
The Arctic will never be frozen again - okket
https://grist.org/article/let-it-go-the-arctic-will-never-be-frozen-again/
======
CalRobert
Is it normal to sit at work and be paralyzed by existential dread, wondering
why I'm even bothering to deal with some random database issue when it looks
like our entire civilization is teetering on the edge of collapse?

I've been thinking about starting a retirement plan but between environmental
collapse, crop failure, antibiotic resistance, it almost feels foolhardy to
think we _won't_ destroy ourselves.

I don't know if I'm wrong, and it's an unreasonable, all-encompassing and
constant dread, or I'm right, and our entire world has managed to collectively
decide we're just going to ignore all of this and pretend everything's hunky
dory.

~~~
taylodl
Take care of yourself and those you love. Change the things within your
control for the positive. If everybody did _just a little bit_ to make the
world a better place then there'd be dramatic positive change. So be the
example. Sure it may sound hippie-dippy and may not work - but it sure beats
being paralyzed by existential dread, no? Not to mention that it _just might
work._

Hope that helps.

~~~
cup
Climate change can't be fixed by small changes on an individual level. It
requires sweeping regulations from nation states and in particular, the
military (which accounts for huge quantities of carbon emissions).

~~~
harperlee
Yes, but:

\- Climate change requires sweeping regulations.

\- Regulation change needs politicians that care about the issue.

\- Politicians care when their voters base cares.

\- In order to the population in general to _really_ care, not just by mouth,
their value system needs to change, so they no longer accept doing nothing.

The best way for one to have impact in all that chain is to leverage it,
instead of only addressing "we need sweeping regulation". To make that, one
can make visible changes in his/her behaviour, and make others reevaluate how
they act and value things.

If we don't have a "sustainable" frame of mind on a daily basis, when
confronted to what is good or bad regulation, it takes intellectual effort to
recognize that we need to think long-term. If we start using sustainable
mindframes, even when thinking about e.g. server resources, it will be more
automatic. However, if we daily use "another will care for that, let us think
about the right now" mindframes, it will be more difficult. And our modern
society pushes a lot towards the "right now" way of thinking... because, on
the short term, it yields more gains.

------
randomerr
I think saying the Arctic will never be frozen again is a bit dramatic. We're
coming out of 1,000 year ice age which means we've, geologically, had an ice
age recently. With continual reduction of greenhouse gases by our growing
efforts we could be open to a building of the arctic in the next 500-1000.

Changes in any combination of the following could trigger a new ice age: solar
radiation levels, volcanic activity, circulation, orbital forces often
associated with earthquakes, changes in the global climate, and war resulting
in a decrease in the human population. Please read the evidence below and
comment if you agree or disagree.

The Little Ice Age
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age)

~~~
dragonwriter
> We're coming out of 1,000 year ice age which means we've, geologically, had
> an ice age recently.

We (due to climate change) may be coming out of a 2.58 _million_ year ice age
(an ice age is a period during which at least one permanent large ice sheet
exists; in the case of the current one, it is the Antarctic.)

The last glacial period with the within the current ice age ended 10,000 years
ago, so even if you were using “ice age” to refer to a glacial period, we’re
not coming out of one of those, either. (The “Little Ice Age”, which you link
to the Wikipedia page for, was neither an ice age nor a glacial period, but—as
the article you link to notes—a set of regional cool periods at different but
close times after the end of the Medieval Warm Period.)

> With continual reduction of greenhouse gases by our growing efforts we could
> be open to a building of the arctic in the next 500-1000.

Because of the different albedo (ice reflects 50+% percent of solar radiation,
sea water around 6%) melting Arctic sea ice will accelerate warming; it's a
positive feedback loop; plus, we haven't even started reduction of greenhouse
gases, nor have we even achieved reduction in the rate of increase—I think
we've managed to decrease the rate of increase _of_ the rate of increase, but
that's a far cry from reducing greenhouse gases.)

------
mkempe
It's irrational to believe or be frightened by such alarmist claims. Current
arctic sea ice extent: about 14 million km2, more than double what it was last
summer, as usual, and still similar to recent years. [1]

On the other hand, since we are lucky to live in an interglacial, we should be
more concerned about the return of ice age phenomena such as 1-2 km thick ice
sheets that covered e.g. Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Seattle up to 10,000
years ago. [2] [3]

[1]
[http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php](http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_glacial_period#Weichselia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_glacial_period#Weichselian_glaciation_\(Scandinavia_and_northern_Europe\))

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordilleran_Ice_Sheet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordilleran_Ice_Sheet)

~~~
mturmon
I was interested in your reference [1], which you use to argue that sea ice
extent is not changing.

Your suggestion turns out to be contradicted by observational evidence with
very high confidence, or more briefly, wrong. The chart you link is probably
OK, but it only covers a few years. To see the trend, you need a longer time
base.

I got this from the just-released (U.S.) national climate assessment, chapter
11 (pertaining to the Arctic --
[https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/11/](https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/11/)).
See "Key Finding 3", which I'll quote in its entirety:

"Arctic land and sea ice loss observed in the last three decades continues, in
some cases accelerating (very high confidence). It is virtually certain that
Alaska glaciers have lost mass over the last 50 years, with each year since
1984 showing an annual average ice mass less than the previous year. Based on
gravitational data from satellites, average ice mass loss from Greenland was
−269 Gt per year between April 2002 and April 2016, accelerating in recent
years (high confidence). Since the early 1980s, annual average arctic sea ice
has decreased in extent between 3.5% and 4.1% per decade, become thinner by
between 4.3 and 7.5 feet, and began melting at least 15 more days each year.
September sea ice extent has decreased between 10.7% and 15.9% per decade
(very high confidence). Arctic-wide ice loss is expected to continue through
the 21st century, very likely resulting in nearly sea ice-free late summers by
the 2040s (very high confidence)."

The report links to what it means by "very high confidence". I believe the
chart that goes with it is:
[https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/indicators/indicator-
arc...](https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/indicators/indicator-arctic-sea-
ice-extent) \- although really the conclusion is what matters, because it's
based on much more than just one chart.

This kind of report is a good place to start, because it's easy to look at
small points of evidence and get the wrong conclusion, especially if you are
not a climate scientist, e.g., have no publications in the area. Reports like
these were made for people like us.

~~~
mkempe
Thanks. I'm not arguing that arctic sea ice is not changing, it obviously is
changing during the seasons of a year and from year to year over the last
decades -- I'm pointing out that the claim that "The Arctic will never be
frozen again" is wrong.

~~~
mturmon
But still, according to the assessment linked:

"Arctic-wide ice loss is expected to continue through the 21st century, very
likely resulting in nearly sea ice-free late summers by the 2040s (very high
confidence)."

This _is_ a huge change from the Arctic ecosystem of decades past.

~~~
mkempe
Yes, it _would be_. But this 20-year prediction is based on a linear
extrapolation that obviously ignores previous cooling+warming cycles of the
arctic (remember why Greenland is called such). Further, that is not a
prediction that there would be zero ice in the winter ("never frozen again").

~~~
mturmon
> ... this 20-year prediction is based on a linear extrapolation ...

No.

It's based on a body of peer-reviewed papers reviewed by a committee of people
who have studied this problem for years and decades. Unless you've sifted
through these papers, gone to the conferences, and published your own work for
critique, you're not qualified to reach the opposite conclusion.

~~~
mkempe
I'm crushed, I had no idea facts and science were established and driven by a
committee. Is there a designated committee for every subject matter? I
probably won't remember your comment in 25 years, when vast frozen expanses
collide with your committee studies; will you? The last several decades have
not confirmed any of the predictions driven by your revered studies, despite
the agitation (see Gore) and the frauds (see Mann). The predictions have
shifted, past records have been manipulated, and none of the global-warming-
now-climate-change computer models fit with the past tens let alone hundreds
of thousand years. Greenland was warmer a thousand years ago than today, but
we must submit to the absolute authority of your committee's cataclysmic claim
that within one generation there shall be no more sea ice in the Arctic
summer. None of these computer models would explain or show an end of the
current interglacial, and a return to the ice age, even if man-made CO2
contributions were set to zero. Instead of understanding and modeling the
various climate optimums and little ice ages of the last millennia, the
records have been manipulated to minimize or erase these past climate changes
and maintain eschatological notions.

Science is not a body of papers selected by committee -- it is a systematized,
hierarchically integrated body of facts and theories. If you ignore, reject,
or distort facts in order to promote your ideas, you are not a scientist but a
fraud. If your notions do not account for known facts, it's not science. If
your formulas and models do not integrate with known facts and do not evince
some theories, it's not science.

Gaining knowledge of facts and understanding scientific theories is not
controlled by the gates you throw up (peer reviews, conferences, critiques).
Qualification to use one's faculty of reason and to draw conclusions is not
determined by social approval, nor does it require participation in the
rituals erected by your beloved committees.

~~~
mturmon
You shouldn't focus on the committee. You should focus on the publications.
That's the coin of the realm.

~~~
mkempe
Speak for yourself, brother.

Nature, facts, and truth are the real currency of science.

