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midtskogen
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General global warming / climate change discussion

12 Feb 2022 14:07

Whilst I don't share all of Bjørn's hobby horses and sometimes his arguments could be constructed better, this opinion letter makes a point which I think has been ignored too long:
► Show Spoiler
EDIT: Link to original jpg in slightly better resolution than what the forum allows
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23 Feb 2022 03:54

At the climate conference there were three nations that were lauded....Bhutan, Costa Rica and Panama, because they are the first to go carbon negative.  It was said carbon neutral isn't enough we must go carbon negative and follow the examples of these 3 nations.  The main thing they all have in common are large and extensive forests, so the key to getting there is to preserve our forests, limit the growth of development and cities and sharply curb logging.
 
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23 Feb 2022 03:57

I think the researchers mentioned that the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet is much faster than anticipated and that's why they changed their numbers- as well as the fact that the actual sea level rise is on the higher end of the expected spread. Found a proving recent acticle about this on world news
I also read recently that the Greenland ice sheet is melting from the bottom, not the top, so it is like a large dam which will be released in the next few decades?
 
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23 Feb 2022 05:28

I also read recently that the Greenland ice sheet is melting from the bottom, not the top, so it is like a large dam which will be released in the next few decades?
I think that is a bit misleading.  It's melting top-down, but meltwater sinks and will cause additional melting at the bottom around subglacial rivers. This is hardly something new.  The Greenland ice sheet is a relic from the last ice age and is not stable under the current Holocene.
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26 Feb 2022 23:02

How much would that contribute to sea level rise....surely nothing like if Antarctica completely melted?
 
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27 Feb 2022 12:16

How much would that contribute to sea level rise...
If the Greenland ice sheet completely melts, global sea level will rise by 7 meters.  But, perhaps surprisingly, not evenly.  The sea level around Greenland will drop quite dramatically, and even as far away as Norway the sea level will not change or even drop slightly.  The reason is that when the ice mass disappear, there will be gravitational effects and Earth's geoid will change.  This means slightly higher sea level rise elsewhere.  The sea around Greenland will even drop further due to postglacial rebound, but that is something taking centuries and millennia.
The climate in Greenland has cooled for several millennia now, which traditionally has been taken as a sign that we're heading for a new glacial period.  The question is, however, whether the warming over the past 150 years is a change to that trend or just a bump in the road.
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01 Mar 2022 02:30

New IPCC report is out
https://twitter.com/i/events/1498348282447282181

and it's looking like things are a lot worse than we thought and happening faster than expected.
 
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01 Mar 2022 06:12

and it's looking like things are a lot worse than we thought and happening faster than expected.
In a world that has never been safer from extreme weather I think the rhetoric is questionable.
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02 Mar 2022 00:45

and it's looking like things are a lot worse than we thought and happening faster than expected.
In a world that has never been safer from extreme weather I think the rhetoric is questionable.
I think many of the people on island nations and in coastal areas will have to be relocated to other nations.
In addition to that, the mass migration of people from (say) Central America to North America is being blamed on loss of the viability of crops in these nations because of climate change.  So we might be dealing with mass relocations of people from third world countries to more developed nations.  We should probably expect such changes.
 
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02 Mar 2022 18:40

Let me tell you about the ultimate fate of the Earth. You see, the Earth was not meant to last forever. The most likely fate of the Earth, if left to its natural course, is to eventually be scorched and perhaps even engulfed by the Sun when it finally expands into a red giant 5 billion years from now. However, it is more likely that Earth will become uninhabitable long before then, perhaps about 1 billion years from now. At the very latest, Earth will become sterilized due to the gradual brightening of the Sun as it ages as a result its hydrogen supply gradually being used up, and the increasing heat from the Sun will eventually cause the oceans to eventually boil away and plate tectonics to grind to a halt, since with all the water boiled off, the crust will become too dry for plate tectonics to continue, and the Earth will suffer from a runaway greenhouse effect similar to Venus today, long before the Sun finally becomes a red giant. The last life on Earth to die out will likely look just like the first: just mere single-celled bacteria that can thrive in extreme heat. 

And the Earth will become uninhabitable to animals and plants even sooner than that, perhaps 500 million years from now, as long before the hotter Sun causes the oceans to boil away, the increasing heat will start to make the Earth much hotter, and since a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, this will cause weather pattern to become even more severe, to the point that they eventually strip the atmosphere of nearly all carbon dioxide, and as a result carbon dioxide levels by then will become too low to allow plants to survive, and as a result, all plants, including even grasses, mosses, and algae, will die out, and once all the plants die out, all of the oxygen in the atmosphere, along with the ozone layer will eventually disappear, and combined with the increasing heat from the Sun, will cause all animals, even the hardiest invertebrates, to die out. And here's a catch: the last life on Earth will die out in the reverse order of which they first appeared. This means that by then, all higher animal life, like mammals, birds, and amphibians, will die out even sooner, long before the Sun finally starts to become too hot for complex life to survive. 

In about 250 million years from now, the continents will shift away from their present-day positions and form a new supercontinent, and this will severely disrupt the Earth's climate, leading to runaway global warming, and potentially cause a severe mass extinction that could wipe out all remaining mammals, birds, and amphibians at worst. And of course, most plant and animal species only last up to just a few million years before becoming extinct. For mammals, only just 1 million years. For insects, up to a total of 10 million years. And for reptiles, somewhere in the middle, perhaps 5 million years. Even during the time between now and the next supercontinent, it is highly likely that Earth will suffer from many different catastrophic events like asteroid/comet impacts, supervolcano eruptions, severe changes in global climate leading to ice ages or global warming, or even being fried by nearby supernova and/or gamma-ray bursts. As a result, for the remainder of Earth's habitable lifetime to animals, any animals that might inhabit Earth by then will probably look completely different to today's animals, much like how today's animals are from the dinosaurs. 

And then, there's humans. Humans have only been around for just 200,000 years, just a mere fraction compared to even 1 million years, so whether or not humans will survive for even a million years is an open question. And then there's the debate about whether if Earth will ever experience another ice age before the next supercontinent forms: left to its natural devices, it would probably happen in another 50,000 years. But the presence of humans also make that possibility an open question. So yeah, it's highly likely that only microbial life will survive the remainder of Earth's lifespan, and they will ultimately outlast us. 

And then there's the possibility of humans relocating to other planets and stars. Exoplanets aside, it's highly speculated at when the Sun expands into a red giant, it's quite possible that Mars, Europa, and/or Titan will eventually become habitable. Other than the short amount of time the Sun will remain in the red giant stage before becoming a white dwarf, whether or not these worlds will ever become habitable to animals, let alone humans, or if humans will ever be able to travel there or even live there in significant numbers even before the Sun finally becomes a red giant remains an open question. 

There is even the possibility of attempting to prolong the Earth's lifespan by either starlifting the Sun, building sunshades to shield away the Sun's increasing heat, or even slinging asteroids around the Earth to move it away from the Sun. However, there is a good chance that these scenarios could go horribly wrong if even only one mistake was made when performing these tasks. For example: one slight miscalculation would cause the Earth to lose its Moon or even make the asteroid used to move Earth away from the Sun to hit the Earth instead, leading to a mass extinction. 

And finally there's the debate of whether or not humans will be able to colonize exoplanets. Long distances aside (which would either involve faster-than-light travel, sleeper ships, and/or generation ships, all of which have their practicability be an open question), it is highly likely that most "Earthlike" exoplanets, much like Earth, will probably spend a majority of their full lifespans remaining habitable longer to microbes than to animals, even those as simple as a flatworm, let alone advanced animals like mammals, and will likely not remain habitable to animals very long before they finally become habitable only to microbes again. 

Can you guess which and where the irony of all of this is?
Last edited by jjliang on 03 Mar 2022 18:50, edited 1 time in total.
 
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midtskogen
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General global warming / climate change discussion

03 Mar 2022 01:19

I think many of the people on island nations and in coastal areas will have to be relocated to other nations.
Sooner or later.  It's a slow process over centuries, and what humans do with emissions can speed it up.  Still, if you look at the IPCC reports, there is not a very big difference in sea level rise between the various emission scenarios.  In AR5 the difference between the RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5 scenarios is just 30 cm by 2100.  People relocate for many reasons anyway and sea level rise is so slow that it will hardly catch up with other reasons why people relocate and migrate.  Likewise, coastal cities are pretty much completely rebuilt every century, so issues with sea level rise or coastal erosion can for the most part be dealt with through regular city planning.  It's not really new.  Coastal lines have shifted and cities moved with them through historical times already, whether due to erosion, sediments or actual sea level change.
In addition to that, the mass migration of people from (say) Central America to North America is being blamed on loss of the viability of crops in these nations because of climate change.  So we might be dealing with mass relocations of people from third world countries to more developed nations.  We should probably expect such changes.
Yes, we should expect migrations, but blaming climate change is failing to understand why.  Crop yields have been steadily (and quite dramatically) increased over most of the world, yet we haven't seen a matching sharp drop in migration.  The reason is of course not so much that the climate has improved.  People migrate mostly for economical reasons, and if we regard the economical reason and climate change as two sides of the same thing, we will fail to address the problems correctly.  If we want to avoid seeing millions of people being forced to migrate, our attempts will fail if we prioritise countering climate change.  It will be much more fruitful to battle poverty.
In about 250 million years from now, the continents will shift away from their present-day positions and form a new supercontinent, and this will severely disrupt the Earth's climate, leading to runaway global warming, and potentially cause a severe mass extinction that could wipe out all remaining mammals, birds, and amphibians at worst.
Well, possibly, but this is in timescales measured in millions of years, whereas climate change is significant over centuries and millennia.  Evolution struggles to keep up with changes over centuries or millennia, but not so much with changes over millions of years.  What happens through natural processes in 100,000 years is of little concern now, and what happens a million years into the future or more, much less.

Earth's greatest challenge right not is not climate change, solar evolution or tectonic activity, but that the humans are turning the surface of the Earth into crops, pasture, pavement and industry, and dumping our waste into the ocean.
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General global warming / climate change discussion

03 Mar 2022 02:40

I think many of the people on island nations and in coastal areas will have to be relocated to other nations.
Sooner or later.  It's a slow process over centuries, and what humans do with emissions can speed it up.  Still, if you look at the IPCC reports, there is not a very big difference in sea level rise between the various emission scenarios.  In AR5 the difference between the RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5 scenarios is just 30 cm by 2100.  People relocate for many reasons anyway and sea level rise is so slow that it will hardly catch up with other reasons why people relocate and migrate.  Likewise, coastal cities are pretty much completely rebuilt every century, so issues with sea level rise or coastal erosion can for the most part be dealt with through regular city planning.  It's not really new.  Coastal lines have shifted and cities moved with them through historical times already, whether due to erosion, sediments or actual sea level change.
In addition to that, the mass migration of people from (say) Central America to North America is being blamed on loss of the viability of crops in these nations because of climate change.  So we might be dealing with mass relocations of people from third world countries to more developed nations.  We should probably expect such changes.
Yes, we should expect migrations, but blaming climate change is failing to understand why.  Crop yields have been steadily (and quite dramatically) increased over most of the world, yet we haven't seen a matching sharp drop in migration.  The reason is of course not so much that the climate has improved.  People migrate mostly for economical reasons, and if we regard the economical reason and climate change as two sides of the same thing, we will fail to address the problems correctly.  If we want to avoid seeing millions of people being forced to migrate, our attempts will fail if we prioritise countering climate change.  It will be much more fruitful to battle poverty.
In about 250 million years from now, the continents will shift away from their present-day positions and form a new supercontinent, and this will severely disrupt the Earth's climate, leading to runaway global warming, and potentially cause a severe mass extinction that could wipe out all remaining mammals, birds, and amphibians at worst.
Well, possibly, but this is in timescales measured in millions of years, whereas climate change is significant over centuries and millennia.  Evolution struggles to keep up with changes over centuries or millennia, but not so much with changes over millions of years.  What happens through natural processes in 100,000 years is of little concern now, and what happens a million years into the future or more, much less.

Earth's greatest challenge right not is not climate change, solar evolution or tectonic activity, but that the humans are turning the surface of the Earth into crops, pasture, pavement and industry, and dumping our waste into the ocean.
Mid do you think it would help if we used more regenerative farming techniques? I see farming practices have been changing over the last few decades to include more regenerative and sustainable farming rather than burning out the soil with too much chemical fertilizers.

Also if we limit animal farming and logging so that will serve as natural carbon sinks and also will keep erosion at a minimum so nutrients dont get washed away (organic soil plus mulch and compost is great for that also much better than conventional soil which washes away nutrients much more quickly.)
 
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General global warming / climate change discussion

03 Mar 2022 03:04

Mid do you think it would help if we used more regenerative farming techniques? I see farming practices have been changing over the last few decades to include more regenerative and sustainable farming rather than burning out the soil with too much chemical fertilizers.
Of course farming must be done in a way which allow the soil to be reused.  But I also think farming should be area efficient, so that more land can be given back to nature.  Farming takes up huge amounts of land and reduces biodiversity.  I hope much farming can be industrialised indoors in multistorey fascilities, perhaps even underground, minimising the footprint.  That is a question of energy.  It doesn't make sense, of course, if the land freed has to be taken up by solar or wind farms.  We would be worse off.  Maybe this is something for the fusion powered world.  Such things are amongst the reasons why I think energy innovation, in particular in nuclear power, is the key to solve environmental issues.  Access to abundant and cheap energy is such a powerful tool to solve many of the world's problems.
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General global warming / climate change discussion

03 Mar 2022 05:42

Mid do you think it would help if we used more regenerative farming techniques? I see farming practices have been changing over the last few decades to include more regenerative and sustainable farming rather than burning out the soil with too much chemical fertilizers.
Of course farming must be done in a way which allow the soil to be reused.  But I also think farming should be area efficient, so that more land can be given back to nature.  Farming takes up huge amounts of land and reduces biodiversity.  I hope much farming can be industrialised indoors in multistorey fascilities, perhaps even underground, minimising the footprint.  That is a question of energy.  It doesn't make sense, of course, if the land freed has to be taken up by solar or wind farms.  We would be worse off.  Maybe this is something for the fusion powered world.  Such things are amongst the reasons why I think energy innovation, in particular in nuclear power, is the key to solve environmental issues.  Access to abundant and cheap energy is such a powerful tool to solve many of the world's problems.
Yes I really like how the Dutch do it!  For such a small nation they produce so much, only 2nd to the US in farming production I believe.  They do it indoors with special types of UV light over multiple floors.  Neither fission nor fusion uses as much land as solar and wind do (or ocean space in the case of wind), and there is certainly no chemical run off from indoor farming (which would eventually reach the ocean and cause toxic algae blooms which is what happens here in the summer) and the production of crops with UV light is accelerated.

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