, and we don't even have to make specific predictions for that. If the temperature goes up, it's proof of anthropogenic climate change (global warming). If the temperature goes down, that's also proof of anthropogenic climate change (humans messing with nature makes world temperatures more unpredictible). If the temperature stays the same, it's just the calm before the storm, and nature will be back to mess us up in a big way to make up for lost time next year or next decade.

Most of our researchers are too savvy to make testable predictions based on this, at least not any closer than 50 or 100 years out. By the time it'd be time to test these, they'll be dead or retired. Meantime it's easy to excuse by saying "climate science is an inexact science." Then you can call it science and you don't even need testable predictions! But you get quicker tenure and better pay than you would with a degree in phrenology, parapsychology, or cryptozoology.

I'll close by saying priests and shaman have traditionally held similar sway over the masses to what our climate scientists do today by predicting things like solar and lunar eclipses (although, to their credit, their predictions were a bit more on-the-money than our climate scientists have mustered yet. Our moderns rely on confirmation bias and rejiggered data from NOAA instead). It's nice to know our old ways haven't left us.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#204

Post by justin66 » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

tjic wrote: post #141

epistasis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People (well, climate science researchers) have been saying that the changes are decades ahead of us, even now, but that we need to take action now and in the past to prevent these changes. Given the general staidness of the actual research, I think we need to worry a lot more about where climate science has underestimated the change than where they've overestimated it. The loss function will be brutal on that side.

> People (well, climate science researchers) have been saying that the changes are decades ahead of us, even now, but that we need to take action now and in the past to prevent these changes. Climate researchers have _not_ been implying that the bad effects are way out in the 21st century: they've made hundreds of testable predictions that catastrophe was at hand in the 80s, 90s, and aughts. We were going to see the…

> have a perpetual ozone hole

This was avoided the obvious way. Hardly an indictment of the prediction; the prediction was a necessary part of attacking the problem.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#205

Post by M_Grey » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

strainer wrote: post #193

greglindahl wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There actually was a drought in Syria when that civil war started. Of course, at most that's only part of the problem. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/science/earth/study-links-...

The other parts of the problem deserve mentioned here, because they are extremely problematic and eclipse present environmental crisis and strategy. Syrias civil war began after billions of dollars where somewhat clandestinely spent on fomenting violent revolution there - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawma... Libyas security collapsed after its infrastructure, including its world class irrig…

How dishonest can you get? Would you like to explain why Libya was an issue at that time, and not in the preceding decades?

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#206

Post by XaYdEk » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

ar-jan wrote: post #142

XaYdEk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar and wind based energy production is not going to fully or even mostly replace our gas/coal burners because they lack constant and predictable outputs. Also, we have neither infrastructure for storing power at this level, nor would it be economically feasible. Hydro and geo-thermal are better sources in this sense, but neither are abundant and have their own drawbacks. '- promote the use of electricity and natur…

Both real-world examples and simulations say it's possible, by combining different renewable energy sources, spreading them out geographically, and using large distribution networks, among others: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/dispelling-the-nuclear-basel...

I feel like I might really dive into this conversation.

Technically feasible, yes, agreed. The simulations tell us this much, that at point T+x, we could have a green electricity grid, but you have to take into account the process of getting there and that means economics and politics. And there's a lot of half-measure that seem green, but just kick the can.

Ok, from the engineering side, the flexible, dispatchable sources will be required like I said, can't fully remove them. They can be hydro, which is clean and great, but it's not universally available and were it is, it's expensive to setup and tends to wreck local ecosystems. In most developing countries, the flexible source will remain what is already available most likely, at least in the short-medium term, and that is coal and gas. (this will be mostly for economic reasons)

... “renewable electricity generation from technologies that are commercially available today, in combination with a more flexible electric system, is more than adequate to supply 80% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2050 while meeting electricity demand on an hourly basis in every region of the United States.” ... That's why the time frame is 30+ years and that's in the US. What about less developed countries ? What's the time frame there ?

What I'm saying is: we will get there eventually, we really need to, our survival as a race might well depend on it, but it's going to be one hell of a ride, it's going to take a while and it will occur at different paces in different places.

And that you need a combined approach in terms of policy as well: investments, direct grants or subsidies for large producers for new and existing renewable plants and transmission infrastructure / public-private partnership projects (depending on your countries economic preferences), incentivizing individuals to go green (ex: subsidies on solar panel purchases by homeowners in Germany, government backed buybacks of old cars, subsidies for electric cars), better environmental standards, incentives for green certifications and an actual independent third-party validation of the companies that receive/offer said certificates, increased power to government environmental agencies (don't overdue it, point is not to shrug Atlas through punitive measures, but to get them to work towards going green), tax-breaks for companies that can prove low-emission is an option, but would probably be a bureaucratic nightmare, carbon-tax and myriad of other tweaks and measures.

And the 'Free Market' doesn't like any of this. Politics and economics, not just the greatest engineering challenge we have undertaken to date.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#207

Post by undersuit » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

hydandata wrote: post #180

I wonder how much waste can be averted if remote was the default option everywhere where it is a viable way of working. Perhaps this is one of the easier ways to contribute to averting the catastrophe.

But then how would the pointy haired bosses be able to see that you are a diligent worker with no effort?

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#208

Post by andrewstuart2 » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:35 PM UTC

imron wrote: post #71

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important thing is that 6.7 is more than ten times bigger than 0.6. Clearly you can safely ignore the words decade and century because they're words and not numbers.

How many decades are there in a century?

I was debating including /s to make it clearer that I was being sarcastic. I seem to have made the wrong choice.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#209

Post by jhayward » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:42 PM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #72

M_Grey wrote: post #11

I suspect that we can expect a lot of bad news to emerge over the next few decades, as the promise of climate change becomes the reality of climate change.

On the other hand, people have been saying that for last few decades, and the bad news hasn't had much impact.

> On the other hand, people have been saying that for last few decades, and the bad news hasn't had much impact.

People are really bad at understanding nonlinear effects. For any kind of supra-linear system, "nothing" happens for a relatively long time, then "all the sudden" effects start piling up and people who say the above claim it's completely unexpected, out of the blue.

Re: NASA Scientists Suggest We’ve Been Underestimating Sea Level Rise

#210

Post by saiya-jin » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

capisce wrote: post #107

Gustomaximus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this logic but dont buy it. Yes many western countries were polluting heavily during the industrial age, but that was using the best technology that existed at the time. The world now knows better about these harmful environmental practices, and has access to better tech to avoid this. If you apply this thinking that 'its what the other countries did previously' that's fine but then you do you expect developin…

> The world now knows better about these harmful environmental practices, and has access to better tech to avoid this Except the better tech tends to be more expensive and less labor intensive. A country with a huge cheap labor force would handicap itself by not using the most cost effective means to grow their economy, negative externalities notwithstanding.

which doesn't make it right in any way - caring only about "me", "now", and not "us" and "tomorrow"

Or in other words - it explains it, but doesn't justify it. We as mankind can do better