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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 perspecti
by 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 agoThe 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 agoMy 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 agoMy 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 agoI 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 agoThat 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.
- mirimir 10y agoWell, 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 agoYou 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 agoYes you probably want to build on a cliff made from something more resistant to coastal erosion than chalk.