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A dire climate warning for the Arctic


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Just now, stevenl said:


It's exactly this attitude that has gotten us in this mess.

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I can't see the mess, just the fear that one may be looming. We have too much time on our hands if we can sit around and worry about the future that may face our descendants. Three or four generations ago nobody was worried about what life would be like for you and me. I'm still not totally confident I have my own life secured. 

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I can't see the mess, just the fear that one may be looming. We have too much time on our hands if we can sit around and worry about the future that may face our descendants. Three or four generations ago nobody was worried about what life would be like for you and me. I'm still not totally confident I have my own life secured. 

Unfortunately it does seem that less and less people care about the future, only the here and now seems to count.

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There will be so many problems for future generations to solve that a temperature increase of a few degrees and a few meters of sea level rise will seem like a low priority. Imagine a world with only renewable energy and a complete ban on combustion. Try manufacturing anything without access to crude oil or its components. Can we build solar cells or wind turbines or electric power distribution systems without crude based products?

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the thing that is really sobering is that Climate ain't just about quantum physics (infrared radiation & Co2, methane etc)... for us normal folks.....

it also involves the oceans, for instance....

and thusly a 10 to 40 year lag between emissions (in this case, Co2 alone which is the best case scenario for this little factoid.... forget about methane)... and the climate effect... because of how the oceans behave (mostly)... which is physics but quite a bit more complicated (for intuitive thinkers like us) because it involves the entire Earth system.... leaving biology stuff aside.... for a moment....

given that.... who wants to bet a Larsen B does not happen at Larsen C before 2056?  even if we stop 100%.... today. including using cooking gas or even charcoal for our food needs.

and Larsen C is 5 meters. Swampy is what? 2? Don Meaung is 3? and Dhaka with 100 million people ain't even 1.

and fresh water in Bangladesh even less than that.

so from there someone will say "yeah but we can do chemical veiling"... yeah.... but that one may mean no monsoons in India and no more "rainy seasons" in SE Asia. amen.


 

Edited by maewang99
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who's gonna be the new Sec'y of Defense....  climate related post? yes it is..... quite.....

there's a lot more than just one US Navy admiral running around the Pentagon.... Samuel J. Locklear, for example..... retired? not all of them... who know the answer to a lot of why's most of us don't even ask, but when we do we give ourselves silly answers to tell ourselves....

and is kind of like another question I always have had... until 2016... which is why the Prophet rode a horse instead of a camel.... the answer kind of meshes if ya think about it... with what chemical veiling may do to the monsoons....  and why Paris agreed to a laughable 1.5 degree limit... that we already passed even though our past will take us forward another 10 to 40 years yet and that ain't gonna be nowhere near 1.5 even with chemical veiling running full tilt.

don't believe? try one of Kevin Anderson's talks, the guy at U. Manchester....
   

Edited by maewang99
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18 hours ago, onthesoi said:

 

From the same organisation that put a man on the moon and a robot on mars:

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

 

Make sure you read through the list of studies and which organisation made them.

 

This is only a reported Scientific consensus: Earth's climate is warming

Not that is because of Co2 or Man.

Classic bias.

 

 

 

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On 11/30/2016 at 10:37 AM, RPCVguy said:

Precisely on point - to ask if people read the article :smile:
NASA Study: Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses

 

First, the study did NOT measure MASS of Ice. It measured surface height for a region gaining in newer, less dense surface snow. That is significant. The gravimetric survey which this study disagrees with was a measure of mass.

"A crucial step is to convert the volumetric changes to ice mass using density estimates. In this study meteorological models are used to separate the part caused by accumulation changes (with the lower density of snow), leaving in theory the part caused by dynamic changes (with the density of pure ice). Using this approach the scientists come to the surprising finding that during the study period (1992-2008) increasing ice losses in the coastal areas of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula are entirely compensated for by ice growth in interior West Antarctica and the much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet.Polar Sea Ice 11_28_16.pngCyclicalTemperaturePatern.GIF

“Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica – there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.”  Zwally added that his team “measured small height changes over large areas, as well as the large changes observed over smaller areas.”

 

*edited for Fair Use*


How is what was done to my post "edited for fair use"??  :post-4641-1156693976:
I had included links to articles questioning the study initially quoted and then explained why.

All that remains of that researching are the two graphics showing #1 that Ice at both poles are at record lows, and #2 that while the overall trend on land is warming, it comes in an undulating trend upward that sets new records every few years... (with the warmth, the excess solar energy absorbed vs radiated back to space getting stored into more warming of the oceans.)

If the science is too deep for some to recognize what was said, argue the science - but it is inappropriate to slash the content of a post the way it was done.

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Many comments to digest - with opinions far more frequently offered than measurable data. The opinion that many here don't care about the future of life (in general, or for children as a subset) is an opinion I don't agree with, but at least people express it as an opinion. As for the reports by science - there is an abundance of relevant information to consider,often at odds with statements that have been posted. What the Shift in Polar Ice signifies is the changes are happening far faster than science committees were willing to sign off on reporting. Fast enough to affect many more of us than just those living along the coast. The information below points to why it is also a "military defense issue.

 

►People may think it doesn't matter what happens in the Arctic, but it is the degree of temperature difference between the Equator and the Polar Regions that powers wind to freshen our air/ powers the ocean currents that circulate oxygen so that life can exist in the seas while sequestering CO2 too. Globally the planet is warming, but not evenly. The warming is most evident at the polar regions, leading to loss of the ice packs that circulate and freshen our air, and allow oxygen to keep life in the seas. We are loosing the systems needed to sustain life, and the consequences only intensify with delays. SEA ICE at BOTH POLAR REGIONS is DROPPING.

►While CO2 is plant food, its 42% increase in the atmosphere allows plants to change the ratio of compounds they produce - they can devote more energy to their natural pesticides, and they can grow more - but only if all the other materials are available in the needed proportions. Because that is NOT the case, because heat and rainfall patterns are becoming disadvantageous as well, food production and carbon sequestration by photosynthesis will fail to supply the demands our global civilization is generating. The ultimate human impact will be crop failures, hunger, malnutrition, starvation and wars.
Climate Change and Global Food Security.jpg

►While H2O and CO2 are each Greenhouse Gases, the percent growth in H2O is controlled by its property of precipitating out of the atmosphere (Rain, Snow, Sleet & Hail) though as increased CO2 traps more heat, it allows more H2O to also stay in the atmosphere as a whole. How do we know that the major CHANGE in Global Temperatures is CO2 - is possible to recognize in this graphic, As for the CO2 being predominantly caused by humans burning fossilized hydrocarbons, this short video.
Warmer atmosphere means soils dry out faster between rains, and that rains come more often in heavier deluge events. This year, 2016, as El Nino began transition to La Nina, the cooler conditions globally caused MANY EXTREME RAIN EVENTS, especially as the atmosphere began to cool during the last 2/3 of the year.
CO2 takes millennia to cycle back out via weathering of stones and absorption by plants and oceans as "Carbon Sinks". The problem on both of these aspects is the sinks are not keeping pace with human output of CO2. This year the rate of human emissions leveled off, but the rate of CO2 increase continued to climb... See Amazon Forests in

  1. Science Magazine News 2015
  2. as part of a global forest and ocean problem
  3. the context of overall redesign of agricultural practices for solutions (a string of articles)


 

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22 hours ago, jrward42 said:

 

 

Billions are being spent on ways to help the environment and work on ways we can generally stop chucking so much <deleted> into the air. I don't think that the majority of the cash is going into the pockets of wily climate change scientists milking it. Whether you believe in global warming or not, less pollution is a good thing, surely? Go to Delhi or Beijing and it's hard not to argue that investment in clean fuels is probably of benefit and thanks to the money, big advances are being made. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited for brevity.

China is the one country in the entire world that could do something about smog. They could just ban all cars and make everyone ride bicycles like they used to. Problem solved.

The fact that they won't or can't exposes the whole G W scam for the fraud it is. Does anyone think the Chinese leaders wouldn't know if pollution was going to destroy humanity? That they don't do anything to change it signifies to me that it is just BS.

 

I'm all for anything that stops pollution, and improves lives though.

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39 minutes ago, RPCVguy said:

Many comments to digest - with opinions far more frequently offered than measurable data. The opinion that many here don't care about the future of life (in general, or for children as a subset) is an opinion I don't agree with, but at least people express it as an opinion. As for the reports by science - there is an abundance of relevant information to consider,often at odds with statements that have been posted. What the Shift in Polar Ice signifies is the changes are happening far faster than science committees were willing to sign off on reporting. Fast enough to affect many more of us than just those living along the coast. The information below points to why it is also a "military defense issue.

 


 

 

Edited for brevity.

Your comment about children proves my theory that the world's leaders don't believe in it. Most if not all of them have children, but they are not doing as much as they would if they believed their children were going to die from G W.

What example has Obama given when he continues to fly around on a big plane and takes hundreds of people on junkets around the world?

 

Re the Antarctic, sea ice variation is meaningless. It is only if the ice cap falls off that it will be significant. I have not heard of any ice cap actually being lost, just sea ice.

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On ‎30‎.‎11‎.‎2016 at 10:37 AM, RPCVguy said:

Precisely on point - to ask if people read the article :smile:
NASA Study: Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses

 

First, the study did NOT measure MASS of Ice. It measured surface height for a region gaining in newer, less dense surface snow. That is significant. The gravimetric survey which this study disagrees with was a measure of mass.

"A crucial step is to convert the volumetric changes to ice mass using density estimates. In this study meteorological models are used to separate the part caused by accumulation changes (with the lower density of snow), leaving in theory the part caused by dynamic changes (with the density of pure ice). Using this approach the scientists come to the surprising finding that during the study period (1992-2008) increasing ice losses in the coastal areas of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula are entirely compensated for by ice growth in interior West Antarctica and the much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet.Polar Sea Ice 11_28_16.pngCyclicalTemperaturePatern.GIF

“Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica – there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.”  Zwally added that his team “measured small height changes over large areas, as well as the large changes observed over smaller areas.”

 

*edited for Fair Use*

Your ice charts measure SEA ICE, and is therefore worthless in any review of sea level changes.

As for claiming ice height in Antarctica is decreasing I can't see any data concerning that in your post.

However, as the interior of Antactica never exceeds 0 degrees C, and no fresh snow falls there, any change in height would probably be down to compression, rather than melting, which doesn't happen there.

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4 hours ago, maewang99 said:

who's gonna be the new Sec'y of Defense....  climate related post? yes it is..... quite.....

there's a lot more than just one US Navy admiral running around the Pentagon.... Samuel J. Locklear, for example..... retired? not all of them... who know the answer to a lot of why's most of us don't even ask, but when we do we give ourselves silly answers to tell ourselves....

and is kind of like another question I always have had... until 2016... which is why the Prophet rode a horse instead of a camel.... the answer kind of meshes if ya think about it... with what chemical veiling may do to the monsoons....  and why Paris agreed to a laughable 1.5 degree limit... that we already passed even though our past will take us forward another 10 to 40 years yet and that ain't gonna be nowhere near 1.5 even with chemical veiling running full tilt.

don't believe? try one of Kevin Anderson's talks, the guy at U. Manchester....
   

I have no idea of the point you are trying to make.

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2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Your ice charts measure SEA ICE, and is therefore worthless in any review of sea level changes.

As for claiming ice height in Antarctica is decreasing I can't see any data concerning that in your post.

However, as the interior of Antactica never exceeds 0 degrees C, and no fresh snow falls there, any change in height would probably be down to compression, rather than melting, which doesn't happen there.

You can't see or understand the points of this post because someone went in after  me and took a hatchet to what I had written, along with the links I has included... using the excuse "edited for Fair Use"

I then was stunned to see only a partial listing of what was initially said, and had not gone back far enough to see the original.

That original comment in full is post # 52  http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/956007-a-dire-climate-warning-for-the-arctic/?page=3#comment-11379405

The original argued on net mass of Antarctic ice, not the height alone. What is missing entirely is the topography of Antarctica and the updated realization that large portions of ice shelf are at risk of calving at some point as the sea floor slopes downward into areas of the interior - allowing warmer sea water to enter under the ice shelf and destabilize it. That gets into the concept of rapidity of sea-level rise, but What I was striving to communicate is that the US GOP assault on satellite funding and gathering of data will result in simply not having measurements to analyze. It appears that both polar regions (at least for now) are simultaneously losing ice due to warmer seas, and that has many reasons to become a self amplifying pattern, one that my post #136 conveys as to thereat impact.
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/956007-a-dire-climate-warning-for-the-arctic/?do=findComment&comment=11385233



As to why politicians don't do more? I see it as a combination of enough being funded by donors heavily entrenched in coal, oil and gas such that they can block action. Most (even Obama) are too aware that to truly spell out the actions needed would be to not get enough votes by people addicted to access to energy.

Edited by RPCVguy
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24 minutes ago, RPCVguy said:

You can't see or understand the points of this post because someone went in after  me and took a hatchet to what I had written, along with the links I has included... using the excuse "edited for Fair Use"
I already mentioned it once. I quoted an article, cited several others, and explained what it meant. Why so much was deleted is what I do not understand

Maybe the "monitor" can re-insert the text researched and comments.

Did you exceed the quotation limit? For text that's 3 sentences.  I don't know what it might be for graphics.

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3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Edited for brevity.

China is the one country in the entire world that could do something about smog. They could just ban all cars and make everyone ride bicycles like they used to. Problem solved.

The fact that they won't or can't exposes the whole G W scam for the fraud it is. Does anyone think the Chinese leaders wouldn't know if pollution was going to destroy humanity? That they don't do anything to change it signifies to me that it is just BS.

 

I'm all for anything that stops pollution, and improves lives though.

 

That's incorrect. China produces 20% of its power through renewables which will rise greatly over the next decade. It is the world's largest producer of solar calls and has the largest wind farms on the planet.

 

A bit of basic research could have informed you of this.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

Did you exceed the quotation limit? For text that's 3 sentences.  I don't know what it might be for graphics.

No, it was still posted... back further (full post at #52) It was the quote by Scott that I had found, and it was quoted in a way that reversed much of what I was referring to.
Comment #141 reassembles my intent 

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/956007-a-dire-climate-warning-for-the-arctic/?page=6#comment-11385933

 

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someone asked for things they could look up... one I took a note of back in March.. apropro Thailand.... a Youtube video "James Hansen: Regional Climate Change" posted there on March 1, 2016.

what shows somewhere in the video some charts and one of them is for South East Asia,  June July August...

 

average land temperatures 1983 thru 2015 was 2.15 standard deviations hotter than 1951 thru 1980

and the world is in a "medium term" cooling period.... but it ain't working that way at all and in SE Asia in particular.....  but that's better than if it was West Antarctica, for sure. 

 

2 standard deviations.

that does not have any direct relevance to whether veiling would or would not lessen or kill the Rainy Season.... that's a risk that isn't measurable but we sure have been really good at making predictions for quite sometime now.. i.e. Exxon Mobil made some good ones... back in the 1970's or 60'sss was it? but didn't "advertise" the info.      

 

Edited by maewang99
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someone asked for things they could look up... one I took a note of back in March.. apropro Thailand.... a Youtube video "James Hansen: regional Climate Change" posted there on Mar 1, 2016... didn't check just now today that it is still there.... 

what it showed was that for South East Asia,  June July August...
 
average land temperatures 1951 thru 1980 versus 1983 thru 2015,
1983 thru 2015 was 2.15 standard deviations hotter than 1951 thru 1980

and the world is in a cooling period.... but it ain't and SE Asia ain't in particular.  but that's better than if it was West Antarctica, for sure. 
 
2 standard deviations.
 

Totally meaningless on all fronts.

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3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Edited for brevity.

China is the one country in the entire world that could do something about smog. They could just ban all cars and make everyone ride bicycles like they used to. Problem solved.

The fact that they won't or can't exposes the whole G W scam for the fraud it is. Does anyone think the Chinese leaders wouldn't know if pollution was going to destroy humanity? That they don't do anything to change it signifies to me that it is just BS.

 

I'm all for anything that stops pollution, and improves lives though.

Truly one of the most bizarre posts I've seen here and that's saying a lot.  Apparently, you have a touching belief in the innate goodness of the Chinese leadership. That these are men (and yes, they're 99% men) who got to where they are because of their deep concern for their fellow citizens and not out of a desire for power, prestige, and wealth. That they would never take the shorter and easier road, if it meant harming the nation and the people they love in the long term.

 

But, just for the sake of argument, let's consider an unlikely alternative: that the rulers of china are tough and brutal competitors with a desire for power and the will to do whatever it takes to get there: even commit murder.

 

So, if these guys want to get further power, they need to acquire economic power. They could of course come up with some novel and truly transformative ideas. Things the world has never seen. Or they could copy what the west has done which will virtually guarantee great economic success. What choice do you think they're going to make? Just put aside that sweet idealism of yours for a minute and think on it. Let's say they go in the darker direction. In this case, among other things, they develop a massive automobile industry. Which gives good jobs to workers and satisfies public demand. It also greatly increases the wealth of the Chinese economy and allows them to develop a powerful military and win influence abroad through loans and aid. And even if they do know that what they're doing is ultimately destructive, they're trapped by the machinations of this giant contraption they've created. 

 

I know, this is a crazy scenario. Clearly the gentle people who rule their nation with a tolerant and loving hand, would never follow a path that would lead others to great harm.  Although it has been documented by the New York Times that the Chinese leadership actually has its own separate food supply because the food accessible to the masses is highly contaminated with all sorts of poisons. Probably another lefty lie.  Anyway, I was just kidding. The rulers of China are really good people. Night, night. Sleep tight.

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Digging back to other threads on this repetitive debate, these two are relevant here
 

 


As for CHINA, they are not innocents, but they are pragmatists.
China is growing as fast as they can figure how to do it. much of it is indeed in cleaner technologies, even to the point of building new coal plants, while retiring old ones.
China: "In with the New" - YouTube

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11 minutes ago, RPCVguy said:


As for CHINA, they are not innocents, but they are pragmatists.
China is growing as fast as they can figure how to do it. much of it is indeed in cleaner technologies, even to the point of building new coal plants, while retiring old ones.
China: "In with the New" - YouTube

On the other hand...

http://www.energylivenews.com/2016/11/10/china-scales-back-renewables-increases-coal-use/

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1 hour ago, Humberstone said:

 

That's incorrect. China produces 20% of its power through renewables which will rise greatly over the next decade. It is the world's largest producer of solar calls and has the largest wind farms on the planet.

 

A bit of basic research could have informed you of this.

 

 

You miss the point I was making. I was saying that if China can't take cars off the road, no country can.

Cars are the biggest waste of oil and treasure ever to blight the planet and are destroying cities. They need to be banned, but that is not politically possible in the west.

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1 hour ago, ilostmypassword said:

Truly one of the most bizarre posts I've seen here and that's saying a lot.  Apparently, you have a touching belief in the innate goodness of the Chinese leadership. That these are men (and yes, they're 99% men) who got to where they are because of their deep concern for their fellow citizens and not out of a desire for power, prestige, and wealth. That they would never take the shorter and easier road, if it meant harming the nation and the people they love in the long term.

 

But, just for the sake of argument, let's consider an unlikely alternative: that the rulers of china are tough and brutal competitors with a desire for power and the will to do whatever it takes to get there: even commit murder.

 

So, if these guys want to get further power, they need to acquire economic power. They could of course come up with some novel and truly transformative ideas. Things the world has never seen. Or they could copy what the west has done which will virtually guarantee great economic success. What choice do you think they're going to make? Just put aside that sweet idealism of yours for a minute and think on it. Let's say they go in the darker direction. In this case, among other things, they develop a massive automobile industry. Which gives good jobs to workers and satisfies public demand. It also greatly increases the wealth of the Chinese economy and allows them to develop a powerful military and win influence abroad through loans and aid. And even if they do know that what they're doing is ultimately destructive, they're trapped by the machinations of this giant contraption they've created. 

 

I know, this is a crazy scenario. Clearly the gentle people who rule their nation with a tolerant and loving hand, would never follow a path that would lead others to great harm.  Although it has been documented by the New York Times that the Chinese leadership actually has its own separate food supply because the food accessible to the masses is highly contaminated with all sorts of poisons. Probably another lefty lie.  Anyway, I was just kidding. The rulers of China are really good people. Night, night. Sleep tight.

LOL. You obviously missed the point I was making.

Frankly, when I look at the car insanity of every country on the planet I don't know if humans deserve to survive, or die of self inflicted pollution.

I have no doubt that sometime in the future, if mankind is facing extinction on a polluted planet, the politicians will be wailing and saying that "if only someone had told us what was going to happen we would have done something, but it's not our fault".

 

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