Antarctic sea ice – rapid decreases, reduced to lowest area in 40 years • Hacker News Board

Re: Antarctic sea ice – rapid decreases, reduced to lowest area in 40 years

#51

Post by adrianN » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

Kaiyou wrote: post #34

adrianN wrote: post #2

Doomsday messages are coming in in rapid succession. First the permafrost is melting 70 years earlier than expected, then Greenland losing massive amounts of ice, then glaciers that provide fresh water for hundreds of millions in India and China disappearing at an alarming rate, now this. And still politicians do nothing. What we need is an effort to build renewables, insulate homes, and build charging infrastructure…

All these doomsday messages! And they have zero impact on the quality of my life. I wonder why nobody cares. \s

The problem is that the climate will be fucked beyond repair when ordinary people in rich countries feel the impact on their quality of life. We need to act way before that point.

Re: Antarctic sea ice – rapid decreases, reduced to lowest area in 40 years

#52

Post by DennisP » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #19

chewz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon tax is terrible idea. We have a science proving that it won't work. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lucas_Jr . Pseudo-market solutions do not work. They are quickly gamed by market players. It would be just a waste of precious time.

Looking at ( https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/2207/economics/carbon-tax... ) the primary argument against Carbon tax is that companies will somehow tax evade even more than in the past, and companies will move to more tax friendly companies than they already do. Is there an argument against carbon tax that can't be said by any other tax?

The easy way to implement a carbon tax is to tax at major sources, like coal mines and oil wells, and let the producers pass on the cost to everyone else. It's not terribly difficult to assess the amount of coal produced by a mine.

It's also fairly difficult to move a coal mine to another country. Of course, people could import their carbon-intensive goods, but most proposals include tariffs on countries without comparable carbon fees. Tariffs like these are explicitly allowed by trade agreements.

Re: Antarctic sea ice – rapid decreases, reduced to lowest area in 40 years

#53

Post by anon_z88 » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

hkyeti wrote: post #21

adrianN wrote: post #2

Doomsday messages are coming in in rapid succession. First the permafrost is melting 70 years earlier than expected, then Greenland losing massive amounts of ice, then glaciers that provide fresh water for hundreds of millions in India and China disappearing at an alarming rate, now this. And still politicians do nothing. What we need is an effort to build renewables, insulate homes, and build charging infrastructure…

Not just politicians. And still citizens do nothing. Meat consumption is rising (one of the best things we can do personally is stop eating meat and dairy). Travel is increasing. Consumption...

Why is not eating meat/dairy "one of the best things we can do personally"?

Re: Antarctic sea ice – rapid decreases, reduced to lowest area in 40 years

#54

Post by anon_z88 » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 3:45 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #46

> reduced to lowest area in 40 years Does that mean over 40 years ago it had an even lower area or that they are at all time lows (as far as we can tell)? Could account for why my grandparents are skeptical, they're like "yeah, yeah, this has all happened before, environmental political fads come and go..."

This skepticism is important. What is the timeline of these changes in temperature? Can we compare it to the changes 100 years ago? 500 years ago? 1000 years ago? 10,000 years ago?

Are we accounting for positioning and skewing of the sun (on it's natural cycle)?

So much more goes into temperature regulation than simply "carbon emissions", if we were to realistically tackle an environmental disaster I would point to the plastic waste in the ocean and the fish farms.

Re: Antarctic sea ice – rapid decreases, reduced to lowest area in 40 years

#55

Post by tremon » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #46

> reduced to lowest area in 40 years Does that mean over 40 years ago it had an even lower area or that they are at all time lows (as far as we can tell)? Could account for why my grandparents are skeptical, they're like "yeah, yeah, this has all happened before, environmental political fads come and go..."

The 40-year timespan marks the boundary of the current measurement regime (satellite multichannel passive-microwave measurements). This isn't the first time it happens, but earlier measurements may not be directly comparable.

From the article:

The one other several-year period during the time frame of modern instrumental records with an estimated loss of hemispheric sea ice coverage comparably as rapid as [the current one was] in the mid-1970s. Calculations based on a variety of datasets [..] show rates of decrease of ∼600,000 km2/y for the 4 y from the start of 1973 to the start of 1977 and for the 3-y subset from the start of 1974 to the start of 1977

The concluding remark is helpful to reproduce in full:

I hope that the 40-y record discussed in this paper will encourage further studies into the atmospheric and oceanic conditions that could have led to the extremely rapid 2014–2017 decline of the Antarctic sea ice cover, the comparably rapid decline in the mid-1970s, and the uneven but overall gradual increases in Antarctic sea ice coverage in the intervening decades. More broadly, the environmental datasets may be nearing the point where they are long enough and rich enough to enable the linking of several of the modes and dipoles and oscillations now spoken of separately, just as the El Niño and Southern Oscillation phenomena were linked together years ago as ENSO; once that further linkage happens, the understanding of Earth’s very interconnected climate system, including the sea ice cover, could be markedly enhanced.

Re: Antarctic sea ice – rapid decreases, reduced to lowest area in 40 years

#56

Post by adrianN » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 4:03 PM UTC

Kaiyou wrote: post #50

mikepurvis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that is the thing about hitting the ground— you can be milliseconds away and everything still looks fine. In a few decades, historians will be able to look back and identify the key events and turning points in all this. I suspect that the stuff we're seeing now will be eventually seen as part of the transition from "getting bad slowly" to "getting bad very quickly". But obviously it's hard to know without the…

I suspect it won't be earlier than in a few centuries.

All signs point to you being wrong.

Re: Antarctic sea ice – rapid decreases, reduced to lowest area in 40 years

#57

Post by homonculus1 » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

Kaiyou wrote: post #50

mikepurvis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that is the thing about hitting the ground— you can be milliseconds away and everything still looks fine. In a few decades, historians will be able to look back and identify the key events and turning points in all this. I suspect that the stuff we're seeing now will be eventually seen as part of the transition from "getting bad slowly" to "getting bad very quickly". But obviously it's hard to know without the…

I suspect it won't be earlier than in a few centuries.

What data does your suspicion derive from?

Re: Antarctic sea ice – rapid decreases, reduced to lowest area in 40 years

#58

Post by imtringued » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

Kaiyou wrote: post #50

mikepurvis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that is the thing about hitting the ground— you can be milliseconds away and everything still looks fine. In a few decades, historians will be able to look back and identify the key events and turning points in all this. I suspect that the stuff we're seeing now will be eventually seen as part of the transition from "getting bad slowly" to "getting bad very quickly". But obviously it's hard to know without the…

I suspect it won't be earlier than in a few centuries.

Good riddance

Re: Antarctic sea ice – rapid decreases, reduced to lowest area in 40 years

#59

Post by nwah1 » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 4:31 PM UTC

kenpomeroy wrote: post #40

ralusek wrote: post #6

I think that it's important for free market advocates, myself included, to understand something. Negative third party externalities, having direct impacts on individuals that did not consent to the responsible transaction(s), are fully within the responsibility of the government to regulate and/or tax. You are not violating your principles by backing state intervention for environmental issues.

Even still, you're assuming the government has the ability to address climate change if given the chance. But, there would need to be global consensus and enforcement or government intervention could actually make the problem worse (e.g. heavy environmental regulatory burden means products get manufactured and shipped from Asia, and actually generate more carbon emissions). Perhaps, free market solutions a la Tesla a…

Tesla has benefitted quite a lot from government subsidies and regulations specifically aimed at encouraging companies like Tesla.

Re: Antarctic sea ice – rapid decreases, reduced to lowest area in 40 years

#60

Post by serpix » Tue, Jul 02, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

Kaiyou wrote: post #50

mikepurvis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that is the thing about hitting the ground— you can be milliseconds away and everything still looks fine. In a few decades, historians will be able to look back and identify the key events and turning points in all this. I suspect that the stuff we're seeing now will be eventually seen as part of the transition from "getting bad slowly" to "getting bad very quickly". But obviously it's hard to know without the…

I suspect it won't be earlier than in a few centuries.

from what is reported already happening, expect massive (hundreds of millions) climate refugees to really get going within the next five to ten years.