
Arctic Is Warming At 'Astonishing' Rates, Researchers Say - jonbaer
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/13/505434080/scientists-report-the-arctic-is-melting-even-more-rapidly
======
alpsgolden
Is there a reason NPR didn't actually report the facts from the report? Here
they are:

\- The September monthly average sea ice trend for the entire Arctic Ocean is
now -13.3% per decade relative to the 1981-2010 average. Trends are smaller
during March (-2.7% per decade), but are still decreasing at a statistically
significant rate.

\- I couldn't find a trend line for the average sea surface temperature. They
did have a map with the changes plotted visually --
[http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Portals/7/EasyDNNNews/thumbs/285/...](http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Portals/7/EasyDNNNews/thumbs/285/197fig5.1-timmermans.png)

\- The mean annual surface air temperature anomaly (+2.0° C relative to the
1981-2010 mean value) for October 2015-September 2016 for land stations north
of 60° N is the highest value in the record starting in 1900 (Fig. 1.1). This
is an increase of 3.5° C since the beginning of the 20th Century, and the
largest annual increase since 1995. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more
than twice the rate of lower latitudes.
[http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Portals/7/EasyDNNNews/thumbs/271/...](http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Portals/7/EasyDNNNews/thumbs/271/201fig1.1-overland.png)

------
jamesblonde
I am really shocked at the Americans here on HN. I have to say it straight
out. In the rest of the western world, there is no debate about what's
happening. But even here on HN, with the high quality of debate, this thread
has descended into discussion of whether global warming is real or not or a
maybe even good thing. It's real, it's only americans who are sceptics. Please
wake up, you've been brainwashed by your corrupt media (yes, I mean Fox News
amongst others).

~~~
misja111
I am much more shocked about the negative sentiment here at HN about any post
that could be seen as criticism on the global warming theory.

Personally I believe that it is a good thing to be critical about everything
thats written in the mainstream media. A lot of nonsense is being written and
copied by everybody without any critical thinking. It's also happening when it
comes to climate change. I'm not denying it, but I do think that there is a
lot about its implications that we don't understand very well yet.

~~~
Daishiman
> Personally I believe that it is a good thing to be critical about everything
> thats written in the mainstream media.

Are you critical about how to conduct effective medical trials in your
everyday life? Are you critical about the best catalogue hierarchy for books
in a public library? Are you critical of the driving techniques of truckers
under snow conditions?

You can critique _anything_ in life and there's a hell of a lot of things that
are important for which we recognize that we have little knowledge in the
domain and that our criticism is mere curiousity but has no relevance
whatsoever.

For some reason only a narrow band of Americans think that their knowledge or
their credentials on the subject allows them to challenge the topic critically
or consider that the the scientific consensus on the matter is wrong.

It's a bullshit argument from bullshit skeptics. Critical thinking comes from
having a minimum baseline knowledge of the subject. I have yet to meet a
skeptic who does.

The _actual_ , real skeptics are the peers of climate scientists who have
domain knowledge and can ask about the modeling techniques in papers, what
equations were utilized, what assumptions are taken and so on. Without that
it's the same level of intellectual drudgery as anti-vaxxers.

~~~
misja111
Let me start with the disclaimer that I am not denying climate change, judging
by some reactions that apparently wasn't clear enough.

Now to what you are saying. First of all, being critical of what the media
writes about some scientific subject, is not the same as being critical of the
scientist that did the research. Many times research is wrongly quoted or
taken out of context.

Secondly, sometimes some research seems to contradict with other. For
instance, as I mentioned already in another reply (and got already downvoted
to -4 by now), while research clearly shows that the Arctic ice is melting,
the Antarctic ice is growing. I find those seemingly contradicting facts
interesting, they show that we apparently do not understand everything about
the subjec t yet.

Science makes progress from new facts and experiments that can't be explained
by the current theory. If people would refuse to see those facts, progress
would never be made.

~~~
Daishiman
> Secondly, sometimes some research seems to contradict with other. For
> instance, as I mentioned already in another reply (and got already downvoted
> to -4 by now), while research clearly shows that the Arctic ice is melting,
> the Antarctic ice is growing. I find those seemingly contradicting facts
> interesting, they show that we apparently do not understand everything about
> the subjec t yet.

No, it shows that you haven't been reading the minimum baseline material.

Antartic ice surface is spreading but the volume is decreasing dramatically.
The surface spread is due to lower atmospheric temperatures given the transfer
of energy from the atmosphere to the ice, leading to the melt in ice shelves
that used to be stable.

There is no point of contention there and if you had actually done the
research this should have come up easily.

~~~
misja111
Well, it seems you haven't read the Nasa report that I was referring to. The
increase that was measured was not in surface but in mass. Unless the density
of the Antrarctic ice is increasing dramatically as well, that means volume is
increasing, not decreasing.

~~~
mturmon
The press release you reference, and the paper it grew from, has been echo-ing
around HN (and the cryosphere research community) for a while. Last time was
two months ago; see:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12796646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12796646)

Short summary: the study partly conflicts other results, and the mass loss
seen in that study may be more due to the limitations of their measurement
technique (radar altimetry) versus other techniques (gravity).

There's more at the link referenced above. (See also:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2015/11/05/a-controversial-nasa-study-says-antarctica-is-
gaining-ice-heres-why-you-should-stay-skeptical/?utm_term=.86898c732394))

Claimer: while not involved in ice mass quantification, I talk regularly with
people who do it full time, publish regularly, are leads on space instruments
to measure it, etc.

And, like other commenters nearby, I want to caution you on your approach to
"skepticism" and "keeping an open mind".

You seem to be selecting one press release from the hundreds released every
year, and using its partial conflict with other information to call the whole
hypothesis (significant ice melting caused by global warming) into question.
That's not a valid mode of inquiry - especially when you don't have the
training and time to keep up with current work.

It's like walking into an IC fab and asking why they are not using EUV
lithography (it was in this article in _Wired_!) when you didn't even take a
semiconductor physics class in college.

The right place to start, if you really want to get informed, is the IPCC AR5
report ([https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/)).
Reading press releases only makes sense if you can put it into context.

------
Gatsky
The chance that we are going to have an unexpected climate change acceleration
is growing uncomfortably large.

Given recent political trends, the space of possible solutions is getting
narrower and narrower. I would say that only a major technological advance
will save us now.

~~~
ghshephard
Unexpected? Climate scientists been harping on that risk for the last 25
years. The chance that we are going to have a broadly discussed climate change
acceleration is certainly growing - but I doubt even climate change skeptics
would suggest that it was unexpected.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
More like 100+ years. We've known about this for a really long time.

[http://www.snopes.com/1912-article-global-
warming/](http://www.snopes.com/1912-article-global-warming/)

~~~
lamontcg
Up until the 1950s though it was thought that water vapor saturation of the IR
absorption lines would nullify any effect of increasing CO2 concentrations.

It wasn't until the USAF started doing careful analysis of the upper
atmosphere that it was discovered that the upper atmosphere is dry enough that
increasing concentrations of CO2 there will act like throwing a warm blanket
around the planet and that the sea-level saturation of H2O wouldn't matter.

------
bfrog
Climate change has been the "asteroid" heading to earth for a 100 years,
directed here by our own doing. We're all at varying points of the grief
spectrum. Personally I'm in the acceptance stage. It's going to happen, it
will likely lead to societal and economic collapse to some degree, and that is
the only thing that will _maybe_ change the way we do business.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
The quicker the Arctic ice melts, the sooner Russia can dominate it.

I wonder how long it will be until the US starts caring.

~~~
lolive
Putine and Trump have an agreement:

\- russia will extract the oil of the (now ice-free) arctic ocean

\- consumerism will convert that oil into CO2

\- temperature will continue to rise

\- antarctica will eventually become ice-free

\- the US will extract the oil of antarctica

\- consumerism will convert that oil into CO2

\- russia will eventually become ice-free

\- russia will extract the oil of the (now ice-free) russia

\- consumerism will convert that oil into CO2

\- temperature will continue to rise

\- shareholders of air conditionning companies are now rich enough to leave
the earth and live in suborbital stations

\- the other humans live like mad max

\- ...?

~~~
cmurf
I don't underestimate the class based sabotage. Don't think the human primate
won't sell out is own kind, just because they're warned in advance.

The incuriousity of U.S. media really is remarkably repellant. None of the
presidential debates brought up climate change at all. No one asks whether the
politician believes the ozone hole problem was real, and whether it was set on
a course of self repair by global political agreement, and local legal
enforcement. Whether there was a free market fix for this in any sane time
frame. No questions. That's holding people too accountable somehow.

Asking if people understand the ozone hole is maybe like asking whether 2+2=4
or some other value. Sure they'd say 4 (ozone problem was real) but somehow
global warming is some 6+6!=12 but no one is ever held accountable for such
absurdity. And why? The general population doesn't count that high. So the
answer is in fact debatable. There's no common frame of reference with a huge
percent of the American population.

Meanwhile in California, it is pretty much widely accepted. But they have
"socialist" education and infrastructure investment; not this free market
starve the beast strategy being used in bum fuck Kansas and Texas where people
are getting dumber than rocks by the day, and like it, because their taxes are
lower and Jesus isn't questioned. But they wonder why business won't move
there.

Anyway this can't be treated as a problem only majoritatian democracy can
solve. Leave it up to the majority and it's hopeless. This is a consensual
problem, work the system just like this is a minority right, even though in
the end the majority benefits.

------
niftich
In addition to scrambling to try to slow or halt antropogenic climate change,
or doubting that it's caused by humans and pretending the entire topic is
taboo, why isn't there a concerted effort (yet) to try to get our societies to
adapt, mitigate, or thrive in this new reality?

Is this simply the status quo and isn't talked about?

Or we're not that desperate yet, only some places of the world like the
Maldives, Tuvalu, and Solomon Islands?

------
EJTH
Maybe if the CO2 quotas wasn't in reality a ponzy scheme it would have made it
easier to sell this doomsday scenario to the avarage joe. Its quite obvious
that climate change has grown into an industry of lobbyists and worthless
quotas swapping hands for billions of dollars. An absolutely worthless
industry that has no progress to show even after decades.

The only real solution to global warming caused by man is depopulating the
planet (Think Georgia guidestones) is that really something you want to do?

~~~
emodendroket
Yes, "cap and trade" plans are completely inadequate to address the problem,
but "the only real solution is man depopulating the planet" seems questionable
given that burning fossil fuels is not a sine qua non of continued human
existence.

~~~
EJTH
Since the human race is no way near a decline in growth, reducing fossil fuel
use is like pissing your pants to keep yourself warm.

~~~
kbart
_" reducing fossil fuel use is like pissing your pants to keep yourself
warm."_

Bullshit, there are already many countries(0) that generate >90% of their
electricity using renewable sources. Given the fast growing electric motor
industry, we could get rid of fossil fuels pretty fast. It's only a political
question, not technological.

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production_from_renewable_sources)

~~~
EJTH
Yes, and so what? 90% less fossil fuel spend in electricity does not equal a
90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for a person (Humans emit greenhouse
gasses directly and indirectly for alot of other purposes than electricity).

So maybe you can fit 90% more people into the equation if you reduce their
emissions sufficiently, but that will be voided by the exponential growth of
the human population within generations.

~~~
emodendroket
It's less than clear that the human population is going to continue growing at
breakneck speed when industrialization is generally associated with much lower
birth rates, and even staving off the problem for "generations" would be a
success.

~~~
EJTH
correlation does not mean causation... China had a birthrate boom during their
industrilaization, so did Syria.

It is a culture thing, not a socioeconomic thing imo.

~~~
emodendroket
> Findings from a 2015 government census show that the average Chinese woman
> has 1.05 children — a legacy of the one-child policy that changed on Jan. 1
> to a two-child policy. It is the lowest fertility rate in the world,
> according to People’s Daily, the main newspaper of the Chinese Communist
> Party.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/world/asia/china-
fertility...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/world/asia/china-fertility-
birth.html)

It's logical that people would stop having so many kids once a society has
industrialized because the cost of raising and educating them is relatively
more expensive while the benefit to having them labor with you is essentially
gone.

------
cs702
Surely this must be a "hoax" perpetrated by Mother Nature on Humankind...

...just like the "Little Ice Age" that led to harsh weather, droughts,
famines, wars, and various epidemics in Europe from the 14th to the 19th
century.[1]

[1] [http://www.history.com/news/little-ice-age-big-
consequences](http://www.history.com/news/little-ice-age-big-consequences)

~~~
lobster_johnson
How does nature play a "hoax"? The Little Ice Age was not caused by humans,
whereas the science tells us that global warming _is_ caused by human
activity.

~~~
cs702
My comment was meant to be funny -- a reference to individuals who, unlike me,
actually think climate change is a hoax.

------
jazzyk
The article referenced is an example of propaganda by selecting the facts that
fit the narrative. The authors conveniently fail to mention that there some
areas on Earth that are actually cooling (Antarctica being the prime example
[1], but there are others).

Articles like the above are the reason why I don't trust research/finding
being published anymore - at least not without full disclosure who paid for
that research. The ugly truth is that scientists need money, and some have no
problem manipulating data, per their sponsors' interests.

This applies to both sides of the climate debate equally.

[1]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/antarctic...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/antarctic-
peninsula-cooled-in-past-two-decades-as-world-warmed)

------
GrumpyNl
Show me some data from over hundred thousands of years, it has been warmer and
it has been colder. Nature will have its way.

~~~
burkaman
Ok. Do you mind if we as a human race try to protect ourselves from nature
having its way?

------
misja111
But in the mean while, the ice mass of the Antarctic is growing:
[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-
gains-o...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-
antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses)

~~~
eggoa
But it's not really balancing out if you look at the global totals.
[https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/sea-
ice-...](https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/home/sea-ice-extent-
area/grf/nsidc_global_area_byyear_b.png)

------
Shivetya
It has been warmer before, only a few thousand years ago and the proof is
there that it may have had many previous ice free periods. there is also proof
that just a thousand years ago we were warmed and that is based on Chinese
studies of clams.

the key take away is that climate is more cyclical than many are willing to
give credit too, studies of the Greenland Blocking Index when taken back more
than a hundred years show the occurrences of similar warming periods.

So what to do about, study it and try to understand all the causes without
focusing on simplistic the sky is falling scares which rarely do more than
tire an already tired public of what many perceive as merely scare tactics

~~~
daveguy
It's not the absolute temperature that is alarming. It is the change in
temperature. Previous changes have been over millennia. These changes have
been over 100 years. The graphic that puts it in the best perspective I have
seen is an xkcd cartoon (be sure to scroll all the way to the end):

[https://xkcd.com/1732/](https://xkcd.com/1732/)

~~~
zeveb
You know, my takeaway from that graphic is that higher temperatures appear to
be pretty well-correlated with improved human quality of life.

And of course the graphic _doesn 't_ show a cost-benefit analysis for any of
its three future scenarios. Would it be worth a nickel to preserve the current
environment exactly as it is? Maybe (although maybe some change would be good;
I don't know). Would it be worth $1 quadrillion a day to prevent a single town
of 1,000 people from being submerged by rising oceans? Almost certainly not.

What are the costs of each scenario, and what are the benefits? Is it worth
losing a few houses in Miami if it means that Oslo produces more food?

That the world has always been changing has _always_ been true, whether
respecting climate or any number of other factors. That we're affected by
change has also always been true. That we _can_ have an effect on it is
relatively new, and that we _ought_ to is unproven. Frankly, the 20th century
makes me very suspicious of any technocratic solution which claims to be able
to predict every possibility and make the best choice (remember the Aswan
Dam!). That doesn't mean we should do nothing, either (doing nothing is itself
a choice which needs to be justified too!), but it means we should be very
suspicious of easy answers which claim to be all benefit and no cost.

~~~
jamesblonde
You really don't understand anything about dynamical systems do you? It's
incredibly naive to assume we will land in some nice stable equilibrium where
it's a couple of degrees warmer globally. The truth is we don't know where the
climate will end up, but we know that we are in the process of exiting our
current 'stable equilibrium'. The worst case scenario (and that is the only
one we should be concerned with!) is a global mass extinction event. We've
already had 5 of them - one of which was due to runaway greenhouse warming -
[https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/big-five-
extinction...](https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/big-five-extinctions)

~~~
randomgyatwork
If 5 global mass extinction events have already happened without any human
intervention (positive or negative), why do we think we can stop the 6?

I'd assume from that data, that its going to happen regardless of what we do.

~~~
jbattle
Your response to possible global mass extinction is to shrug and say
whattyagonnado?

~~~
randomgyatwork
Yeah, sort of, like we can try to escape earth, or build something
underground, or whatever sci-fi fantasy you like.

But if its our species time to go, than that is what will be.

I'm more of a determinist than a defeatist, I don't really think things could
be any different than they already are.

"Nothing occurs at random, but everything for a reason and by necessity."
Leucippus

~~~
Thnboi666
So basically we have no free will so why should we change things? what.

"if it's our species time to go"

but it's NOT. we can make a change. this is like seeing a bulldozer slowly
approaching your house - and instead of picking up and moving, despite the
difficult, resigning yourself to death. It's illogical, it makes no sense.

~~~
randomgyatwork
This isn't a philosophical debate, but consider something like physicalism
rather than free will.... No point in getting into a debate about that, but if
you believe in science then you kind of have to believe in determinism.

We aren't really special, we ONLY think we are, we are restricted to the same
laws as all other animals over all of time. We THINK we are different and ACT
differently, but the 'effects' will still come to our 'causes.'

Take a stoic perspective rather than a defeatist one on the deterministic
nature of things and it stops being something to get angry about.

~~~
Thnboi666
You're telling me that this isn't a philosophical debate and then telling me a
philosophical opinion.

Pragmatically, we make decisions. If a car is flying at you at high speed,
stopping to think about determinism means you die instead of just jumping to
the side and living.

your contribution here is literally null, que sera sera. Yes, the future is
not ours to see, but guess what: that means it isn't set in stone.

case in point: heizenberg. measuring something by bouncing photons off it
changes it's path. you can't know the future without changing it. thus we can
change the future.

~~~
randomgyatwork
Not sure you understand determinism.

Both your examples are examples of deterministic responses.

Also, not knowing what the future will bring, doesn't mean that its not
determined to a certain way.

~~~
Thnboi666
to apply my point - yes, it is determined that the climate will change,
temperature will drop and rise. claiming that current changes are a part of
this natural change is to say that it was pre-determined, and we didn't do
anything to change this.

your mistake is elucidated when you consider this analogy:

'the earth is going to be consumed by the sun eventually. so we shouldn't do
anything to save our environment.'

The kind of future you're talking about is going to happen whether we like it
or not. but it's SO FAR away. the changes in climate that you say are pre-
determined are on a geological time-scale.

