
Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years earlier than predicted - anigbrowl
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-permafrost/scientists-amazed-as-canadian-permafrost-thaws-70-years-early-idUSKCN1TJ1XN
======
hodgesrm
I was up at Camp Muir on Mt. Rainier for the first time in 29 years last
weekend. It's located at 10,000 feet and is surrounded by glaciers. The
temperature was around 60F in the sun. We're getting temps in May/June that
were rarely seen in August in previous decades.

The impressive thing is how quickly the glaciers are receding. The Nisqually
glacier, which used to be down near 4000 feet in the 1970s is about a mile
shorter. The ablation boundaries on many of the glaciers appear to be high up
the mountain (like around 12,000 feet), which means they are going to shrink
quite a bit more.

I didn't expect this but there's a possibility that many of the Mt. Rainier
glaciers will be gone in the next 30 years. This is a massive change to
ecosystems from sea level up to the highest peaks.

~~~
pier25
Considering climate lag (see below) it's almost certain most glaciers on Earth
will be gone in 30 years.

There is a delay of a couple of decades between emissions and effects on the
climate. This means we are now seeing the effects from the emissions from the
70s and early 80s.

The problem is that we have emitted more GHG in the last 40 years than the
previous 150 years since the industrial revolution started. We have a huge
climate bill to pay even if we magically stopped all emissions today.

~~~
hodgesrm
The glaciers on Cascade mountains are relatively small but on Mt. Rainier it's
extremely unlikely they will disappear in 30 years. The Emmons and Tahoma for
example are large and start at 14,000 feet. They will continue to have
accumulation zones for many decades. Plus it takes a while for ice to melt
even with heat waves, even at lower elevations and even if the temperature
rise accelerates.

That said it's not unreasonable to suggest that glaciers with an accumulation
zone below say 8-9,000 feet will be toast. That takes out most glaciers in the
Cascades outside of the volcanoes and a few peaks in the North Cascades. I was
just eyeballing things based on having spent a lot of time on the mountain,
but this conclusion seems to be supported by recent geological work. [1, 2]

[1]
[https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2017AM/webprogram/Paper299694.htm...](https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2017AM/webprogram/Paper299694.html)
[2] [https://glaciers.nichols.edu/north-cascade-glacier-
retreat/](https://glaciers.nichols.edu/north-cascade-glacier-retreat/)

------
pier25
Everyone here is focused on reducing emissions and such but quite frankly this
is only a small part of the problem.

Let's assume today, right now, humanity has found a miracle to produce zero
emissions.

First let's consider climate lag [1]. There is a 40ish year delay between
emissions and effects on the climate. So this means we are now only seeing the
effects from the emissions from the late 70s early 80s. Here's the worst part,
we have emitted more GHG in the last 40 years than the previous 150 before
that. So, we have a huge climate bill coming for us.

Second, carbon will remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years[3]. Nobody
knows how that will affect the planet but it's not going to be good.

Third. Consider self sustaining climatic systems usually called feedbacks like
methane [2]. The hotter it is, the more methane is released to the atmosphere,
so it becomes hotter, so there is more methane in the atmosphere, etc. There
are dozens of climatic feedbacks which only god knows when those will stop.

I'm not writing this in a defeatist tone. Quite the contrary. We need to
fucking wake up to the reality of this crisis. Humanity has to go all-in and
pour all possible resources into clean energy, energy storage, and carbon
sequestration.

[1] [https://skepticalscience.com/Climate-Change-The-40-Year-
Dela...](https://skepticalscience.com/Climate-Change-The-40-Year-Delay-
Between-Cause-and-Effect.html)

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

[3]
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhou...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhouse-
gases-remain-air)

~~~
majewsky
> Nobody knows how [atmospheric carbon] will affect the planet but it's not
> going to be good _for us_.

FTFY. Life on this planet is probably going to stick around. What happens to
human civilization is the more interesting question.

~~~
snowwrestler
Seems like there could be a pretty big gap between "life on this planet is
probably going to stick around" and "good." Life made it through the Chicxulub
impact but I doubt you would have called it good had you been on Earth at that
time.

I'm continually surprised at how often people counter warnings about global
warming with comments to the effect that life, in general, will go on. That's
a low bar! Way lower than you'd accept in any other context of your life, I'd
bet.

~~~
pier25
You don't even have to get that far. A global increase in food prices would be
a complete global catastrophe.

For example the heat wave in Russia in 2010 that helped fuel the Arab Spring
revolts.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires)

------
Fede_V
Global warming is the single scariest existential threat our species has ever
faced, and we aren't doing nearly enough to tackle it.

Our future descendants will heap scorn and curses on our generation, and we
deserve every bit of it. Every politician that refuses to do what is necessary
or finds it convenient to play stupid language games about 'settled science'
is doing incalculable harm.

As citizens, I encourage everyone to reducing their carbon footprint as much
as possible (yes, that means that your life gets comfortable) and voting
exclusively on how credible a politician is on tackling global warming. If you
are a wealthy person and aren't buying carbon offsets for all your emissions,
you are a bad person.

~~~
anm89
As someone who agrees with your suggestion as to how serious climate change
is, I've come to think asking individuals to change their behavior to fix the
problem is actually counter productive.

People generally want to do the right thing and they want to matter whereas in
my experience the average person is not a great systems thinker. So people are
very receptive to calls to "be better" because it let's them fight for what
they believe set in a framework where their actions matter at least to some
degree.

The problem is, these are problems of scale and systems, and once people think
they are fulfilling some responsibility they aren't going to pursue other
solutions, at least as aggressively.

If we straight up told people: you are going to experience extreme pain within
your life time due to climate change, and the only single thing you can do
that matters is to put pressure on your government to attack these problems
systematically, I think we'd get much better results.

~~~
pier25
There isn't much the individual can do to fix climate change.

Even if you went completely off the grid to live in the woods outside of the
industrial civilization eating plants etc this wouldn't fix anything.

Yes, you would certainly reduce your emissions but this is not nearly enough.

Even if a miracle happened and we reached global zero emissions today there
are already 415ppm in the atmosphere which will remain there for thousands of
years.

Because of climate lag we are now only seeing the effects from the emissions
from the 70s and early 80s. Even in 30-40 years when we can see the effects
from our current emissions it will not stop there. There are many self
sustaining climatic systems that will have been triggered and will continue to
change the climate.

Humanity needs to invest all possible resources into clean energy and carbon
sequestration. If we don't go all in during the next decade we are done.

~~~
loons2
> Even if a miracle happened and we reached global zero emissions today there
> are already 415ppm in the atmosphere which will remain there for thousands
> of years.

Cite please?

~~~
pier25
[https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-atmospheric-
co2-j...](https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-atmospheric-co2-just-
exceeded-415-ppm-for-first-time-in-human-history)

> _The lifetime in the air of CO2, the most significant man-made greenhouse
> gas, is probably the most difficult to determine, because there are several
> processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Between 65% and
> 80% of CO2 released into the air dissolves into the ocean over a period of
> 20–200 years. The rest is removed by slower processes that take up to
> several hundreds of thousands of years, including chemical weathering and
> rock formation. This means that once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide can
> continue to affect climate for thousands of years._

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhou...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhouse-
gases-remain-air)

~~~
loons2
Thanks. A staff writer for the Guardian. Think I'll look a bit further for a
more authoritative (read logical) number.

~~~
pier25
I was being gentle. Is the IPCC good enough for you?

> _There is sufficient uptake capacity in the ocean to incorporate 70 to 80%
> of foreseeable anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, this process
> takes centuries due to the rate of ocean mixing. As a result, even several
> centuries after emissions occurred, about a quarter of the increase in
> concentration caused by these emissions is still present in the atmosphere._

[https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/TAR-03.pdf](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/TAR-03.pdf)

------
magwa101
We'll adapt, but the global ecosystem is dying. It'll be cows, cats, dogs,
pigs, chickens, us and stories of animals.

~~~
crispinb
Depends what you mean by "we". Homo sapiens has enormous cultural flexibility
(though clearly, as the worldwide ecosystem collapse shows, this doesn't
scale). So groups of humans will continue to live.

But our global civilisation will inevitably collapse. No-one can predict in
detail what that will entail, but we can be sure it won't be pretty.

~~~
omegaworks
People are _already_ being displaced from their countries by climate.
Economies that relied on the stability of their rainfall for their agriculture
are declining. They're building camps for them at the border here in the US.

~~~
crispinb
Quite. A trickle of refugees precipitated huge European political convulsions
in 2015. That was minuscule compared to what's coming. War is likely to be the
leitmotiv of the global collapse.

------
anigbrowl
Relevant: meltwater on sea ice in NW Greenland
[https://twitter.com/RasmusTonboe/status/1139504201615237120](https://twitter.com/RasmusTonboe/status/1139504201615237120)

Also this Australian briefing document on the existential risks of climate
change:
[https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/148cb0_b2c0c79dc4344b279bcf23...](https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/148cb0_b2c0c79dc4344b279bcf2365336ff23b.pdf)

I'm a bit of a doomer on this topic but 25 years arguing about it doesn't seem
to have yielded much action.

------
cardamomo
The oft-quoted opening of David Wallace-Wells's "The Uninhabitable Earth"
comes to mind. Reviews have generally only included his first sentence: "It is
worse, much worse, than you think."

Here is his entire opening paragraph:

> It is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climate change is a
> fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at
> all, and comes to us bundled with several others in an anthology of
> comforting delusions: that global warming is an Arctic saga, unfolding
> remotely; that it is strictly a matter of sea level and coastlines, not an
> enveloping crisis sparing no place and leaving no life undeformed; that it
> is a crisis of the "natural" world, not the human one; that those two are
> distinct, and that we live today somehow outside or beyond or at the very
> least defended against nature, not inescapably within and literally
> overwhelmed by it; that wealth can be a shield against the ravages of
> warming; that the burning of fossil fuels is the price of continued economic
> growth; that growth, and the technology it produces, will allow us to
> engineer our way out of environmental disaster; that there is any analogue
> to the scale or scope of this threat, in the long span of human history,
> that might give us confidence in staring it down.

~~~
overthemoon
Curious about what he means by "that wealth can be a shield against the
ravages of warming". That is--I can see a case for the wealth of a nation not
being a shield for every citizen, but I wonder whether the very rich could
weather climate change for a long time. But I suppose that's not the same
thing as being totally unaffected.

~~~
graeme
Wealth is a claim on the output of society. It's very hard to store wealth
outside of society. Actual stored wealth:

* precious metal and fossil fuels, etc

* seeds, canned goods, grain reserves

* Buildings, wells, physical infrastructure on the land

* tools etc that last through time

Money is only useful to the extent it can buy things. If civilization
collapses, then that's a destruction of wealth.

If output merely diminishes, that's also a destruction of wealth. It will
still be better to be rich than to be poor, but even the rich depend on what
society produces.

------
thtthings
Our planet needs to be viewed as and felt as a living entity. There needs to
be a shift so we care for every living entity. Every plant, animal, human. Our
values need to shift from material pursuits and those as a benchmark for
happiness and success to how we treat one another and also other living
beings.

Is there a website i can go to and check earth's health as a whole? Like we
can check our own health. It would be good to have a place that lists our
planets health against a bunch of vital signs

~~~
jordanbeiber
I have my ideas that this is what we should use AI for - basically a
technocracy where any decision is entered in to a computer that does the
crunching. Degree of sustainability vs gain and have the computer say "no" if
it's just not viable. If it says "yes" have a vote and let it be decided.

Just dreaming.

------
tasty_freeze
Please don't take this as snark -- I'm dead serious. There are climate change
deniers who will point to this as support of their position. "See, those
climate scientists' predictions are always wrong."

The fact is the IPCC is well aware of the political headwinds it faces and its
reports are conservative -- they have always underestimated the likely outcome
because it is hard enough to get sign-off on even that, plus the consequences
of overstating it is harmed credibility.

~~~
ForHackernews
"The Adorable Optimism of the IPCC" \-
[https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=8433](https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=8433)

It’s been a couple of weeks now since the IPCC report came out. You know what
it says. If the whole damn species pulls together in a concerted effort
“without historical precedent”— if we start _right now_ , and never let up on
the throttle— we just might be able to swing the needle back from Catastrophe
to mere Disaster. If we cut carbon emissions by half over the next decade,
eliminate them entirely by 2050; if the species cuts its meat and dairy
consumption by 90%; if we invent new unicorn technologies for sucking carbon
back out of the atmosphere (or scale up extant prototype tech by a factor of
two million in two years) — if we commit to these and other equally Herculean
tasks, then we might just barely be able to keep global temperature from
rising more than 1.5°C.[1] We’ll only lose 70-90% of the word’s remaining
coral reefs (which are already down by about 50%, let’s not forget). Only 350
million more urban dwellers will be exposed to severe drought and “deadly
heat” events. Only 130-140 million will be inundated. Global fire frequency
will only increase by 38%. Fish stocks in low latitudes will be irreparably
hammered, but it might be possible to save the higher-latitude populations.
We’ll only lose a third of the permafrost. You get the idea.

We have twelve years to show results.

~~~
acqq
That is somebody doing an incompetent summary of IPCC's Special Report "Global
Warming of 1.5 °C -- an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming
of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels"

[https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/)

Published 2018. Just to quote the few actual lines from the report summary:

"A.1 Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of
global warming above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to
1.2°C. Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it
continues to increase at the current rate. (high confidence) (Figure SPM.1)
{1.2}"

"A.2 Warming from anthropogenic emissions from the pre-industrial period to
the present will persist for centuries to millennia and will continue to cause
further long-term changes in the climate system, such as sea level rise, with
associated impacts (high confidence), but these emissions alone are unlikely
to cause global warming of 1.5°C (medium confidence). (Figure SPM.1) {1.2,
3.3, Figure 1.5}"

"A.3 Climate-related risks for natural and human systems are higher for global
warming of 1.5°C than at present, but lower than at 2°C (high confidence).
These risks depend on the magnitude and rate of warming, geographic location,
levels of development and vulnerability, and on the choices and implementation
of adaptation and mitigation options (high confidence). (Figure SPM.2) {1.3,
3.3, 3.4, 5.6}"

And so on.

As you see, very precise and very conservative. It is about what will happen
between 10 and 30 years from now, due to the emissions that the humanity is
just going to make (see A.2 quoted -- what was already emitted is not what is
going to raise the average temperature for the next half a degree).

~~~
ForHackernews
I don't think it's an inaccurate summary at all. You're objecting to the use
of dramatic language, but the content is accurate:

Watts: "Only 350 million more urban dwellers will be exposed to severe drought
and “deadly heat” events. Only 130-140 million will be inundated."

[https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/05/SR15...](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/05/SR15_Chapter3_Low_Res.pdf)

"Limiting global warming to 1.5°C instead of 2°C could result in around 420
million fewer people being frequently exposed to extreme heatwaves, and about
65 million fewer people being exposed to exceptional heatwaves"

Watts: "If we cut carbon emissions by half over the next decade, eliminate
them entirely by 2050..."

[https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/05/SR15...](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/05/SR15_Chapter2_Low_Res.pdf)

"Limiting warming to 1.5°C implies reaching net zero CO2emissions globally
around 2050 and concurrent deep reductions in emissions of non-CO2 forcers,
particularly methane (high confidence) ... In comparison to a 2°C limit, the
transformations required to limit warming to 1.5°C are qualitatively similar
but more pronounced and rapid over the next decades (high confidence). 1.5°C
implies very ambitious, internationally cooperative policy environments that
transform both supply and demand "

~~~
acqq
The actual quote from IPCC text about hundreds of millions people affected is:

"Liu et al. (2018) studied the changes in population exposure to severe
droughts in 27 regions around the globe for 1.5°C and 2°C of warming using the
SSP1 population scenario compared to the baseline period of 1986–2005 based on
the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). They concluded that the drought
exposure of urban populations in most regions would be decreased at 1.5°C
(350.2 ± 158.8 million people) compared to 2°C (410.7 ± 213.5 million
people)."

So it says: in case of 1.5 deg 350 million, in case of 2 deg 410 million. So
it doesn't support your "Watts" quote of:

"Only 350 million more urban dwellers will be exposed to severe drought"

It's just a clear and inaccurate distortion of the original text, so distorted
that it's wrong.

And we also know why it's so wrong and distorted: because these "commenters"
just want to confuse people and muddy the waters, they aren't interested in
the truth or accurately discussing the actual scientific work.

~~~
ForHackernews
It's not "distorted" at all!

At +1.5 C, they're predicting that " _only_ " 350.2 million more people will
be exposed to severe drought compared to the baseline period. That's exactly
what Watts says.

What do you think is distorted? You're mad that he didn't mention the ±158.8
million error bars on that estimate?

I feel like I'm talking to a crazy person here -- how do you read the exact
same text and see "distortion" when it literally restates the same thing the
dry scientific prose says.

~~~
acqq
“Only” is a distortion enough, and also using the number from +2 deg
prediction in the +1.5 deg context. If I’d go through it I could find many
more of these “muddying the water” techniques. As I’ve quoted the IPCC in that
specific case reports the results of the specific scientific paper which is
much more precise than what is “distortedly” presented. There are exact
criteria specified under which the estimates hold, they are precisely
calculated and if you don’t trust the paper you are free to point to the
scientific errors, if you find any, which I doubt. But summarising it like
it’s just some random guess is precisely the distortion I point to.

~~~
ForHackernews
> using the number from +2 deg prediction in the +1.5 deg context.

It's not! Read your own quote!

"[compared to the baseline period of 1986–2005] urban populations in most
regions would be decreased at 1.5°C (350.2 ± 158.8 million people) compared to
2°C (410.7 ± 213.5 million people)."

You have (accurately, IMHO) rephrased this as:

"So it says: in case of 1.5 deg 350 million, in case of 2 deg 410 million."

This is EXACTLY what Watts is restating:

"if we commit to these...tasks, then we might just barely be able to keep
global temperature from rising more than 1.5°C.... only 350 million more urban
dwellers will be exposed to severe drought and “deadly heat” events"

The IPCC report, your restatement, and Watts summary all say the same thing:
If we take drastic action and manage to limit climate change to only +1.5C,
then predictions are 350 million people will suffer severe drought. ("only"
350 million instead of 410m as in the +2C scenario)

He's not trying to "muddy the waters" \-- he's trying get across to a lay
reader just how desperate our situation is. If you prefer boring dry IPCC
text, so be it, but so far none of these bland scientific reports have made
any real policy impact.

~~~
acqq
OK, thanks, now I understand your view.

The problem with "desperate" reformulations is -- despair. That demotivates
from taking any action those who don't have enough understanding and start to
look at the problem as either "it's hopeless" or are just "blocking out"
("it's so bad that it can't be true").

The humanity just need to act it its best interests in the sense to recognize
that looking only for the shortest-term benefits harms the most of humanity
already middle-term.

The only who can/hope to profit are the kinds of "arm dealers" \-- the much
less stable world (that is surely going to be a result of a lot of lives
exposed to the new climatic conditions) is their direct "profit maker."

------
cwkoss
It seems that global methane levels have been increasing drastically in the
past decade, I wish more discussion of global warming focused on the effects
of fracking and use of natural gas.

[https://www.methanelevels.org/](https://www.methanelevels.org/)

------
cabaalis
> The vista had dissolved into an undulating sea of hummocks - waist-high
> depressions and ponds known as thermokarst. Vegetation, once sparse, had
> begun to flourish in the shelter provided from the constant wind.

I understand the threat. I'm curious why the change described above though
isn't somewhat welcome. It would seem that--at least temporarily--areas that
are habitable now will become inhospitable, while areas that are not habitable
now will be more welcoming.

~~~
twp
Crops grow in soil. Soil is not just land area. It has an entire history that
made it the fertile earth that it is today. You don't get fertile earth by
taking permafrost and warming it.

------
emanuensis
A form of geoengineering is seeding Fe and P into appropriate places (good
currents) of the ocean. This kickstarts aquatic life and removes carbon fast
... and as a by product creates whole new fisheries. It is fast and cheap
enough that small countries and multimillionaires (and up) can do it as a DIY
solution to climate change ... so why has this not been done, forcefully?
There seems to be tremendous social opprobrium! A ~proof of concept has
already been done.

~proof of concept

[https://www.vox.com/the-
highlight/2019/5/24/18273198/climate...](https://www.vox.com/the-
highlight/2019/5/24/18273198/climate-change-russ-george-unilateral-
geoengineering)

~~~
acqq
From the text: "George argues that the project succeeded at capturing carbon
too. _There’s no available evidence to back him up_ — it’s exceptionally
difficult to measure the carbon captured by experiments like these, and _the
results from more carefully controlled experiments are not promising_."

~~~
emanuensis
i would be interested in what/where those "controlled experiments" were... my
understanding is that even experimenting is a no no in the field of
geoengineering. Versus reflective schemes this actually "removes" carbon and
is thus is a net gain, not merely a partial temporary cover. It also increases
biota -- exactly the opposite of what humans tend to do, we are now in a major
extinction event. Increasing biota on land is very hard and unlikely, but this
easily increases it in the seas where it is badly needed. It is also easily
titrated - one can stop/in/de/crease adding Iron and Phosphorus at any time.

~~~
acqq
> Versus reflective schemes this actually "removes" carbon and is thus is a
> net gain

That is exactly what is _not confirmed_. It’s just a belief of the proponents.

~~~
emanuensis
i would still like to know what "controlled experiments" exist. Has anyone
done the studies to show it is not worth the while, eg that it does not remove
carbon? Although just not removing carbon does not say seeding is not
beneficial, carbon neutral aqua culture would be quite beneficial.

There are some natural experiments: the Sahara feeds the Amazon, and the Gobi
feeds the Pacific ... Perhaps more directed seeding would be more beneficial.
We will never know unless we actually study, or try.

~~~
acqq
> Has anyone done the studies to show it is not worth the while, eg that it
> does not remove carbon?

It is well known that in the normal conditions various bacteria degrade
organic matter, which means nothing "dead" would really remain at the bottom.
Typically all decomposing produces CO2 again.

------
CapricornNoble
Canada, Siberia.....both of these areas have been relatively
untouched/unexploited due to the permafrost issue and generally inhospitable
weather. But they represent a HUGE portion of the global land area....

So why aren't we looking at climate change as opening up vast tracts of the
northern hemisphere to settlement and exploitation?

~~~
ryanobjc
Because the land sucks. It just sucks.

Tundra when thawed isn't some magical land. It's all swamp basically.

GOOD LUCK with 100' deep bogs all over the place!

~~~
CapricornNoble
If we are facing something like potentially billions of human beings losing
their habitable regions near the equator, shouldn't someone be busy sketching
out a plan on the costs and requirements of draining swaps to the tune of
several million kilometers of land? So we can at least analyze our options,
just in case?

------
perfunctory
> The team used a modified propeller plane to visit exceptionally remote
> sites, including an abandoned Cold War-era radar base more than 300 km from
> the nearest human settlement.

> Diving through a lucky break in the clouds, Romanovsky and his colleagues
> said they were confronted with a landscape that was unrecognizable from the
> pristine Arctic terrain they had encountered during initial visits a decade
> or so earlier.

Too bad we can't just use satellite images for this kind of research. Somehow
satellite images are available for hedge funds to calculate the oil supply
[0], but not for climate research. It's a shame.

[0] [https://www.wired.com/2015/03/orbital-
insight/](https://www.wired.com/2015/03/orbital-insight/)

------
gdubs
I'm not saying a carbon tax will alone solve the problem, but I also don't
think we stand a chance without one.

We could have started solving this problem decades ago, and it would have cost
a lot less. Time's running out.

------
akeck
How reasonable is the Clathrate Gun hypothesis?

[https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis)

~~~
NikkiA
It's already happened, methane has been bubbling from the arctic seabed since
2012.

Noone that can do anything cares.

[https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20120422.htm...](https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20120422.html)

------
Roritharr
I'm still firmly in the camp of people that want to start serious
Geoengineering to fix this. WW2 or higher level efforts can get humanity very
far if we commit ourselves. My biggest question is though, what are the goals?
How many Watts do we have to remove from the planet per day to effectively
cool it. How much CO² would actually need to be removed?

If the DoD would get the Job of fighting climate change, i'd wonder what
they'd come up with.

------
grwthckrmstr
Earth is a living organism and human activities are it's cancer.

We can repurpose ourselves in order to save ourselves and the host organism.

Or kill ourselves and the host, just like cancer.

It's a choice we have to make as a world together.

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anigbrowl
This is the associated paper, sorry for the paywall.
[https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019...](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL082187)

~~~
sp332
According to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_Pathway),
RCP 4.5 predicts a maximum of 2.6 degrees warming by 2100. But we're currently
on pace to most likely hit 3.3 degrees by then, so it doesn't seem odd that
we're ahead of that pace. [https://climateactiontracker.org/global/cat-
thermometer/](https://climateactiontracker.org/global/cat-thermometer/)

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bloopernova
I weep for the life my 19 year old stepdaughter will have.

~~~
bdamm
Current 19 year olds have not much to worry about. Remember it's 2-4 deg C _by
the end of the century_ along with a sea level rise of perhaps 1m. It's her
grandchildren that are truly going to suffer. Of course, nobody knows how long
the current status quo can last in the face of climate change.

~~~
anigbrowl
This whole story is about melting permafrost that wasn't expected to that
until close to the year 2100 but which is instead happening now. Evidence is
accumulating that such things are happening faster than anticipated, perhaps
considerably faster.

Also, you're really not thinking even your own remarks through. If a person is
19 now, they could conceivably be alive by the end of the century.

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challenger22
I see a screaming face in the article's top picture. A gaping maw of horror!

~~~
xemoka
Yep, and based on the journal article, that photo is even from 2016...

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pfisch
Maybe I don't understand the ramifications of this, but it kind of sounds like
we missed the offramp where we just stop burning carbon.

Shouldn't we just be moving to something drastic like a massive sun shade
project ASAP?

~~~
dvorak365
Climate engineering to stop global warming seems to me like trying to remove a
bullet by shooting it out from the other side

~~~
chr1
It depends on what do you mean by climate engineering. If you mean randomly
dumping large amounts of sulfur in stratosphere then it is exactly like
shooting another bullet, but if it is done by more controlled devices it is
like using a scalpel. In any case waiting the for body to heal naturally is
not going to work. And i think it is very unfortunate that any mention of
using technology to fix the problem gets ridiculed and downvoted out of view
by the the people who care about environment.

------
ngngngng
[Deleting because I don't want to perpetuate apparently debunked climate
change myths, sorry, I honestly hadn't seen it debunked.]

Dang, my most downvoted comment was asking an honest question about climate
change.

~~~
mikeash
If you aren’t a denier then why are you repeating a classic, thoroughly
debunked denier talking point?

[https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-on-
mars.htm](https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-on-mars.htm)

~~~
archey1
Maybe they honestly didn't know? Hell, I didn't even know about global warming
on Mars until OPs comment..

~~~
mikeash
It’s possible, but beyond a certain point it becomes difficult to extend the
benefit of the doubt.

------
nosleeptill
It's already too late. It's unfortunate that we didn't understand what was
happening 100 years ago, if we did we might have been able to do something
about it, but as it stands right now, we can't even slow down what's already
been set into motion. The earth is now changing, it's not just the climate,
and the earth changes will drive the climate, the feedback loop has started.

Unless someone can invent a technology in the next 5 years to pull the excess
greenhouse gases from the upper atmosphere and take us back to pre-1825 levels
and keep us there going forward, this is a lost game.

It's like standing on top of the Empire State building and watching a balling
ball go over the edge, we are at the point where the majority of the ball's
mass has gone past the balancing point. We are close enough to recognize that
it's happening but too far away to stop it from falling.

~~~
omegaworks
>It's already too late.

The next stage of climate denialism is climate nihilism.

It is _not_ too late to mitigate _some_ of the effects on our societies.

At the very minimum we need the political will to reallocate resources so that
we stop accelerating the process and start structuring safety nets for
vulnerable communities.

~~~
fooblitzky
Exactly right. Every tenth of a degree of warming averted is going to make a
big difference to someone down the line.

