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Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?

#51

Post by RajT88 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #49
csours wrote: post #41

Before reading, iron dissolving due to higher reactivity (including bacterial action) because temperatures are higher ___ After reading: > "Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that the ultimate cause is climate change. Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than project…

> Other thoughts: iron bearing silicates often contain gold. New gold rush? Could a significant amount of gold be extracted from the water that way? It would likely be a much more environmentally friendly way to mine gold given that there would be no digging required.

If they could make it work at scale, they'd have done it with ocean water by now.

That's the sci-fi dream: all the elements you could want end up dissolved in varying amounts in seawater. It's unfortunately a hard engineering problem.

Re: Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?

#52

Post by freejazz »

samstave wrote: post #20
avgcorrection wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get it.

In almost all Spiritual/Religious teachings - they say " The only constant in the universe is change " - so Its kind of banal to say " Scientists who studied the rivers simply allot it to Climate Change " as if its the profundity of Science here...

Probably orders of magnitude less banal than your comments here on it.

Re: Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?

#53

Post by troyvit »

throwbadubadu wrote: post #48
troyvit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might, but the first time I heard it (put differently) it blew my mind. The way I heard it was: There is no such thing as equilibrium in nature. It's more about constant imbalances. It made me re-think our whole approach to environmentalism. When we attempt to restore something, what are we restoring it to?

Nice philosophizing, but too simple. There definitely are constants in the universe, and dynamic things can stay pretty constant over looong time scales, think of stars, or something complicated as a solar system.. and then it is about rate of change at all levels.. what's nothing for me is the lifetime for a fruit fly, and I live merely a split seconds of our Earth's age. And then there are humans, always against ch…

It's not philosophizing, it's ecology.[1]

Regarding stars and solar systems, over the lifespan of the universe those things are just blips.[2] In 110 trillion years the Milky Way will be down to about a hundred stars. That's a small fraction of the 10^10^120 years estimated to be the lifespan of the universe. So those aren't constants.

The only constant is decay (and C I guess). So I don't see what was too simple about what I said, or even how it was much different from what you said. There's no equilibrium to return to, and any environmental actions to try to restore that will have a problem.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4188511/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

Re: Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?

#54

Post by troyvit »

crazygringo wrote: post #50
troyvit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might, but the first time I heard it (put differently) it blew my mind. The way I heard it was: There is no such thing as equilibrium in nature. It's more about constant imbalances. It made me re-think our whole approach to environmentalism. When we attempt to restore something, what are we restoring it to?

That's not true over short-to-medium timeframes though. There absolutely are equilibria in nature, all over the place. The idea of that "constant imbalance" is always the rule is simply false. Now, as a rule at some point in time either an external force will interrupt things, or an energy source that was maintaining the equilibrium will run out. So no equilibrium will last indefinitely . But an equilibrium can be ma…

> The idea of that "constant imbalance" is always the rule is simply false.

Modern ecology would like a word: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4188511/

A natural balance is the actual myth.

Re: Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?

#55

Post by rolph »

kirubakaran wrote: post #47
gmuslera wrote: post #4

They focused on the water color, acidity, and the effect on the fishes, but they are not putting enough stress in the elephants in the room, the 2.4+ºC increase of average temperature northern regions over very few years (not since preindustrial times) and the massive permafrost thawing that is happening there. Yes, it is causing this. And many more things in those regions and all the world, for more time than a sing…

I don't think there are elephants in Alaska, let alone indoors, in rooms or otherwise.

we have mammoths and mastodons, but most of them are not available until thawed from the permafrost

Re: Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?

#56

Post by pests »

dionian wrote: post #43
gmuslera wrote: post #4

They focused on the water color, acidity, and the effect on the fishes, but they are not putting enough stress in the elephants in the room, the 2.4+ºC increase of average temperature northern regions over very few years (not since preindustrial times) and the massive permafrost thawing that is happening there. Yes, it is causing this. And many more things in those regions and all the world, for more time than a sing…

Is it time that we finally addressed the massive escalation of fossil fuels by countries like china?

Why do you want to go force China to do things when we have a ton of improvement to do ourselves?

Re: Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?

#57

Post by samstave »

freejazz wrote: post #52
samstave wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In almost all Spiritual/Religious teachings - they say " The only constant in the universe is change " - so Its kind of banal to say " Scientists who studied the rivers simply allot it to Climate Change " as if its the profundity of Science here...

Probably orders of magnitude less banal than your comments here on it.

I guess you missed I was pointing to that they put in a whole bunch of meat in the article about the apparent study and they boil it down to a very simple conclusion of "climate change"?

That's not banal? (im not being flippant - I just thought the conclusion was weak, and didnt feel like I learned much.

Re: Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?

#58

Post by graphe »

pests wrote: post #56
dionian wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it time that we finally addressed the massive escalation of fossil fuels by countries like china?

Why do you want to go force China to do things when we have a ton of improvement to do ourselves?

Focus on 95% of 5% or focus on 20% of 95%? You're choosing #1.

Re: Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?

#59

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

graphe wrote: post #58
pests wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you want to go force China to do things when we have a ton of improvement to do ourselves?

Focus on 95% of 5% or focus on 20% of 95%? You're choosing #1.

China is hit by climate change too. Every side has to fix theirs first or how could you (rich west, that profited mostly from unsustainable economic growth) ever make demands to anyone else. Take it from the game theory perspective. Everyone or noone. And which side is the easiest to change?

To me, the answer is simple and just pointing at whataboutthem is just short sighted, like building a wall to fix internal crime rates.

Re: Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?

#60

Post by graphe »

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #59
graphe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focus on 95% of 5% or focus on 20% of 95%? You're choosing #1.

China is hit by climate change too. Every side has to fix theirs first or how could you (rich west, that profited mostly from unsustainable economic growth) ever make demands to anyone else. Take it from the game theory perspective. Everyone or noone. And which side is the easiest to change? To me, the answer is simple and just pointing at whataboutthem is just short sighted, like building a wall to fix internal crim…

A dike had a large and small hole with that logic will be underwater.
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