
11B tons of ice melted in Greenland – in just one day - known
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/11-billion-tons-of-ice-melted-greenland-just-one-day/
======
dangom
And as a look out of the window, on a sunny Sunday, all I see are hundreds of
unnecessarily large SUVs riding around (1 person per vehicle, usually),
contributing - like every day - their good share of superfluous greenhouse
gases to our atmosphere. Probably going to/from a place where a walk or a bike
ride would suffice, or where public transportation could get you to in no
time. CO2 emission per capita continue increasing [1], and its no surprise
why. In the US, personal vehicles account for over 25% of greenhouse emissions
- that accounts for about 0.1ppm/year C02 increase in the atmosphere [from 2,
3], or an extra 10ppm in the next century if things don't change. That _only_
from cars.

But things are not going to change. Companies are already studying how much
money they will save by shipping things over the artic when all ice is gone
during the summer. That's due to happen within the next 50 years.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:USA:GBR:RUS&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&ifdim=region&tdim=true&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false)

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

[3]
[https://www.co2.earth/co2-acceleration](https://www.co2.earth/co2-acceleration)

------
tofflos
Sigh. The article doesn't say anything about how this compares to the
"meltiest" day of years past nor does it provide any usable numbers which
would allow the reader to put those 11B tons into any kind of meaningful
context.

"Roughly 197 billion tons of ice from Greenland melted into the Atlantic Ocean
in July, Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological
Institute, told CBS News Friday. That's about 36 percent more than scientists
expect in an average year."

Ok, ok, we get it. It's melting more than average. Now please provide some
actual year-over-year numbers and include a projection for this year so can do
an apples-to-apples comparison and start our manmade-vs-natural-cycle
discussion.

~~~
coldtea
Given what we already know, and the already scary "36 percent more than
expected" information, this sounds a lot like

\- Everybody! There's a 12 sq. ft. hole on the hull of our ship the Titanic!

\- Yeah, so? Gives us average hole sizes on other damaged ships that didn't
sink, so we can discuss calmly for several hours after diner how important it
really is!

~~~
karmakaze
That's not how I read that. It was "about 36 percent more [in one month] than
scientists expect in an average year."

------
Merrill
About 11 cubic kilometers from an area of 2,166,086 square kilometers. Or
about 5 millimeters thickness?

------
Proven
It's summer, isn't it?

tl;dr: 11 million cubic meters is only 36% more than usual.

Next year it'll be 40% less.

~~~
lowtolerance
_Only_ 36% more than usual? Something tells me that if you were told you had
to pay 36% more in taxes next year, you wouldn’t think that’s an insignificant
amount.

~~~
pridkett
The question is much of an outlier is it from normal? My taxes often vary
significantly due to restricted stock units, sign on bonuses, crypto
transactions, etc. 36% higher than the mean might still be within a standard
deviation if it's normally high variance.

It's a large number, and it's part of a global scale problem. But, the
presentation of the number has been worthless because it hasn't shared how
abnormal the number is and most people have zero frame of reference.

For example, I live on a small lake. About 400 access. The lake level, in the
absence of rain and inflow would drop about 1.5 inches a week. Surprisingly,
that comes out to more than 9000 tons of water evaporating a day. From a small
lake. In normal conditions.

------
mikelyons
[http://www.seattle.gov/utilities/environment-and-
conservatio...](http://www.seattle.gov/utilities/environment-and-
conservation/climate-change-program/projected-changes/sea-level-rise-map)

Oh no, my part of seattle will be under water in less than 30 years :\

