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Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and influencing its core

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Re: Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and influencing its core

#31

Post by wongarsu »

card_zero wrote: post #26
silverquiet wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can measure tiny increments of time to see really small effects on the Earth; it's a testament to how good a lot of our instruments are really. What's scary to me is that the carbon content of the very air we breathe has increased by a third since the time when my mother was a child. That's hardly a small thing.

So from 0.03% to 0.04%, right.

More like from 0.02% to 0.04%. But at 0.1% people start complaining about drowsiness and at 0.2% you get worse concentration, loss of focus, increased heart rate, etc. Even if it didn't have such bad effects on the environment we live in we should stop pressing down the accelerator.

Re: Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and influencing its core

#32

Post by card_zero »

silverquiet wrote: post #30
card_zero wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So from 0.03% to 0.04%, right.

I once saw a photo of a pair of lumberjacks posing next to a giant redwood tree they had cut down with a long hand saw that they were able to push/pull together, and it struck me how amazing it was that with a tiny bit of metal and ingenuity, a pair of humans could take on a giant piece of nature (I suppose ironically made mostly of carbon) and topple it. It is really impressive what the right force applied to a syst…

Yes, and one part in ten thousand of the Earth's atmosphere is a very large volume (or mass). But you should be careful when you say things like "increased by a third" because it could confuse a stupid person, who then has to go and look it up.

Re: Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and influencing its core

#33

Post by card_zero »

wongarsu wrote: post #31
card_zero wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So from 0.03% to 0.04%, right.

More like from 0.02% to 0.04%. But at 0.1% people start complaining about drowsiness and at 0.2% you get worse concentration, loss of focus, increased heart rate, etc. Even if it didn't have such bad effects on the environment we live in we should stop pressing down the accelerator.

Hmm, so like one seventh to one quarter of the way (depending which of us is counting) to feeling perceptibly close and stuffy. Useful context.

Re: Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and influencing its core

#34

Post by silverquiet »

card_zero wrote: post #32
silverquiet wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once saw a photo of a pair of lumberjacks posing next to a giant redwood tree they had cut down with a long hand saw that they were able to push/pull together, and it struck me how amazing it was that with a tiny bit of metal and ingenuity, a pair of humans could take on a giant piece of nature (I suppose ironically made mostly of carbon) and topple it. It is really impressive what the right force applied to a syst…

Yes, and one part in ten thousand of the Earth's atmosphere is a very large volume (or mass). But you should be careful when you say things like "increased by a third" because it could confuse a stupid person, who then has to go and look it up.

Nothing about climate change is particularly "intuitive" - you can't see or smell carbon dioxide, and understanding of physics enough to model the greenhouse effect took humanity quite awhile to achieve (though obviously you can stand in an actual greenhouse to get some idea).

But the Earth is a rather large place and making significant changes (I suppose we can argue over what constitutes significant) to its very atmosphere is a profound thing. We are not the first to do so obviously; the first photosynthesizers left their waste oxygen behind which was rather bad news for a lot of the other life on Earth prior to them. I would have hoped that collectively humans might have more agency than bacteria, but when you look at a chart of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it is hard to make that argument.

Re: Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and influencing its core

#35

Post by teraflop »

mattmanser wrote: post #18
noselasd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Have a look at e.g. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/...

I firmly believe in climate change and global warming. I do have a question though. The graph presented starts in 1880 and rises linearly from then, with no correlation to a graph of CO2 levels, which had far more exponential growth between 1880 - 2010s, until recently. As I understand it, the mini-ice age finished in the 1800s. And started in the 14th century. So, is this actual evidence? There doesn't seem to be an…

If you try looking at the actual numbers or sketching rough tangent lines, you'll see that your "eyeballing" is misleading you. The graph is not at all linear -- the slope in recent decades is several times steeper than at the beginning of the time interval, as the accompanying caption says.

Perhaps you're looking at the graph on a phone screen, which compresses the scale and de-exaggerates the changes?

Re: Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and influencing its core

#36

Post by toastedwedge »

spacecadet wrote: post #14

Articles about this reference a research paper, but I cannot find it. Anyone have a link? Also, doesnt this happen from almost anything happening on earth? say a mud slide, or volcano eruption? A sports stadium doing the wave?

I'm not a scientist, but these may be it as they relate to the same topic with the same (or mostly) authors, and were published the week of TFA:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2406930121

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01478-2

I do wish articles would link to these studies instead of just talking about them.

Re: Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and influencing its core

#37

Post by exe34 »

jtbayly wrote: post #29
exe34 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Some people wouldn’t have been able to afford food, you mean.

we have people choosing between heating and food, today, in Britain. we have children going without food today, in Britain. we also have the greatest economic equality in a very long time.

Re: Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and influencing its core

#38

Post by card_zero »

silverquiet wrote: post #34
card_zero wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and one part in ten thousand of the Earth's atmosphere is a very large volume (or mass). But you should be careful when you say things like "increased by a third" because it could confuse a stupid person, who then has to go and look it up.

Nothing about climate change is particularly "intuitive" - you can't see or smell carbon dioxide, and understanding of physics enough to model the greenhouse effect took humanity quite awhile to achieve (though obviously you can stand in an actual greenhouse to get some idea). But the Earth is a rather large place and making significant changes (I suppose we can argue over what constitutes significant) to its very at…

I did play with CO2 a lot when I was a kid, though. I used to buy the little canisters that serve some purpose or other for home brewing, and hammer nails through the ends so they went off like rockets and skittered all over the yard. There was a lot of visible gas, but maybe the expansion of the CO2 made it cold and so I was seeing condensing water? Also I played with the soda stream a lot, I think CO2 has a distinctive taste.

I enjoy referencing the oxygenation event extinction too. Goddam cyanobacteria, messing up the greenhouse for us archaea with their oxygen pollution.

Re: Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and influencing its core

#39

Post by silverquiet »

card_zero wrote: post #38
silverquiet wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing about climate change is particularly "intuitive" - you can't see or smell carbon dioxide, and understanding of physics enough to model the greenhouse effect took humanity quite awhile to achieve (though obviously you can stand in an actual greenhouse to get some idea). But the Earth is a rather large place and making significant changes (I suppose we can argue over what constitutes significant) to its very at…

I did play with CO2 a lot when I was a kid, though. I used to buy the little canisters that serve some purpose or other for home brewing, and hammer nails through the ends so they went off like rockets and skittered all over the yard. There was a lot of visible gas, but maybe the expansion of the CO2 made it cold and so I was seeing condensing water? Also I played with the soda stream a lot, I think CO2 has a distinc…

Interesting point about CO2 - I'd assume your thought about condensation is correct, but it also occurs to me to wonder if it's a gas in those little canisters; a lot of the gas systems I've dealt with have a liquid phase somewhere in the loop.

And I didn't think that carbonated beverages had any difference in flavor, but a huge difference in texture/mouthfeel.

Re: Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and influencing its core

#40

Post by card_zero »

silverquiet wrote: post #39
card_zero wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did play with CO2 a lot when I was a kid, though. I used to buy the little canisters that serve some purpose or other for home brewing, and hammer nails through the ends so they went off like rockets and skittered all over the yard. There was a lot of visible gas, but maybe the expansion of the CO2 made it cold and so I was seeing condensing water? Also I played with the soda stream a lot, I think CO2 has a distinc…

Interesting point about CO2 - I'd assume your thought about condensation is correct, but it also occurs to me to wonder if it's a gas in those little canisters; a lot of the gas systems I've dealt with have a liquid phase somewhere in the loop. And I didn't think that carbonated beverages had any difference in flavor, but a huge difference in texture/mouthfeel.

So what exactly is visible in dry ice mist (see every 80s pop video)?

Edit: NM, Wikipedia says "condensing water vapor", indeed.

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