
Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice in less than 30 years - seigando
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/23/earth-lost-28-trillion-tonnes-ice-30-years-global-warming
======
Treblemaker
That number is meaningless without context. USGS estimates the earth has about
24 quadrillion metric tons[1] of ice, so, unless I'm doing the math wrong,
this loss represents 0.1% over 30 years.

[1] [https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-
school/scie...](https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-
school/science/ice-snow-and-glaciers-and-water-cycle?qt-
science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects)

s/One estimate of global water distribution/

[Edited to remove sarcastic editorial comment]

~~~
tuatoru
or 446 years if the melt rate is doubling every 30 years.

~~~
chrisco255
But it's not going to. Because the Earth's climate shifts in cycles aligned
with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation,
and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, to name a few.

~~~
unchocked
Y'know - and I'm trying to make this pithy rather than low effort - you sound
like a Ptolemaic astronomer going on about epicycles because you can't wrap
your mind around heliocentrism.

Anthropogenic emissions dominate climate change, and will for the remainder of
the athropocene. The jury is in.

~~~
chrisco255
No they don't. CO2 has a logarithmic effect on temperature, which means we
will get diminishing returns on warming as time goes on. And the oceanic
cycles absolutely dominate climate change.

You are the one lacking heliocentrism. You think the climate revolves around
human activity.

~~~
dwaltrip
> And the oceanic cycles absolutely dominate climate change.

I'm sure NASA or some other credible scientific organization must have
reported on this highly intriguing idea. Link?

~~~
chrisco255
Sure, here's a few:

Insolation-driven 100,000-year glacial cycles and hysteresis of ice-sheet
volume

"Carbon dioxide is involved, but is not determinative, in the evolution of the
100,000-year glacial cycles."

[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12374](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12374)

Here's a good talk from NASA JPL last year stating we still have a very poor
model for changes in cloud cover over time and the dramatic effect clouds have
on climate :

[https://youtu.be/ra9AFNco3lI](https://youtu.be/ra9AFNco3lI)

The Holocene Asian monsoon: links to solar changes and North Atlantic climate

[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15879216/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15879216/)

Synchronous 500-year oscillations of monsoon climate and human activity in
Northeast Asia

"This ~500-year cyclicity in the monsoon and thus environmental change
triggered the development of prehistoric cultures in Northeast China. The
cyclicity is apparently linked to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, against
the background of long-term Holocene climatic evolution."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739325/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739325/)

Impacts of the north and tropical Atlantic Ocean on the Antarctic Peninsula
and sea ice

"We suggest that the north and tropical Atlantic is important for projections
of future climate change in Antarctica, and has the potential to affect the
global thermohaline circulation6 and sea-level change3,12."

[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12945](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12945)

Etc, etc...there's probably thousands of studies on the AMO, PDO, NAO, ENSO,
etc. On pubmed, Nature, etc. I highly recommend taking a look at some of
those.

~~~
dwaltrip
We are discussing “climate change”, something that has been occurring over the
past 200 or so years.

Yet the first link your provide in response to my query is discussing cycles
with periods of 100,000 years, with no mention of anything related to the
modern climate change events (at least, nothing in the abstract).

... What’s the deal? This is a complete non-sequitor.

~~~
Fjolsvith
And neglects to address the other points.

~~~
dwaltrip
It isn't worth responding to secondary points if the primary point of
discussion has devolved into non-sequiturs. It would be a distraction from the
important parts.

~~~
Fjolsvith
I fail to see your assertion that the other points are non-sequitor. OP
states:

> And the oceanic cycles absolutely dominate climate change.

And then goes on to provide you studies about oceanic cycles that stand
unchallenged.

~~~
dwaltrip
100,000 year climate cycles are _not_ what anyone was referring to in earlier
comments when they said “climate change”. We are talking about the changes
over the recent centuries which have been driven by co2 emissions.

It was a misleading change of topic.

------
melling
Another decade without embracing nuclear energy. Maybe we can shame people so
they don’t fly. that could save almost 1%.

Not to worry, we’ve got some great goals for 2050.

After watching how Coronavirus played out earlier this year, I really doubt if
we’re going to address climate change in a significant way. That happened over
a few months and many people still don’t get it.

Plan for the inevitable.

~~~
frankbreetz
I wouldn't say it is inenvitable. It has been on some presidential platforms
since at least 2000 with Al Gore,although noone with an acceptable platform
has ever been elected.More and more people are realizing the issue, as genZ
and millennials become the majority I think change is more likely then not.

~~~
EForEndeavour
The USA emits about 15% of global CO2 [1]. Even if it adopted highly
aggressive emissions mitigation and became carbon-neutral within a few years,
the rest of the world's major emitters (China, India, Russia, etc.) would have
to curb their own emissions similarly aggressively for it to make a meaningful
global difference.

How long until civilization as a whole becomes carbon-neutral? What would
happen if all future emissions were magically cancelled? Even in that
unrealistic scenario, climate change would continue for decades due to the
damage we've already done, before stabilizing at a higher temperature than
before we started raising atmospheric CO2 levels [2].

It's absolutely worth fighting for environmentally conscious platforms, but
it's also a fact that no one country will realistically put a dent in the
problem without widespread international cooperation.

[1] [https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-
co2-emi...](https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-
co2-emissions)

[2] [https://theconversation.com/if-we-stopped-emitting-
greenhous...](https://theconversation.com/if-we-stopped-emitting-greenhouse-
gases-right-now-would-we-stop-climate-change-78882)

~~~
me_me_me
We actually need to be aggressively carbon negative in order to remove excess
co2 and/or other greenhouse gases so we don't cook in the near future.

Carbon neutral would mean that the heating up will remain at current rate.

------
jml7c5
One thing I find handy for visualizing large quantities is to imagine it as a
giant cube. 28 trillion tonnes of ice is a cube measuring 31 km on each side.

³√(28ᴇ15 kg / 916.8 kg/m³) ≈ 31 km

Though even this technique falls down in the face of such a massive number. It
works better with lengths < 750m, which are just small enough to imagine
inside one's regular environment. Things like yearly production of steel (a
cube 616 m on each side) or copper (cube 140 m on each side). It's
particularly effective if you like golfing and can recall the distances on a
course you've played.

~~~
Treblemaker
Did you mean 28E12?

~~~
adaml_623
He was working in SI units I imagine so kg rather than ton. Trillion is 10^12
so 10^15kg

------
dredmorbius
To visualise this quantity:

1 tonne of ice is roughly[1] 1 cubic metre.

The square root of 1 trillion (10^12) is one million.

One million metres is 1,000 km, or roughly 620 miles.

28 trillion tonnes of ice would be a slab 1,000 km x 1,000 km, reaching 28 m
high, or 90 ft in Freedom Units, or about 9 storeys.

The state of California is about 1,260 km north to south. A jet airliner flies
about 1,000 km in 1¾ hours. A car travelling at 100 kph (60 mph) will cover
1,000 km in 10 hours.

New York City is about 1,000 km from Indianapolis, IN, Frankfurt, KY,
Columbia, SC, Lansing, MI, or Atlanta, GA, plus or minus about 200 km. Sydney
and Adelaide, Australia, are 1,200 km apart. Paris, France, and Vienna,
Austria, are 1,034 km apart. Tokyo and Seoul, 1,160 km. From Beijing to
Shanghai, 1,066 km.

At the height of the Burj Khalifa, 830m (2,723 ft), the ice block would extend
183 km (113 mi) on a side. At 1,000 m tall, slightly less than Mount Diablo in
the SF Bay Area, the area covered wuld be 167 km on a side, about 100 miles.
Standing atop Diablo, absent clouds, fog, or smoke, ice would rise to 173 m
(567 ft) short of the summit, and extend 50 miles in any direction.

________________________________

Notes:

1\. Actually, 1 m^3 of ice weighs about 920 kg, or 1 tonne has a volume of
1.087 m^3. That's well within my slop factor above.

~~~
Fjolsvith
How high did it raise the sea level worldwide?

------
heimatau
To the dead thread by lcall/thefounder:

To them it's very related. "Signs of the times" giving people a 'sign of His
coming'. 'The sun will darken' (most of Cali the sun is a bit more dim due to
all the smoke). Among many other 'signs'. But to throw some water on the fire,
depending on your POV _every generation_ since Christ could. say. this. [1]

At the same time. As someone of a similar faith to OC (original comment), I
have to mention that I'm gravely concerned that the religious people of the
USA are being worked up into a frenzy. It's bizarre to me how _common_ the
attitude of the OC is. This has been going on the past year but I'm not sure
if it's the pandemic is taxing people's sanity or what but there is an
interesting shift happening within the religious community that is actually
concerning to me. The UAE/Israel deal seems to whip up more fervor. Almost
like a brainwashing/weaponization of Christianity, albeit this is par the
course for American Christianity. My disdain for it remains.

My last point is that the OC is _concerned_ about the future. That is a good
thing. Start from there. Don't debate that 'Jesus isn't real' or some other
else that's a non-starter. Instead, find the common ground. They are concerned
about the changes. THEY SHOULD BE! And encourage them to be apart of the
solution. We have one planet. Whether Jesus comes back or not, we aren't
treating this planet well and it's obvious to all of us. Let's work on a
solution together.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events)

~~~
thefounder
Religions have always been used as political "weapons".

The religion themselves are pretty much politics with their leaders enactic
laws, policies and even motivating their existence/rank using the religion
itself.

E.g: "our people was chosen to be in a covenant with god and he chose me to
lead you so do as I say because he only talks with me!".

I think it's the time to leave superstitions and religions behind and use some
facts/measurements and reason to fix things up(i.e climate change) without to
wait for someone else from sky to fix them up for us.

~~~
heimatau
> I think it's the time to leave superstitions and religions behind

So, when the planet is on the brink of going in flames, you choose division
instead of commonality. You're choosing to focus on where you disagree than
where you have agreement.

> to wait for someone else from sky to fix them up for us.

This is a false perception. Because lcall just said he's trying to "do his
part" [1]. They are _hoping_ for a solution, even if you disagree with it
being possible.

Again, I want to reiterate this. We have _one_ planet. One. We have one shot
at fixing our problems. Are you trying to compound the problems by arguing
about someone you believe is a "superstition"? That's effectively what you're
doing.

I say this not entirely to you. Many people in the tech community think the
way you do. And I'm making a public comment, in hope, that others learn from
the clear destructive mob mentality that people engage with. Are you trying to
be "right" or are you trying to get more people to solve this very difficult
problem that affects everyone?

[1] - "I wholly agree that we should do our best to be clean, care for this
wonderful planet, and I try to do my part (conserving, recycling, avoiding
pollution, etc)." -lcall

------
sparrish
Back of a napkin calc = 1.65 inch raise in sea level (assuming 100% of the ice
was not in the sea when it melted)

