8 ms·

Much of the Greenland ice sheet appears to have melted about a million years ago

56 points by curtis 10y ago

greglindahl 10y ago
Clickbait headline, as usual. "Most of Greenland Melted about a Million Years Ago" is much more accurate, but probably failed A/B testing. To add some perspective: we've had an ice age about every 100,000 years during the last million years.
- wott 10y ago
  The time proximity is not the point of the article, though. It's about large parts of Greenland melting at times where temperatures were not very high and ice cover was so far supposed to have stayed stable.
  - wallace_f 10y ago
    My reaction as well. Additionally, I'm not in agreement that the other point the OP posted in discrediting the article -- that it would fail A/B testing -- is a cause for great concern. If you look at the method of statistical sampling used in the article, and not to mention this research was published in Nature, such an expedient reason to discredit their research seems inappropriate.
    - greglindahl 10y ago
      My comment is only about one word ("recent") in the title of this "news" article on gizmodo.com, not about the title or content of the actual research. Sorry it wasn't clear. The Nature commentary has the title: "Greenland once lost nearly all its ice — and could again" http://www.nature.com/news/greenland-once-lost-nearly-all-its-ice-and-could-again-1.21098 http://www.nature.com/news/greenland-once-lost-nearly-all-it... The actual paper title is: "Greenland was nearly ice-free for extended periods during the Pleistocene" http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v540/n7632/full/nature20146.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v540/n7632/full/nature2... I'd say the actual paper title wins by a mile.
      - wallace_f 10y ago
        I agree the scholarly article's title is better. Your comment did mention another point which appeared to discredit the article/research: >probably failed A/B testing
        greglindahl 10y ago
        That is also a reference to the title of the "news" article on gizmodo.com. Sorry that this wasn't clear. In particular, I was imagining that gizmodo A/B tested "Most of Greenland Melted about a Million Years Ago" vs "Most of Greenland Melted in the Recent Past". The latter (to a non-geologist) is quite a bit more sensational.
        wallace_f 10y ago
        Oh I gotchya, sorry about that.
        zaroth 10y ago
        And this entire thread could be detached and marked OT.
- mirimir 10y ago
  Well, maybe so. But the point is that it wasn't much warmer when much of Greenland's ice melted than it is now. Will I live long enough to see Greenland melt off? It's hard to say. But it's a fair bet that some of you, or some of your kids, will. So maybe don't buy on the coast ;)
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    ... or just make sure to buy somewhere like Dover [1]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover
    - Kudos 10y ago
      You probably still want to be a couple of kilometres inland. > The cliff face continues to weather at an average rate of 1 centimetre (0.4 in) per year, although occasionally large pieces will fall. This occurred in 2001, when a large chunk of the edge, as large as a football pitch, fell into the Channel.
      - danieltillett 10y ago
        Yes you probably want to build on a cliff made from something more resistant to coastal erosion than chalk.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sporkologist 10y ago
... so this is supposed to make us feel better about the current situation?
- mirimir 10y ago
  No, worse :( We thought that it was harder to melt Greenland's ice. But time will tell ;) Edit: Better, maybe, if you're speculating in Watchung Ridge beach-front property ;)
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  Maybe? If it melted before and the climate recovered to its non-warm cold state, what ever mechanism activated before may activate again.
  - imesh 10y ago
    Who cares if the earth cools down 100000 years after the ice caps melt.
    - ChuckMcM 10y ago
      People who differentiate between the end of the world and the end of humanity on the world. There are two philosophical approaches to climate change, one is to ignore it and die, and one is to accept the change and plan around it. "Ignore it" in this case means operate under the misperception that humans have the ability to control planetary climate (effect it sure, but control is elusive). If you're in the build your way out of it mode you can be confident that over the millenia there will be times when it is easy to walk around, and times when that is hard. If you're in the ignore it camp you can be confident that the new species that emerge after humans are gone will also have large periods where the climate the evolved to is present before it changes again. You you see? Hopeful, the world will continue with us or without us.
- Gravityloss 10y ago
  "Well over half of the Greenland ice sheet appears to have melted to bedrock in the not-too-distant past [when humans did not yet exist], when temperatures weren’t much warmer than they are today" Does that make you feel good? I guess if you're in the sandbag business or have a lot of high elevation property...
gurneyHaleck 10y ago
Sometimes I get the feeling that those who control industries that profit from climate-altering human behavior believe that it's okay to alter the climate, because whatever they have caused, they will assuredly be able to override, and undo, through similar force of will. Too hot? Cooling something is easy! Block out the sun, somehow, until things cool off! Too cold? Simple! Pump up those greenhouse gases again! Earth has a thermostat, and it's easy to mess with! I think this is why there's so much willful ignorance and obfuscation, deliberately muddying the waters. They want control, and no one else must tamper or meddle with such grand designs. Of course, the world is larger than they are. And what if they aren't around to help fix what they've ruined. It seems their answer is: If *WE'RE* dead, who fucking cares about the rest?
- zaroth 10y ago
  I think it's more likely they just don't believe anything they are doing is at a scale that could actually have any measurable effect. The magnitude of the theoretically required changes in consumption to impact global climate, and therefore the extraordinary cost to humanity to make those changes in consumption, are so inconceivable that given our relatively pathetic understanding of the climate history of our planet, let alone the complex systems that result in said climate, skeptics simply aren't yet willing to commit massive resources to try to alter world climate with currently available tools. There is also a strong belief that scientific progress will continue to reduce the cost of the "necessary changes" enough orders of magnitude so that we can get to the point where we don't have to start wars or injure billions of people in order to move the vanity metrics the specified amounts. It's not really "who the fuck cares how the planet ends up, I'll be dead by then anyway" but rather, "in 100 years our science will be so advanced that we'll look back on early 21st century efforts to 'save the climate' and just laugh, and shake our heads at what a waste of resources it all was."
  - kitsune_ 10y ago
    See, the thing is we don't have 100 years left, because despite what the skeptics might think, climate science is a mature science. Fourier realized back in 1824, that solar radiation alone is not enough to warm earth to its temperature levels. The effective temperature of earth is around -20°C. Absorption and emission characteristics of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are also well understood, as is the makeup of the atmosphere. The IPCC's carbon budget for having a 66% chance of staying below 2°C degrees of warming is 1000 billion tons of CO2 starting at 2011. We've already blown 20% of this budget by 2016. We currently emit around 40 billion tons of CO2 per year. IF developing nations peaked their CO2 emissions in 2025 and then would ramp up mitigation to 10% of emission reduction per annum in 2035, the west would STILL need to start cutting emissions by 10% a year RIGHT NOW and be fully decarbonised in 2035. You can't engineer your way out of this. The logical, painful and horrible conclusion is that we need to have massive reductions in consumption. For instance, nuclear, it currently provides around 2% of total energy consumption of the world with 450 reactors. Imagine the amount of reactors we would need to build just to make a dent here... You can't build reactors fast enough. The same with wind, renewables and so on.
codecamper 10y ago
million years ago == "recent past"? To me, "recent past" means maybe 5 or 10 years ago tops.
mdekkers 10y ago
"recent past" means something different for scientists than it means for the rest of us...
suhith 10y ago
The title is rather misleading. Looks like they were going for clickbait :(

56 points by curtis 10y ago

Clickbait headline, as usual. "Most of Greenland Melted about a Million Years Ago" is much more accurate, but probably failed A/B testing. To add some perspective: we've had an ice age about every 100,000 years during the last million years.

wott 10y ago
The time proximity is not the point of the article, though. It's about large parts of Greenland melting at times where temperatures were not very high and ice cover was so far supposed to have stayed stable.
- wallace_f 10y ago
  My reaction as well. Additionally, I'm not in agreement that the other point the OP posted in discrediting the article -- that it would fail A/B testing -- is a cause for great concern. If you look at the method of statistical sampling used in the article, and not to mention this research was published in Nature, such an expedient reason to discredit their research seems inappropriate.
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    My comment is only about one word ("recent") in the title of this "news" article on gizmodo.com, not about the title or content of the actual research. Sorry it wasn't clear. The Nature commentary has the title: "Greenland once lost nearly all its ice — and could again" http://www.nature.com/news/greenland-once-lost-nearly-all-its-ice-and-could-again-1.21098 http://www.nature.com/news/greenland-once-lost-nearly-all-it... The actual paper title is: "Greenland was nearly ice-free for extended periods during the Pleistocene" http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v540/n7632/full/nature20146.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v540/n7632/full/nature2... I'd say the actual paper title wins by a mile.
    - wallace_f 10y ago
      I agree the scholarly article's title is better. Your comment did mention another point which appeared to discredit the article/research: >probably failed A/B testing
      - greglindahl 10y ago
        That is also a reference to the title of the "news" article on gizmodo.com. Sorry that this wasn't clear. In particular, I was imagining that gizmodo A/B tested "Most of Greenland Melted about a Million Years Ago" vs "Most of Greenland Melted in the Recent Past". The latter (to a non-geologist) is quite a bit more sensational.
        wallace_f 10y ago
        Oh I gotchya, sorry about that.
        zaroth 10y ago
        And this entire thread could be detached and marked OT.
mirimir 10y ago
Well, maybe so. But the point is that it wasn't much warmer when much of Greenland's ice melted than it is now. Will I live long enough to see Greenland melt off? It's hard to say. But it's a fair bet that some of you, or some of your kids, will. So maybe don't buy on the coast ;)
- danieltillett 10y ago
  ... or just make sure to buy somewhere like Dover [1]. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover
  - Kudos 10y ago
    You probably still want to be a couple of kilometres inland. > The cliff face continues to weather at an average rate of 1 centimetre (0.4 in) per year, although occasionally large pieces will fall. This occurred in 2001, when a large chunk of the edge, as large as a football pitch, fell into the Channel.
    - danieltillett 10y ago
      Yes you probably want to build on a cliff made from something more resistant to coastal erosion than chalk.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

sporkologist 10y ago

... so this is supposed to make us feel better about the current situation?

mirimir 10y ago
No, worse :( We thought that it was harder to melt Greenland's ice. But time will tell ;) Edit: Better, maybe, if you're speculating in Watchung Ridge beach-front property ;)
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Maybe? If it melted before and the climate recovered to its non-warm cold state, what ever mechanism activated before may activate again.
- imesh 10y ago
  Who cares if the earth cools down 100000 years after the ice caps melt.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    People who differentiate between the end of the world and the end of humanity on the world. There are two philosophical approaches to climate change, one is to ignore it and die, and one is to accept the change and plan around it. "Ignore it" in this case means operate under the misperception that humans have the ability to control planetary climate (effect it sure, but control is elusive). If you're in the build your way out of it mode you can be confident that over the millenia there will be times when it is easy to walk around, and times when that is hard. If you're in the ignore it camp you can be confident that the new species that emerge after humans are gone will also have large periods where the climate the evolved to is present before it changes again. You you see? Hopeful, the world will continue with us or without us.
Gravityloss 10y ago
"Well over half of the Greenland ice sheet appears to have melted to bedrock in the not-too-distant past [when humans did not yet exist], when temperatures weren’t much warmer than they are today" Does that make you feel good? I guess if you're in the sandbag business or have a lot of high elevation property...

gurneyHaleck 10y ago

Sometimes I get the feeling that those who control industries that profit from climate-altering human behavior believe that it's okay to alter the climate, because whatever they have caused, they will assuredly be able to override, and undo, through similar force of will. Too hot? Cooling something is easy! Block out the sun, somehow, until things cool off! Too cold? Simple! Pump up those greenhouse gases again! Earth has a thermostat, and it's easy to mess with! I think this is why there's so much willful ignorance and obfuscation, deliberately muddying the waters. They want control, and no one else must tamper or meddle with such grand designs. Of course, the world is larger than they are. And what if they aren't around to help fix what they've ruined. It seems their answer is: If *WE'RE* dead, who fucking cares about the rest?

zaroth 10y ago
I think it's more likely they just don't believe anything they are doing is at a scale that could actually have any measurable effect. The magnitude of the theoretically required changes in consumption to impact global climate, and therefore the extraordinary cost to humanity to make those changes in consumption, are so inconceivable that given our relatively pathetic understanding of the climate history of our planet, let alone the complex systems that result in said climate, skeptics simply aren't yet willing to commit massive resources to try to alter world climate with currently available tools. There is also a strong belief that scientific progress will continue to reduce the cost of the "necessary changes" enough orders of magnitude so that we can get to the point where we don't have to start wars or injure billions of people in order to move the vanity metrics the specified amounts. It's not really "who the fuck cares how the planet ends up, I'll be dead by then anyway" but rather, "in 100 years our science will be so advanced that we'll look back on early 21st century efforts to 'save the climate' and just laugh, and shake our heads at what a waste of resources it all was."
- kitsune_ 10y ago
  See, the thing is we don't have 100 years left, because despite what the skeptics might think, climate science is a mature science. Fourier realized back in 1824, that solar radiation alone is not enough to warm earth to its temperature levels. The effective temperature of earth is around -20°C. Absorption and emission characteristics of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are also well understood, as is the makeup of the atmosphere. The IPCC's carbon budget for having a 66% chance of staying below 2°C degrees of warming is 1000 billion tons of CO2 starting at 2011. We've already blown 20% of this budget by 2016. We currently emit around 40 billion tons of CO2 per year. IF developing nations peaked their CO2 emissions in 2025 and then would ramp up mitigation to 10% of emission reduction per annum in 2035, the west would STILL need to start cutting emissions by 10% a year RIGHT NOW and be fully decarbonised in 2035. You can't engineer your way out of this. The logical, painful and horrible conclusion is that we need to have massive reductions in consumption. For instance, nuclear, it currently provides around 2% of total energy consumption of the world with 450 reactors. Imagine the amount of reactors we would need to build just to make a dent here... You can't build reactors fast enough. The same with wind, renewables and so on.

codecamper 10y ago

million years ago == "recent past"? To me, "recent past" means maybe 5 or 10 years ago tops.

mdekkers 10y ago

"recent past" means something different for scientists than it means for the rest of us...

suhith 10y ago

The title is rather misleading. Looks like they were going for clickbait :(