
Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated' - rjknight
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46046067
======
ForHackernews
Yet more bad news on the climate change front.

Based on previous discussions on HN, I'm sure there will be plenty of people
proposing ambitious and creative technological solutions.

I fear that there's an anthropic bias[0] at work where humans are convinced we
will solve this problem because we've always solved other problems before. But
we forget that if we _hadn 't_ solved those previous issues, we wouldn't be
here to talk about it (and it has been very touch-and-go[1] before). That
leads us to overestimate our chances of eventually sorting this out, too.

But maybe this is start of the great filter? [2]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_bias)

[1] [https://io9.gizmodo.com/close-calls-three-times-when-the-
hum...](https://io9.gizmodo.com/close-calls-three-times-when-the-human-race-
barely-esc-1730998797)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter)

~~~
etaty
We already have solved the issue. We know how to produce massive amount of
energy, all day long. We just don't want to implement it, because of local
incident risk. And because of this we are in the middle of a global incident.
Technology available in 5 years are already too late.

~~~
spuz
> We already have solved the issue. We know how to produce massive amount of
> energy, all day long. We just don't want to implement it

That means we haven't solved the issue. The solution might require as much of
a change in human psychology as a change in technology.

------
jahaja
This is also a crisis of critical thought. There's an utter lack and/or
willingness to imagine any other reality than the current market economy. This
goes even to the length of advocating some sort of scorched earth policies to
decrease the earth's population since in their mind, the only human is the
market-human and is as such inherently a terrible polluter.

This is fundamentalism.

~~~
sunir
There are plenty of attempts to think about other systems, implement them, and
advocate for change. They all lack something important: success.

Also ironically it is a market of competing ideas to markets.

~~~
olau
> They all lack something important: success.

Are you sure? The increasing automation will perhaps give us a future where
most people don't have to work and we'll still have plenty of food, shelter,
social interaction and entertainment - the latter is almost free in this
digital world.

Maybe it is just me, but it's as if one can start to see the contours of it
forming, slowly, though, as many of the remaining automation tasks are really,
really hard. Like building a house, or making something that can do the house
chores that we don't have machines for yet.

~~~
sunir
Your counterexample is an unrealized future hypothetical utopia. I am not sure
where you are going with that, but I am sure that isn’t a “success” because it
doesn’t exist yet. That is just a simple question of logical validity not of
empiricism.

~~~
lorenzorhoades
Not the OP, but it is not 'unrealized' as you say. Read enlightenment now by
steven pinkerton. He has a whole book about how we are currently 'realizing'
this 'future hypothetical utopia'

------
ablation
I find that the impending climate cataclysm is really starting to affect me
and my day to day life in the form of crushing depression and anxiety. It's
such a huge, nebulous, threatening issue that I can't even begin to think how
we go about mitigating it (as preventing it entirely seems like a dead horse
to flog at this point).

I'd be really curious to know if anyone else is feeling like this? And how you
may have gone some way to alleviating it through positive means? I'm always
looking for practical things I can do to contribute towards a solution, even
if they're small (e.g. vegan diet, strict recycling, cycling/walking nearly
everywhere and so on). But it feels like a drop in the ocean. And it's really
starting to weigh heavy on me mentally, as trivial as that may seem in the
grand scheme of things where the future of our species might be a stake.

~~~
mercer
I'm doing very few of those things, and while it weighs on me, I think the net
effect on my happiness is a drop in the bucket compared to any efforts to
affect my direct surroundings positively. Do you do volunteer work, or
anything in that direction? It might feel insignificant, but it's important to
remember you're human, and likely to be affected more by 'direct' things,
however pointless they might seem in the grander scheme.

The way I see it, it's a bit like putting on your own oxygen mask first. I've
been burned out on working on 'bigger things', and in hindsight I wish I'd
made sure to have 'smaller things' alongside to provide me with positive
energy.

~~~
ablation
You make a good point. I think most of the paralysis and dread I feel comes
from the fact that this is such a huge issue.

I've applied to volunteer at some conservation charities (Sea Shepherd, etc.)
and am waiting to hear back how I can be useful to them.

I just can't shake the dread and negativity that comes over me whenever I
think about it.

------
agumonkey
I keep asking. How to organize at the middle layer ? Not govt or nation wide,
but smaller areas. I believe starting small reactions in parallel could
accelerate things. Otherwise it's still talk.

~~~
gibsons77
I'm sorry to be that guy, but I really think blockchain offers solutions to
these types of coordination problems. For example, Aragon just launched their
mainnet today. They made a platform that allows distributed collaboration
between groups of people. I think this could potentially reduce bureaucracy
and reduce the time between idea and implementation. I have zero stake in
Aragon btw, I just find it fascinating and it gives me some hope that humans
can come together to positively affect the world.

~~~
archagon
Crypto could also become one of the biggest contributors to climate change,
since it’s literally just wasting as much energy as possible to make money.

~~~
gibsons77
The monetary system itself is a big contributor or climate change. Kings used
to require empires in order to protect their gold stores. I think securing the
longest PoW (or PoS) chain is a very good use of resources, as it's tantamount
to a king protecting his gold.

------
verelo
So i assume we have all had homework at one point in time? Does this not just
feel like homework for the planet, and we are Ll procrastinating because we
think we can cram it out at the last minute? How do we shock ourselves into
action? This is the question i keep asking myself.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
If you consider the world a classroom and the problem homework then none of
the 30 students are aware they have homework. The cockroach in the corner of
the room knows but everyone else didn’t get the memo. My point being - I will
argue that majority of the world is unaware of impending doom - either for
reasons of lack of education and awareness or out of pure ignorance. People
forget that modern life as you and I know it does not apply to a large
population of this planet who are blissfully unaware or don’t have the
resources and capacity to do anything about it if they were.

It certainly doesn’t help that our political and value systems have been set
up to promote greed and corruption. Look at Trump, he has to be reasonably
educated right? But does he give a damn? And if not, why not? The same goes
for all the senators.

------
lucidguppy
1) Go watch the movie cowspiracy on netflix. Go vegan.

2) Get an energy audit and see if your home needs more insulation. If a solar
panel installation will pay for itself in a reasonable time where you live
(rebates - SRECs - etc) consider getting one.

3) If you live in a warmer climate with safe biking paths - get an electric
bike to go to work.

4) The next car you get should be electric or plugin hybrid. Even if it's a
used car.

We cannot mess around anymore. Governments always lag society - they never
lead. So we need to push to make these changes more common.

~~~
DennisP
I do that stuff but it's not going to save the world.

To save the world we need: a substantial price on carbon, a faster path to
developing advanced nuclear power (in addition to continuing renewables
deployment), a major rollout of lab-grown meat as soon as it's affordable with
decent quality, negative emissions methods both technological (direct air
capture) and biological (kelp, reforesting), and maybe some kind of solar
radiation management if things go too far.

In short we need a global WWII-level effort. Instead we're encouraging people
to ride bikes and eat their veggies.

~~~
candiodari
> To save the world we need: a substantial price on carbon,

No we don't. Global warming is a self-reinforcing effect. So there's no point
to slowing down emissions. No point at all. Even if you get it to zero, the
resulting concentrations will still accelerate into the right. Even if you get
it negative at the same rate we're producing it today (which would eliminate
all human co2 contributions EVER in ~60 years) would do nothing but delay.

So why bother ? This avenue is closed, and useless.

We glued a grenade to our hand, and pulled the pin. Messing around trying to
insert the pin back in provides nothing but comic relief. We need to adapt. To
limit the damage, and fix things.

As you say, only direct geoengineering can work. On the plus side: doesn't
require global cooperation. On the downside: that'll make someone clearly
directly responsible for the (MUCH worse) effects global cooling will have,
especially locally ... so it's extremely incompatible with how current green
parties think and "influence policy".

Whereas the current "complain and do nothing but token efforts" is very good
at getting constant attention, votes and money. But only if the problem keeps
getting worse.

So just like everyone they accuse, green and leftist parties themselves are
dependent on global warming happening and getting worse. Maybe that, too, is a
reason why we have nothing but token efforts. Also, they would have to admit
that "mother nature"/gaia is definitely NOT going to save our ass, even if we
stop polluting.

Additionally, Gaia, so to speak, has already decided to inflict global warming
on us, as a punishment or just because, take your pick, effectively for what
humanity did at the end of the 19th (not 20th) century. So we need to inflict
further damage on the ecosystem artificially controlling the temperature to
prevent worse. But that'll futher destroy habitats, and on a much larger scale
than what we've seen so far.

Not eating meat, capturing co2, lab-grown meat, even nuclear power ... just
can't work. Only geoengineering can work.

~~~
dmm
If we ceased all carbon emissions today the earth would continue to warm for
centuries, sure. But if we did that then it wouldn't the total temperature
rise be lower, requiring less geoengineering? How is that pointless?

------
cft
Nuclear war can reverse global warming [1]. Some argue that since nuclear
weapons exist, they will likely be used sooner or later.

1\.
[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/02/110223-nucl...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/02/110223-nuclear-
war-winter-global-warming-environment-science-climate-change/)

~~~
gambiting
I thought it was almost decided recently(definitely later than 2011) that
actually, nuclear war wouldn't cause global cooldown, or if it did it would be
extremely temporary, definitely not on the scale of decades or centuries.

Another interesting fact is that we have detonated nearly 2500 nukes since we
first made them, and it had observably zero impact on climate, despite each
one releasing gigantic amounts of energy into the atmosphere.

~~~
jeremyjh
Most of the purported cooling comes from the ashes of burning cities
blanketing the atmosphere; so we would not expect any effect from tests.

Still I think the methodology of the studies that produced this theory have
been widely discredited.

------
viggity
The oceans have a mass 1000 times that of the atmosphere. So if they were
predicting 2C increase in the heat of the atmosphere wouldn't that be .002 deg
Celsius in the ocean? Can you even measure that give the vastness of the
ocean?

~~~
skosch
It's more complex than that. To heat up by those 2C, water takes over 4 times
as much energy as air does. On the other hand, most of the warming happens in
the upper layer of the ocean, which is a big issue because it messes with the
ocean's circulation.

~~~
viggity
<i know this is 3 days later, I'm sorry>

So when I said that the ocean has 1000x the mass of the atmosphere, I did the
math earlier to get the _total_ mass of both. That is a different calculation
than the below per unit of volume measurement.

Sea water has a mass of ~1000kg/m^3. Sea level air has a mass of 1.2kg/m^3.
How does it only take 4 times as much energy to heat up a cubic meter of
seawater than a cubic meter of air? Wouldn't it be ~820 times as much?

------
BLKNSLVR
At what level of crisis does one country with a large enough arsenal of
intercontinental ballistic missiles target the largest population centres of
the world as the last resort to reach sustainable levels of humanity?

Is this being war-gamed at the highest level of any of the big three world
powers that have this kind of arsenal?

Countries that are net exporters of primary materials and foods would be more
valuable than those which are net importers.

Try to minimize effects on arable land and base ecosystems - limit the damage
to the boundaries of worthless cement and asphalt.

How many times in a row with the likeliest variables does the modeling have to
result in "them or potentially everyone" before the decision is made to press
the big red button?

Who decides the variables? What population numbers are we talking? What about
retribution?

What about more subtle alternatives? Taking out an entire country's power grid
under the guise of a terrorist act, let the ensuing chaos be it's own form of
population control, then comes the big bang under cover of chaos it is more
difficult to attribute.

This sounds like a dystopian story which would get turned into a bad movie
with a happy ending starring The Rock or Tom Cruise being reunited with their
daughter who was at college in one of the targeted cities but as luck would
have it was visiting less fortunate rural orphans when it all went down, and
she still had her makeup clutch.

I really don't know if I should have posted this or not. I've spent the last
hour reading the other comments and the overwhelming feeling i get is that
there's very little hope. Someone even quoted Peter Watts, so i can't be going
too far thinking that this a real future option can I? I don't even know if i
think its a remotely realistic scenario, but i do know that war is humanity's
most effective population control with historic precedent.

~~~
_jarroda
I vote we start with your hometown.

~~~
me24u
Maybe just me, but unless I am mistaken you mean that if you are willing to
call for the mass killing of other people's friends and families (for ANY
reason, but in this case for the greater good) then you should be willing to
start with your own friends and family. In the end, I don't think genocide is
the solution for any problem large or small, but if you are going to suggest
it as a solution you had better offer your own pound of flesh in the bargain.

Did I read too much into your statement?

------
moneytide1
If everyone knew how to grow food locally there would be less transportation
waste, more community, & stronger immune systems from working the dirt with
hands instead of exclusively machines.

~~~
misja111
It also would make the food more expensive.

~~~
moneytide1
Not if you shared a plot of land with neighbors and contributed to upkeep.
Essentially free. Not practical in urban setting, which is why I avoid cities.

~~~
monochromatic
It’s only free if your time is worth zero. It’s net more expensive if you have
a job that you wouldn’t be doing.

~~~
moneytide1
The benefits mentioned in the parent could potentially be worth allocated
time. Growing food does not require a quantity of time that would interfere
with work - bulk labor is required for planting and harvesting, but monitoring
growth throughout the season is a great pre/post work activity to share with
others.

------
monochromatic
If they got this number wrong by 60% for all these years and just noticed, why
should I trust anything else about all of their different, conflicting climate
models?

~~~
jasonlotito
They didn't get it wrong. They did the best they could with the data they had,
which they knew was sparse.

"However, these estimates all use the same imperfect ocean dataset and share
additional uncertainties resulting from sparse coverage, especially before
2007"

You'll note here the methodology isn't the issue, but rather the dataset.
They've improved the dataset.

> why should I trust anything else

Well, technically, you shouldn't. You can look at the data and review it
yourself. The problem is, you aren't probably an expert in the field. Which
means at some level, you've already put your trust in the experts at some
level.

Furthermore, to double down on the "they didn't get it wrong" comment:

"Our result - which relies on high-precision O2 measurements dating back to
1991 - suggests that ocean warming is at the high end of previous estimates."

You'll note here that this they concluded the actual warming was still within
the previous estimates. And considering estimates are just that, this further
backs up their claim.

~~~
monochromatic
Ok, let’s even stipulate that it’s a failure of data rather than methodology.
The computerized climate models have very sensitive dependence on this kind of
poorly measured data. Why should I trust them if that data is subject to wild
swings as measurements get refined?

~~~
jasonlotito
> Why should I trust them if that data is subject to wild swings as
> measurements get refined?

You are begging the question here.

Simply put, "that data is subject to wild swings as measurements get refined",
isn't reflected in the article. It's something you are making up. Again, the
data was within the estimation previously made. They've refined that data.

A wild swing would in fact go from showing one thing to showing another thing
entirely. That's how a swing works. What really happened is the predication
was correct. We are now getting to see more precisely how correct.

Regardless, I honestly don't believe you are being honest here, since you are
asking the same question and not putting any effort into this. You are
trolling. If you aren't, put forth some effort. You think you are being
"smart," but the truth is, you aren't.

