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The Arctic as it is known today is almost certainly gone

257 points by qubitcoder 9y ago

chollida1 9y ago
Global warming aside, as a Canadian, I'm disappointing in what our government has down to protect our sovereignty in the Canadian northern archipelago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Arctic_Archipelago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Arctic_Archipelago Had we invested in a navy base in the north, and a few ice breakers, then we could have been the owner of the "panama canal of the arctic". We would have a monopoly on what traffic goes through the Canadian archipelago which would help offset the cost of policing the north. We would be able to do things like prohibit oil tankers and other hazardous materials if we wanted. At this point I think we've all but given away any claim to being able to dictate who travels through our northern islands. The arctic will be policed by the American's and Russians, and used heavily by ships travelling to the east coast of the US and Europe from China. Hopefully at the least, we'll be able to push for things to protect the arctic waters like no resource mining, think offshore oil rigs, and no oil tankers travelling through those waters.
- Pxtl 9y ago
  Yep, at this point we're going to be unable to prevent its claim as international waters - we didn't make it, and it's a useful waterway for travel.
- sintaxi 9y ago
  I agree we should have a stronger military presence up north but I don't see how that changes anything. Its still Canadian territory and Canada still gets to control who goes through there.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    > Its still Canadian territory and Canada still gets to control who goes through there. In theory. In practice Canada has neither the resolve, the funds or the strength to put that into practice. I'm not sure that's a bad thing either, the fact that Canada technically owns it but does not start drilling like mad or doing other bad stuff that far up North at least keeps things roughly as they are for now.
- allengeorge 9y ago
  That's because a majority of Canadians have a visceral negative reaction to any military spending. We're happy to claim the Arctic, but not if it involves money, and definitely not if it involves money for the military. Which is, IMO, ridiculous. When it comes to territories like that it's "pay up or shut up".
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Canada does not have a population large enough to actually have stewardship over the territory contained within its borders. The tax base simply isn't there. Effectively Canada is a 100 Km or so strip to the North of the United States a bit wider in some places. If you want to really claim all the land up North that is barely in use you'd need a population at least 10x the present one and even then it would be a stretch. Infrastructure and defense costs are closely related to surface area and border length if you want to keep world class powers out of your backyard.
    - allengeorge 9y ago
      Which leads to one of my personal bug bears: that Canada should accept dramatically more immigration if it wants to maintain an independent presence in North America. I think this would go a long way to improving the business, economic and cultural climate in Canada as well as making us less of a push-over in dealing with the United States. Again, an opinion that is not shared. Most Canadians want the current immigration levels to be maintained or reduced.
      - desdiv 9y ago
        >that Canada should accept dramatically more immigration if it wants to maintain an independent presence in North America. I fully agree with you, but you have to see the irony in that statement: the more immigrants you take in the less independent you are. Canada already have 20% of its population being forign-born[0]. Dramatically more immigration would mean that percentage rising to 30 or even 40%. I'm a panhumanist and an immigrant myself, so I have zero problem with this, but I can understand why some native-born Canadians might be worried when that percentage rises too high. [0] http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-01...
- niftich 9y ago
  Harper's administration, though losing focus on the issue by the end, was keen on enforcing the Canadian Internal Waters claim [1][2]. Trudeau, not at all [3]. To the detriment of Canadians, major players around the rest of the world consider these waters international waters, and on the international level, might (or the lack of response thereof) leads to facts-on-the-ground, as we've seen time and time again. [1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-north/myth-versus-reality-in-stephen-harpers-northern-strategy/article16397458/?page=all http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-north/myth-... [2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/franklin-find-as-much-about-sovereignty-as-solving-a-mystery-1.2763117 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/franklin-find-as-much-ab... [3] http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-obama-arctic-1.3905933 http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-obama-arctic-1.39059...
- desdiv 9y ago
  As long as the US thinks the northwest passage is an international passage then no amount of bases or ships would matter. Canada simply can't win that fight. There are just too many ways for US to exert soft pressure on Canada: softwood lumber, NAFTA repeal, extra tariff and transit charges for oil sand output. (admittedly that last one might be a good thing for Earth)
- dpc59 9y ago
  The panama canal of the arctic won't be the northwest passage, it's going to be the eastern passage over russia. The NWP water is too shallow, badly cartographied, you still risk getting caught in ice and it has very dangerous storms. Shipping companies would rather take a few more days to get to the pacific than take a big risk.
  - jamesblonde 9y ago
    This is correct. The only passage open the last few years has been the Lancaster Sound route which is not suitable for shipping. The Prince of Wales Strait is the only viable route, but hasn't opened up fully the last number of years. In contrast, the Northeast passage has opened up every year for the last 10+ years and offers huge gains for ships from Asia to Europe. From wikipedia, the difference between Suez and NEP for Yokohama to Rotterdam is 37% shorter.
  - lend000 9y ago
    Only if we assume that sea level rise will not be significant, and that the changing climate will not affect common storm tracks.
- nostrademons 9y ago
  Eh, history is long and moves in unpredictable ways. Just wait until the U.S. breaks up and Canada annexes the BosWash megalopolis and the West Coast, and then suddenly Canada will be policing the northwest passage again.
  - hourislate 9y ago
    I seriously think Canadians should be worried more about Russia than the US. They are the ones laying claim to Canadian Arctic Waters not the USA.
    - scott_karana 9y ago
      I agree with the first half of your argument, but not the other. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_claims_in_the_Arctic#Beaufort_Sea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_claims_in_the_Ar...
  - Baeocystin 9y ago
    I can see the western states coming in to closer economic union with the west of Canada. I don't see Canadian influence dominating, though. There's too many people to the south. California alone has more people than all of Canada, for example. But there are common cultural elements from Canada all the way down to northern California. So a regional culture arising as a unifying agent, technically across country lines? I can picture it. (SoCal is different, but that is neither here nor there in this case.) There's that pesky Federal law that prohibits states from making their own arrangements with sovereign nations, but that does little to inhibit the actual flow of people or business.
- run4yourlives2 9y ago
  Call me when you support increased military spending. Because that's what it'll take, and that's one of the few things Canadians universally don't think is all that important.
- Raknarg 9y ago
  > The arctic will be policed by the American's and Russians As it always has, because we don't have the millitary power or population to defend any of our own territory. The US does that for us. It's unfortunate Canadians have been unable to expand in our own territory over the few hundred years Europeans have been in this place.
  - eric_h 9y ago
    > It's unfortunate Canadians have been unable to expand in our own territory over the few hundred years Europeans have been in this place. Personally I disagree - I think it's fortunate that there are still large swaths of undeveloped natural territory in Canada, particularly the northern provinces. It might be cold up there, but it sure is beautiful.
- mablap 9y ago
  I've often wondered how long Canada can stay an independent country. I doubt it can last 100 more years, unfortunately. Some patriots in 1837 asked this very question as well, wondering why we shouldn't just join the USA and benefit from "more of everything" without sacrificing democracy. They were hanged. The way Trump has acted towards Canada, talking about NAFTA etc, made me think of someone who has an eye for the territories up north...
  - cmrdporcupine 9y ago
    Looking at the situation right now I'd think the opposite. It seems dubious for the U.S. as it is structured right now with its internal political tribal conflicts to last 100 more years, whereas Canada is more stable and internally harmonious now than it was for most of the 20th century. Quebec separatism is mostly quiet. There's a left/centrist government in Alberta for the first time, reducing provincial tensions between the west and central Canada. Trade links with Europe and Asia have been broadened or are broadening. The economy remains spmewhat tepid but stable. Meanwhile the U.S. itself has progressed closer and closer into the depths of right wing extremism, and shows no signs of healing.
    - GiorgioG 9y ago
      The U.S. is not simply progressing into the depths of right-wing extremism, its extremism on both sides. If you watch Fox News, the administration and the republicans can do no wrong. Change the channel to MSNBC or CNN and the president can't do a damn thing right and all republicans are morons.
    - mablap 9y ago
      Agreed to an extent, but I think we're going to have to wait and see what the next four years have in store for us. A lot of being Canadian has to do with... not being American. The only place in Canada where I feel there is a definite core identity (completely separable from "not being american") is Quebec. Harper being so pro-monarchy, insisting on the War of 1812 as being a national foundational myth, trying to assert soverignty in the North seem to be a realization of this identity problem. Also take the current celebrations for the federation's 150th anniversary: the branding completely skips the fact that there were people in the region calling themselves Canadiens for roughly 200 years prior... Add to that the recent underwhelming documentary on the country's history done by the CBC and the current Premier's own belief that the country has no core identity (being "post-national"). All in all I believe there's a good chance that Canada as you and I know it today will not be around to celebrate another 100 years.
- devrandomguy 9y ago
  How much of a military presence do we really need, in order to enforce regulations over shipping traffic though? Surveillance by spotter planes / drones, combined with the threat of legal action against the ship's owners, ought to deter all but the most hardcore bastards. For them, in theory, a rare single cruise missile from Norad ought to suffice. Even then, you could start with a warning shot, and bill the ship's owner for the missile. For more complicated missions, we could fly out a small inspection or police team in a flying boat. Instead of relying on arrays of 20cm cannons for protection, they would depend on the above mentioned system (which is similar to the Norad system already in service).
  - mseebach 9y ago
    Not much. Denmark patrols similarly huge and empty arctic Greenland with a 14-man strong unit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_Dog_Sled_Patrol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_Dog_Sled_Patrol Sure, there's a bit more to it than that, but Denmark is a lot smaller than Canada, and has unremarkable military spending, even for its size.
- aaron695 9y ago
  The concept you should have a moral right over something you did not create (ie a canal) that can reduce thousands of miles on ships journeys over the open ocean is fucking bullshit and goes against international law to boot.
themgt 9y ago
PIOMAS (arctic sea ice volume model) is showing ice on the edge of collapse: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9SaElxXoAAl0zU.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9SaElxXoAAl0zU.jpg
- Afforess 9y ago
  My favorite graph is this one: http://i.imgur.com/ZgJaXCy.png http://i.imgur.com/ZgJaXCy.png - you can clearly tell 2016 was the year we broke away from all the others.
pthreads 9y ago
This is on all of us not just the climate science deniers and the profit hungry corporations, selfish individuals, crazy governments, or, uninformed individuals. It is not enough to protest, give speeches, start "green" companies, and whatever else we do to feel good about "doing something for the environment." If only we could have enough courage to curb our uncontrolled consumption of resources. Why is it so hard for each one of us to just reduce our intake by, say, just 15% to begin with? How about eating less, not changing cell phones every ear, shopping less, driving less, and a hundred other things we can reduce? In the end nature always wins. We are either with her or against her!
- scarlac 9y ago
  > It is not enough to protest, give speeches, start "green" companies, and whatever else we do to feel good about "doing something for the environment." I have to disagree. Please keep doing something good for the environment. Please keep making companies that replace old harmful ones. Keep protesting to politicians and by all means, keep doing speeches to inform the public. > just reduce our intake by, say, just 15% Everything I know about psychology tells me this advice won't work. You need to provide an alternative or you'll be fighting a losing battle against habit and enjoyment. But I should dogfood on my own advice here, so here's what you should do instead: - Give people specific advice on habit changes instead, ie. switch from beef to chicken, from chicken to fish and from fish to vegetables. - Tell people HOW to change electricity provider (if your country or region allows it) - Tell people to VOTE for the environment
  - SamPhillips 9y ago
    Here's an attempt at those things: https://medium.com/@i2amsam/we-can-do-it-ourselves-part-1-48dd93e250a9 https://medium.com/@i2amsam/we-can-do-it-ourselves-part-1-48... I'd love feedback. (And if you are interested in climate and tech join us at ClimateAction.tech)
- ashark 9y ago
  > Why is it so hard for each one of us to just reduce our intake by, say, just 15% to begin with? Because if you do it and no-one else does then you're hurting yourself for basically no reason. It's a coordination problem.
YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 9y ago
Arctic is indeed shrinking. 15000 years ago (or so) there were miles of ice on top of the place I'm currently sitting.
- jackmott 9y ago
  These posts that pretend or imagine they have a deeper understanding of the science than the rest of us are super irritating. The writers of the economist article know, climate scientists know, and hackernews readers all know that the climate has been colder and hotter in the past over geologic time scales. We all know this. It is not correct to imply that the current warming is just a continuation of the usual inter-glacial cycles. It isn't, the rate of change is completely different by orders of magnitude, and the causes are observably different.
  - dTal 9y ago
    It's like being in an elevator whose cable has snapped and is in freefall, and saying there's nothing to worry about because the elevator goes up and down all the time and it's perfectly normal.
  - Turing_Machine 9y ago
    What's "super-irritating" is that you guys keep trotting out the same predictions in an attempt to induce panic, even though those predictions have failed time after time. See up-thread, where scientists were predicting an "ice-free Arctic" for 2013. And 2019. And now 2040. I believe there were predictions for the Arctic to be "ice-free" by 2000 as well, but a quick Google isn't turning up a solid reference. Yes, the earth has been colder than it is now. Many times. It's also been warmer than it is now. Many times. "It isn't, the rate of change is completely different by orders of magnitude" That is simply not correct. There is plenty of evidence that ice ages can occur over a time scale of less than a hundred years, and some evidence that it can happen on a decadal scale. Heck, some of us are old enough when the threat of an ice age was the scare story.
    - antisthenes 9y ago
niftich 9y ago
On a sobering note, the Arctic is a tremendous shortcut for shipping, and despite its vast and remote coastline, it's surrounded solely by states with a strong rule of law, making piracy unlikely. Cargo traffic between will re-orient from the current crop of chokepoints like Suez and Malacca; the Panama Canal will see a decline of Asia-Atlantic traffic and a rise in intra-Americas traffic; and more shipping overall will be conducted in waters adjacent to the coasts of Russia, Canada, US, Norway, and Greenland (Kingdom of Denmark). Even without additional exploitation of the Arctic, changes like this will affect the strategic priorities of states.
- hackuser 9y ago
  > the Arctic is a tremendous shortcut for shipping The Economist article says, "the much-vaunted sea passages are likely to carry only a trickle of trade". Do you have any information on the prospective volume of trade? > it's surrounded solely by states with a strong rule of law, making piracy unlikely. For another reason too: Piracy usually is conducted by people.
  - niftich 9y ago
    > Do you have any information on the prospective volume of trade? Not really, though COSCO (a top-5 shipper by capacity and market share [1]) expressed interest again in 2016 [2], sending 5 ships through; they were the first Chinese shipping company to send a ship this way in 2013 [3], and express a continued interest almost every year -- like in 2015 [4]. Russian forecasts are extremely ambitious to the point of being pure wishful thinking [5]. There are some challenges with the route [5][6], and not all shippers are on board, and of course global shipping has just had its lowest growth in years [7]. [1] https://www.alphaliner.com/top100/ https://www.alphaliner.com/top100/ [2] https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-industry-and-energy/2016/10/cosco-sends-five-vessels-through-northern-sea-route https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-industry-and-energy... [3] http://barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/08/first-container-ship-northern-sea-route-21-08 http://barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/08/first-container... [4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-shipper-cosco-to-schedule-regular-trans-arctic-sailings-1446133485 https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-shipper-cosco-to-schedu... [5] https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-industry-and-energy/2016/09/shipping-companies-snub-russian-arctic-route https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-industry-and-energy... [6] http://www.platts.com/latest-news/shipping/moscow/feature-despite-russian-aspirations-international-26397694 http://www.platts.com/latest-news/shipping/moscow/feature-de... [7] http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/08/20/490621376/amid-industry-downturn-global-shipping-sees-record-low-growth http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/08/20/490621376/a...
beemanners 9y ago
More alarmism. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/07/experts-said-arctic-sea-ice-would-melt-entirely-by-september-201/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/07/experts-said-a...
- kakarot 9y ago
  To be fair, it's a pretty weak argument to claim that things are fine because a few loud individuals said something outlandish, and the media gobbled it up for hype.
- triplesec 9y ago
  The Torygraph is known for printing a lot of shoddy data-illiterate denialist articles (Christopher Booker is one of the main culprits), so I'd take this article as if it were on Fox or even Breitbart and fact check the s[now] out of it, if you're inclined to believe it.
- run4yourlives2 9y ago
  This is literally right from your link: >"Bob Ward, of the Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, added: “Peter Wadhams has made predictions of the imminent disappearance of summer Arctic sea ice which have not been fulfilled, but the evidence still shows a rapid decline." One guy missing a prediction isn't reason to dismiss the entire line of thought. All the evidence in the article shows the trend pretty clearly. Wadhams being aggressive in his prediction is not the story.
alistproducer2 9y ago
Even if it turns out the 2% of scientist who doubt man made global warming are right, you would think that it would at least be worth trying to save the world. This failure is not on regular people, it's on the people who know better and are in positions of power yet failed to fight hard enough, make winning arguments and treat the fight with the urgency it deserved. If people can be convinced to vote for taxes on themselves to build stadiums in cities that already have one, I don't believe for a second that it is a lost cause to convince people of a tax to literally help save the fucking world.
- triplesec 9y ago
  Can you provide a link / info for the stadium tax decision? Interesting behavioural news
  - r0m4n0 9y ago
    I'm aware of my own city that has done this... hundreds of millions in tax payer money to move the nba team downtown instead of across the river http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2014/05/20/downtown-arena-plan-gets-final-approval.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2014/05/20/downto...
- ProAm 9y ago
  > trying to save the world The world wont end, it will just change... happens all the time. Seriously 99.9% of all species that have walked the Earth are extinct. Humans are not exempt from that process, there is nothing to save here, the Earth will continue on just as it always has.
  - Robotbeat 9y ago
    Nihilism is never a good look.
    - ProAm 9y ago
      I dont think it's really nihilism I just dont believe humans will fix this issue (if they even can). But life will certainly go on, it just might not be us here on Earth.
DeerSpotter 9y ago
Has ANYONE CONSIDERED THIS? That the Earth is Tilting, the Axis of North and South are shifting because of that. The Temperature Changes are noticeable everywhere because nobody actually is considering that this can be possible. This would mean that it's just colder elsewhere and warmer somewhere else.
- run4yourlives2 9y ago
  No, no scientists have ever considered the multitude of factors and variables that make up climate in their approach to trying to isolate what might be causing changes. Not even for a split second. Someone just coughed on a passing car's exhaust fumes and blamed it for the warming earth, and we all just went with that.
brentm 9y ago
I have trouble believing a significant amount of the population truly doesn't believe in climate change (I guess I'm a climate change denier denier /s). I think the problems lie mostly with the voting population not prioritizing climate change when making voting decisions and major campaign donors who feel directly (or indirectly) threatened by environmental protection initiatives having the ears of politicians. The major problems almost always have to do with money.
- ams6110 9y ago
  I think a fairly large number of people either don't believe it or don't belive it's man-caused (to whatever extent) and therfore don't believe there's anything practical to be done about it.
deleted 9y ago
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13of40 9y ago
Assuming this change (a) lasts hundreds or thousands of years and (b) doesn't spiral out of control and kill us outright, at some point in the next couple of hundred years we're going to have people denying there ever was ice in the Arctic.
marcgcombi 9y ago
#FakeNews alert. The author of this article fails to point out that sea ice extent is about the same this year, as it has been for the past decade or two. According to NASA and NOAA data; not mine. Also, Greenland is blowing away records for ice build-up, this year. Further, total ice mass for the year is above the average for the past four decades. https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/ https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-shee... Sincerely, I would recommend that the Economist editors take a long, hard look at the environmental crap that is published, here. The data do not support any part of this story.
- idlewords 9y ago
  That is manifestly not true. See the chart here: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SeaIce/page2.php https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SeaIce/page2.php Don't confuse global sea ice figures with those for Arctic sea ice.
alpsgolden 9y ago
How do we square this statement from the article "In the past 30 years, the minimum coverage of summer ice has fallen by half; its volume has fallen by three-quarters. " with this chart of global sea ice -- http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.... From the chart, looks like sea ice is down a little bit, but not only by a few percent, not by half. So are there massive gains in sea ice elsewhere in the world, areas where sea ice has nearly doubled? Also how do we square the statement about the decrease in volume with this statement from a year and a half ago? "However, very little ice thickness information actually exists." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL065704/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL065704/full How do we actually know how much volume has fallen in the last 30 years if two years ago "very little information on thickness actually exists"? I don't really understand the appeal of this article when it doesn't link to any sources. The article doesn't tell us what the actual new information prompted the article and where that new information came from.
- idlewords 9y ago
  Yes, sea ice has increased in the Antarctic. https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reach... The coupling between climate and sea ice is more complex in the southern polar regions, and the increase in sea ice there is also likely to be an artifact of global warming. But this may explain why a global chart doesn't show the sharp decrease you'd expect.
  - alpsgolden 9y ago
    and the increase in sea ice there is also likely to be an artifact of global warming. Was there anyone predicting in the 1980s or 1990s that with global warming arctic ice would decline while antarctic ice would increase? Was anyone predicting this before the observation occurred? How do I know that the idea that global warming causes an increase in southern ice is not just an after the fact rationalization?
    - 9y ago
clarkrinker 9y ago
Hopefully there is a Stargate in there
Turing_Machine 9y ago
2017: "On current trends, the Arctic ocean will be largely ice-free in summer by 2040." 2009: "[S]cientists at Cambridge University predict the Arctic ocean will be largely ice-free during the summer within the next ten years (i.e., by 2019)" http://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2009-10-15-voa41/414370.html http://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2009-10-15-voa41/414370.html 2007: Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013' http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm The date for the Arctic becoming "largely ice-free" appears to be receding about as fast as break-even fusion power. :-)
- saagarjha 9y ago
  One of the few things that benefit from pushed-back dates.
- epistasis 9y ago
  It's good for you to point out how little the headlines represent the actual content of the articles, much less the science itself. For example, that 2007 article: "In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly. It might not be as early as 2013 but it will be soon, much earlier than 2040." Which lines up with the 2017 article. Cutting edge science is not headline-friendly!
  - mxfh 9y ago
    A bit of a buried lede, and not quite headline material in the 2007 BBC article: "My thinking on this is that 2030 is not an unreasonable date to be thinking of."
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- ljw1001 9y ago
  Somehow you think this is the important part of the message?
  - awqrre 9y ago
musgrove 9y ago
Then in other words, how it's known today is uncertain. "Almost certainly" isn't the same as "certainly." Subtle, but huge and important difference that coders should know.
mythrwy 9y ago
I'm not a "denialist" by any stretch, I believe CO2 causes warming. I believe the scientists probably know at least somewhat of what they speak (although I am skeptical of timelines). That being said, what is feasible to do? Stop eating hamburgers? Drive Teslas? Carbon Tax Credits derived in meetings attended by people who arrive in jets? There just isn't a practical solution in sight. There really isn't. Just feel good type measures that don't solve the problem and wont. Never mind that the science is a bit unclear on exactly what, when and how much. It's a global problem. The "globe" hasn't been able to effectively work together to solve much simpler problems like drugs and human trafficking at any scale. And this is a bigger problem requiring more collaboration. I'm sorry, for all the hand wringing effective solutions are just not going to happen. No how, no way. Not in a timely manner. The only "real" solution in sight that I see is a massive population decrease through war or famine or plague. Or else sudden loss of civilization and technology which will produce the same thing. Is that price worth the benefits? I may consider this when "timelines" actually turn out as predicted. Until that time I'm driving a car and eating hamburgers. And living somewhere away from coastlines.
- knz 9y ago
  Personally I think we are way past prevention and rapidly approaching the last hope for mitigation of climate change. The answer doesn't have to be a massive population decline - measures like reducing our emissions from power generation (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... - 29%) and more electrified transportation would have a real impact. It is unrealistic to assume dramatic lifestyle changes will help us but instead of wasting billions of wars and walls we could be investing in renewable energy and more efficient use of carbon fuels. Instead we have an administration pushing hard in the opposite direction - investing in coal and oil, removing fuel economy improvements, and destroying the ability of organizations like NASA to even observe the effects of climate change. It's madness.
  - alphapapa 9y ago
    > measures like reducing our emissions from power generation and more electrified transportation would have a real impact. This always confuses me, because human CO2 emissions are about 3% of natural emissions. If the planet were so sensitive to +/- 3%, wouldn't it have gone past the point-of-no-return millions of years ago? But here we are today, and the ice core data shows wild fluctuations over periods of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years that greatly exceed anything we've experienced.
jamesblonde 9y ago
The article is actually very good, without being alarmist, giving the facts: the arctic will be ice free within many of our lifetimes there are two main feedback effects from an ice-free Arctic that we know will be bad, but there is uncertainty in how bad they will be: (1) the albedo effect means less of the suns energy will be reflected back into space by white ice and warming will accelerate due to darker water absorbing more energy (2) the clathrate gun hypothesis - how much of the methane in the Arctic basin that is trapped as ice clathrates will be released into the atmosphere (methane is about 8 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2). The other main point of the article is that the Arctic sea ice melting is unambiguously bad. Ignore the opening of the NE-passage. It's all-round bad news for us and our progeny.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
Does anybody have any idea of how bad climate change would actually be to the United States? It is actually isolated from most of the world by two oceans. The US southern border is pretty inhospitable desert. The US would have defacto access to all of Canada's resources (worst case it would invade Canada and annex the productive areas most of which are near the border). With the fall of the global trade, over time the US may be more like the 1950s in terms of wealth equality. While the rest of the world becomes a hell, the US might become an isolated paradise.
- noiv 9y ago
  Check out this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:_Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:_Our_Future_on_a_H... It has some examples what happened to the US territory in a warmer climate. Can't remember thinking of a paradise.
basicplus2 9y ago
The arctic as we know it today is as it is today and therefore cannot possibly be gone.
faragon 9y ago
How that will impact in international shipping prices, for good?
red023 9y ago
I do not buy into this human caused climate change religion. https://www.corbettreport.com/tag/climate-change/ https://www.corbettreport.com/tag/climate-change/
- grzm 9y ago
  As per the guidelines, please do not comment about being downvoted or express the expectation of downvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You may be downvoted just for ignoring the guidelines, not for the content of your comment. If you're actually concerned about receiving downvotes, take extra care to present your statement in the most civil, substantive, and constructive way.
  - red023 9y ago
    You tell me the difference between rules and guidelines. The guidelines speak about speaking about being downvoted. I interpreted that as after it actually happened. What I did was that I predict it will happen. And that for a fact will happen if I have this sentence in there or not it will happen anyway. Because HN news and the stupid karma system is actually extremely counterproductive. You get rewarded for maintaining the status quo and get punished to questioning it. In any context, not only in scientific. The hive mind is what its right and you have to conform with it to get karma. So I don't give a shit! There you have another reason, I dared to use the word shit, crucify me now!
  - red023 9y ago
    Removed it, happy now? Lets see what happens shall we?
dotancohen 9y ago
What will happen to the energy that is now melting the ice? Surely the energy source (i.e. the summer sun) will not go away, so where will the energy go that was until now melting the ice? If the answer is "it will warm the ocean" then that is troubling indeed. It takes almost as much energy to melt a given mass of ice (-1° to 1°) as it takes to bring it to a near boil (1° to 99°).

257 points by qubitcoder 9y ago

Global warming aside, as a Canadian, I'm disappointing in what our government has down to protect our sovereignty in the Canadian northern archipelago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Arctic_Archipelago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Arctic_Archipelago Had we invested in a navy base in the north, and a few ice breakers, then we could have been the owner of the "panama canal of the arctic". We would have a monopoly on what traffic goes through the Canadian archipelago which would help offset the cost of policing the north. We would be able to do things like prohibit oil tankers and other hazardous materials if we wanted. At this point I think we've all but given away any claim to being able to dictate who travels through our northern islands. The arctic will be policed by the American's and Russians, and used heavily by ships travelling to the east coast of the US and Europe from China. Hopefully at the least, we'll be able to push for things to protect the arctic waters like no resource mining, think offshore oil rigs, and no oil tankers travelling through those waters.

Pxtl 9y ago
Yep, at this point we're going to be unable to prevent its claim as international waters - we didn't make it, and it's a useful waterway for travel.
sintaxi 9y ago
I agree we should have a stronger military presence up north but I don't see how that changes anything. Its still Canadian territory and Canada still gets to control who goes through there.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > Its still Canadian territory and Canada still gets to control who goes through there. In theory. In practice Canada has neither the resolve, the funds or the strength to put that into practice. I'm not sure that's a bad thing either, the fact that Canada technically owns it but does not start drilling like mad or doing other bad stuff that far up North at least keeps things roughly as they are for now.
allengeorge 9y ago
That's because a majority of Canadians have a visceral negative reaction to any military spending. We're happy to claim the Arctic, but not if it involves money, and definitely not if it involves money for the military. Which is, IMO, ridiculous. When it comes to territories like that it's "pay up or shut up".
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Canada does not have a population large enough to actually have stewardship over the territory contained within its borders. The tax base simply isn't there. Effectively Canada is a 100 Km or so strip to the North of the United States a bit wider in some places. If you want to really claim all the land up North that is barely in use you'd need a population at least 10x the present one and even then it would be a stretch. Infrastructure and defense costs are closely related to surface area and border length if you want to keep world class powers out of your backyard.
  - allengeorge 9y ago
    Which leads to one of my personal bug bears: that Canada should accept dramatically more immigration if it wants to maintain an independent presence in North America. I think this would go a long way to improving the business, economic and cultural climate in Canada as well as making us less of a push-over in dealing with the United States. Again, an opinion that is not shared. Most Canadians want the current immigration levels to be maintained or reduced.
    - desdiv 9y ago
      >that Canada should accept dramatically more immigration if it wants to maintain an independent presence in North America. I fully agree with you, but you have to see the irony in that statement: the more immigrants you take in the less independent you are. Canada already have 20% of its population being forign-born[0]. Dramatically more immigration would mean that percentage rising to 30 or even 40%. I'm a panhumanist and an immigrant myself, so I have zero problem with this, but I can understand why some native-born Canadians might be worried when that percentage rises too high. [0] http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-01...
niftich 9y ago
Harper's administration, though losing focus on the issue by the end, was keen on enforcing the Canadian Internal Waters claim [1][2]. Trudeau, not at all [3]. To the detriment of Canadians, major players around the rest of the world consider these waters international waters, and on the international level, might (or the lack of response thereof) leads to facts-on-the-ground, as we've seen time and time again. [1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-north/myth-versus-reality-in-stephen-harpers-northern-strategy/article16397458/?page=all http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-north/myth-... [2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/franklin-find-as-much-about-sovereignty-as-solving-a-mystery-1.2763117 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/franklin-find-as-much-ab... [3] http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-obama-arctic-1.3905933 http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-obama-arctic-1.39059...
desdiv 9y ago
As long as the US thinks the northwest passage is an international passage then no amount of bases or ships would matter. Canada simply can't win that fight. There are just too many ways for US to exert soft pressure on Canada: softwood lumber, NAFTA repeal, extra tariff and transit charges for oil sand output. (admittedly that last one might be a good thing for Earth)
dpc59 9y ago
The panama canal of the arctic won't be the northwest passage, it's going to be the eastern passage over russia. The NWP water is too shallow, badly cartographied, you still risk getting caught in ice and it has very dangerous storms. Shipping companies would rather take a few more days to get to the pacific than take a big risk.
- jamesblonde 9y ago
  This is correct. The only passage open the last few years has been the Lancaster Sound route which is not suitable for shipping. The Prince of Wales Strait is the only viable route, but hasn't opened up fully the last number of years. In contrast, the Northeast passage has opened up every year for the last 10+ years and offers huge gains for ships from Asia to Europe. From wikipedia, the difference between Suez and NEP for Yokohama to Rotterdam is 37% shorter.
- lend000 9y ago
  Only if we assume that sea level rise will not be significant, and that the changing climate will not affect common storm tracks.
nostrademons 9y ago
Eh, history is long and moves in unpredictable ways. Just wait until the U.S. breaks up and Canada annexes the BosWash megalopolis and the West Coast, and then suddenly Canada will be policing the northwest passage again.
- hourislate 9y ago
  I seriously think Canadians should be worried more about Russia than the US. They are the ones laying claim to Canadian Arctic Waters not the USA.
  - scott_karana 9y ago
    I agree with the first half of your argument, but not the other. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_claims_in_the_Arctic#Beaufort_Sea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_claims_in_the_Ar...
- Baeocystin 9y ago
  I can see the western states coming in to closer economic union with the west of Canada. I don't see Canadian influence dominating, though. There's too many people to the south. California alone has more people than all of Canada, for example. But there are common cultural elements from Canada all the way down to northern California. So a regional culture arising as a unifying agent, technically across country lines? I can picture it. (SoCal is different, but that is neither here nor there in this case.) There's that pesky Federal law that prohibits states from making their own arrangements with sovereign nations, but that does little to inhibit the actual flow of people or business.
run4yourlives2 9y ago
Call me when you support increased military spending. Because that's what it'll take, and that's one of the few things Canadians universally don't think is all that important.
Raknarg 9y ago
> The arctic will be policed by the American's and Russians As it always has, because we don't have the millitary power or population to defend any of our own territory. The US does that for us. It's unfortunate Canadians have been unable to expand in our own territory over the few hundred years Europeans have been in this place.
- eric_h 9y ago
  > It's unfortunate Canadians have been unable to expand in our own territory over the few hundred years Europeans have been in this place. Personally I disagree - I think it's fortunate that there are still large swaths of undeveloped natural territory in Canada, particularly the northern provinces. It might be cold up there, but it sure is beautiful.
mablap 9y ago
I've often wondered how long Canada can stay an independent country. I doubt it can last 100 more years, unfortunately. Some patriots in 1837 asked this very question as well, wondering why we shouldn't just join the USA and benefit from "more of everything" without sacrificing democracy. They were hanged. The way Trump has acted towards Canada, talking about NAFTA etc, made me think of someone who has an eye for the territories up north...
- cmrdporcupine 9y ago
  Looking at the situation right now I'd think the opposite. It seems dubious for the U.S. as it is structured right now with its internal political tribal conflicts to last 100 more years, whereas Canada is more stable and internally harmonious now than it was for most of the 20th century. Quebec separatism is mostly quiet. There's a left/centrist government in Alberta for the first time, reducing provincial tensions between the west and central Canada. Trade links with Europe and Asia have been broadened or are broadening. The economy remains spmewhat tepid but stable. Meanwhile the U.S. itself has progressed closer and closer into the depths of right wing extremism, and shows no signs of healing.
  - GiorgioG 9y ago
    The U.S. is not simply progressing into the depths of right-wing extremism, its extremism on both sides. If you watch Fox News, the administration and the republicans can do no wrong. Change the channel to MSNBC or CNN and the president can't do a damn thing right and all republicans are morons.
  - mablap 9y ago
    Agreed to an extent, but I think we're going to have to wait and see what the next four years have in store for us. A lot of being Canadian has to do with... not being American. The only place in Canada where I feel there is a definite core identity (completely separable from "not being american") is Quebec. Harper being so pro-monarchy, insisting on the War of 1812 as being a national foundational myth, trying to assert soverignty in the North seem to be a realization of this identity problem. Also take the current celebrations for the federation's 150th anniversary: the branding completely skips the fact that there were people in the region calling themselves Canadiens for roughly 200 years prior... Add to that the recent underwhelming documentary on the country's history done by the CBC and the current Premier's own belief that the country has no core identity (being "post-national"). All in all I believe there's a good chance that Canada as you and I know it today will not be around to celebrate another 100 years.
devrandomguy 9y ago
How much of a military presence do we really need, in order to enforce regulations over shipping traffic though? Surveillance by spotter planes / drones, combined with the threat of legal action against the ship's owners, ought to deter all but the most hardcore bastards. For them, in theory, a rare single cruise missile from Norad ought to suffice. Even then, you could start with a warning shot, and bill the ship's owner for the missile. For more complicated missions, we could fly out a small inspection or police team in a flying boat. Instead of relying on arrays of 20cm cannons for protection, they would depend on the above mentioned system (which is similar to the Norad system already in service).
- mseebach 9y ago
  Not much. Denmark patrols similarly huge and empty arctic Greenland with a 14-man strong unit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_Dog_Sled_Patrol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius_Dog_Sled_Patrol Sure, there's a bit more to it than that, but Denmark is a lot smaller than Canada, and has unremarkable military spending, even for its size.
aaron695 9y ago
The concept you should have a moral right over something you did not create (ie a canal) that can reduce thousands of miles on ships journeys over the open ocean is fucking bullshit and goes against international law to boot.

themgt 9y ago

PIOMAS (arctic sea ice volume model) is showing ice on the edge of collapse: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9SaElxXoAAl0zU.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9SaElxXoAAl0zU.jpg

Afforess 9y ago
My favorite graph is this one: http://i.imgur.com/ZgJaXCy.png http://i.imgur.com/ZgJaXCy.png - you can clearly tell 2016 was the year we broke away from all the others.

pthreads 9y ago

This is on all of us not just the climate science deniers and the profit hungry corporations, selfish individuals, crazy governments, or, uninformed individuals. It is not enough to protest, give speeches, start "green" companies, and whatever else we do to feel good about "doing something for the environment." If only we could have enough courage to curb our uncontrolled consumption of resources. Why is it so hard for each one of us to just reduce our intake by, say, just 15% to begin with? How about eating less, not changing cell phones every ear, shopping less, driving less, and a hundred other things we can reduce? In the end nature always wins. We are either with her or against her!

scarlac 9y ago
> It is not enough to protest, give speeches, start "green" companies, and whatever else we do to feel good about "doing something for the environment." I have to disagree. Please keep doing something good for the environment. Please keep making companies that replace old harmful ones. Keep protesting to politicians and by all means, keep doing speeches to inform the public. > just reduce our intake by, say, just 15% Everything I know about psychology tells me this advice won't work. You need to provide an alternative or you'll be fighting a losing battle against habit and enjoyment. But I should dogfood on my own advice here, so here's what you should do instead: - Give people specific advice on habit changes instead, ie. switch from beef to chicken, from chicken to fish and from fish to vegetables. - Tell people HOW to change electricity provider (if your country or region allows it) - Tell people to VOTE for the environment
- SamPhillips 9y ago
  Here's an attempt at those things: https://medium.com/@i2amsam/we-can-do-it-ourselves-part-1-48dd93e250a9 https://medium.com/@i2amsam/we-can-do-it-ourselves-part-1-48... I'd love feedback. (And if you are interested in climate and tech join us at ClimateAction.tech)
ashark 9y ago
> Why is it so hard for each one of us to just reduce our intake by, say, just 15% to begin with? Because if you do it and no-one else does then you're hurting yourself for basically no reason. It's a coordination problem.

YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 9y ago

Arctic is indeed shrinking. 15000 years ago (or so) there were miles of ice on top of the place I'm currently sitting.

jackmott 9y ago
These posts that pretend or imagine they have a deeper understanding of the science than the rest of us are super irritating. The writers of the economist article know, climate scientists know, and hackernews readers all know that the climate has been colder and hotter in the past over geologic time scales. We all know this. It is not correct to imply that the current warming is just a continuation of the usual inter-glacial cycles. It isn't, the rate of change is completely different by orders of magnitude, and the causes are observably different.
- dTal 9y ago
  It's like being in an elevator whose cable has snapped and is in freefall, and saying there's nothing to worry about because the elevator goes up and down all the time and it's perfectly normal.
- Turing_Machine 9y ago
  What's "super-irritating" is that you guys keep trotting out the same predictions in an attempt to induce panic, even though those predictions have failed time after time. See up-thread, where scientists were predicting an "ice-free Arctic" for 2013. And 2019. And now 2040. I believe there were predictions for the Arctic to be "ice-free" by 2000 as well, but a quick Google isn't turning up a solid reference. Yes, the earth has been colder than it is now. Many times. It's also been warmer than it is now. Many times. "It isn't, the rate of change is completely different by orders of magnitude" That is simply not correct. There is plenty of evidence that ice ages can occur over a time scale of less than a hundred years, and some evidence that it can happen on a decadal scale. Heck, some of us are old enough when the threat of an ice age was the scare story.
  - antisthenes 9y ago

niftich 9y ago

On a sobering note, the Arctic is a tremendous shortcut for shipping, and despite its vast and remote coastline, it's surrounded solely by states with a strong rule of law, making piracy unlikely. Cargo traffic between will re-orient from the current crop of chokepoints like Suez and Malacca; the Panama Canal will see a decline of Asia-Atlantic traffic and a rise in intra-Americas traffic; and more shipping overall will be conducted in waters adjacent to the coasts of Russia, Canada, US, Norway, and Greenland (Kingdom of Denmark). Even without additional exploitation of the Arctic, changes like this will affect the strategic priorities of states.

hackuser 9y ago
> the Arctic is a tremendous shortcut for shipping The Economist article says, "the much-vaunted sea passages are likely to carry only a trickle of trade". Do you have any information on the prospective volume of trade? > it's surrounded solely by states with a strong rule of law, making piracy unlikely. For another reason too: Piracy usually is conducted by people.
- niftich 9y ago
  > Do you have any information on the prospective volume of trade? Not really, though COSCO (a top-5 shipper by capacity and market share [1]) expressed interest again in 2016 [2], sending 5 ships through; they were the first Chinese shipping company to send a ship this way in 2013 [3], and express a continued interest almost every year -- like in 2015 [4]. Russian forecasts are extremely ambitious to the point of being pure wishful thinking [5]. There are some challenges with the route [5][6], and not all shippers are on board, and of course global shipping has just had its lowest growth in years [7]. [1] https://www.alphaliner.com/top100/ https://www.alphaliner.com/top100/ [2] https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-industry-and-energy/2016/10/cosco-sends-five-vessels-through-northern-sea-route https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-industry-and-energy... [3] http://barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/08/first-container-ship-northern-sea-route-21-08 http://barentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2013/08/first-container... [4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-shipper-cosco-to-schedule-regular-trans-arctic-sailings-1446133485 https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-shipper-cosco-to-schedu... [5] https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-industry-and-energy/2016/09/shipping-companies-snub-russian-arctic-route https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-industry-and-energy... [6] http://www.platts.com/latest-news/shipping/moscow/feature-despite-russian-aspirations-international-26397694 http://www.platts.com/latest-news/shipping/moscow/feature-de... [7] http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/08/20/490621376/amid-industry-downturn-global-shipping-sees-record-low-growth http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/08/20/490621376/a...

beemanners 9y ago

More alarmism. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/07/experts-said-arctic-sea-ice-would-melt-entirely-by-september-201/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/07/experts-said-a...

kakarot 9y ago
To be fair, it's a pretty weak argument to claim that things are fine because a few loud individuals said something outlandish, and the media gobbled it up for hype.
triplesec 9y ago
The Torygraph is known for printing a lot of shoddy data-illiterate denialist articles (Christopher Booker is one of the main culprits), so I'd take this article as if it were on Fox or even Breitbart and fact check the s[now] out of it, if you're inclined to believe it.
run4yourlives2 9y ago
This is literally right from your link: >"Bob Ward, of the Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, added: “Peter Wadhams has made predictions of the imminent disappearance of summer Arctic sea ice which have not been fulfilled, but the evidence still shows a rapid decline." One guy missing a prediction isn't reason to dismiss the entire line of thought. All the evidence in the article shows the trend pretty clearly. Wadhams being aggressive in his prediction is not the story.

alistproducer2 9y ago

Even if it turns out the 2% of scientist who doubt man made global warming are right, you would think that it would at least be worth trying to save the world. This failure is not on regular people, it's on the people who know better and are in positions of power yet failed to fight hard enough, make winning arguments and treat the fight with the urgency it deserved. If people can be convinced to vote for taxes on themselves to build stadiums in cities that already have one, I don't believe for a second that it is a lost cause to convince people of a tax to literally help save the fucking world.

triplesec 9y ago
Can you provide a link / info for the stadium tax decision? Interesting behavioural news
- r0m4n0 9y ago
  I'm aware of my own city that has done this... hundreds of millions in tax payer money to move the nba team downtown instead of across the river http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2014/05/20/downtown-arena-plan-gets-final-approval.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2014/05/20/downto...
ProAm 9y ago
> trying to save the world The world wont end, it will just change... happens all the time. Seriously 99.9% of all species that have walked the Earth are extinct. Humans are not exempt from that process, there is nothing to save here, the Earth will continue on just as it always has.
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  Nihilism is never a good look.
  - ProAm 9y ago
    I dont think it's really nihilism I just dont believe humans will fix this issue (if they even can). But life will certainly go on, it just might not be us here on Earth.

DeerSpotter 9y ago

Has ANYONE CONSIDERED THIS? That the Earth is Tilting, the Axis of North and South are shifting because of that. The Temperature Changes are noticeable everywhere because nobody actually is considering that this can be possible. This would mean that it's just colder elsewhere and warmer somewhere else.

run4yourlives2 9y ago
No, no scientists have ever considered the multitude of factors and variables that make up climate in their approach to trying to isolate what might be causing changes. Not even for a split second. Someone just coughed on a passing car's exhaust fumes and blamed it for the warming earth, and we all just went with that.

brentm 9y ago

I have trouble believing a significant amount of the population truly doesn't believe in climate change (I guess I'm a climate change denier denier /s). I think the problems lie mostly with the voting population not prioritizing climate change when making voting decisions and major campaign donors who feel directly (or indirectly) threatened by environmental protection initiatives having the ears of politicians. The major problems almost always have to do with money.

ams6110 9y ago
I think a fairly large number of people either don't believe it or don't belive it's man-caused (to whatever extent) and therfore don't believe there's anything practical to be done about it.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

13of40 9y ago

Assuming this change (a) lasts hundreds or thousands of years and (b) doesn't spiral out of control and kill us outright, at some point in the next couple of hundred years we're going to have people denying there ever was ice in the Arctic.

marcgcombi 9y ago

#FakeNews alert. The author of this article fails to point out that sea ice extent is about the same this year, as it has been for the past decade or two. According to NASA and NOAA data; not mine. Also, Greenland is blowing away records for ice build-up, this year. Further, total ice mass for the year is above the average for the past four decades. https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/ https://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-shee... Sincerely, I would recommend that the Economist editors take a long, hard look at the environmental crap that is published, here. The data do not support any part of this story.

idlewords 9y ago
That is manifestly not true. See the chart here: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SeaIce/page2.php https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SeaIce/page2.php Don't confuse global sea ice figures with those for Arctic sea ice.

alpsgolden 9y ago

How do we square this statement from the article "In the past 30 years, the minimum coverage of summer ice has fallen by half; its volume has fallen by three-quarters. " with this chart of global sea ice -- http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.... From the chart, looks like sea ice is down a little bit, but not only by a few percent, not by half. So are there massive gains in sea ice elsewhere in the world, areas where sea ice has nearly doubled? Also how do we square the statement about the decrease in volume with this statement from a year and a half ago? "However, very little ice thickness information actually exists." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL065704/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL065704/full How do we actually know how much volume has fallen in the last 30 years if two years ago "very little information on thickness actually exists"? I don't really understand the appeal of this article when it doesn't link to any sources. The article doesn't tell us what the actual new information prompted the article and where that new information came from.

idlewords 9y ago
Yes, sea ice has increased in the Antarctic. https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new-record-maximum https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reach... The coupling between climate and sea ice is more complex in the southern polar regions, and the increase in sea ice there is also likely to be an artifact of global warming. But this may explain why a global chart doesn't show the sharp decrease you'd expect.
- alpsgolden 9y ago
  and the increase in sea ice there is also likely to be an artifact of global warming. Was there anyone predicting in the 1980s or 1990s that with global warming arctic ice would decline while antarctic ice would increase? Was anyone predicting this before the observation occurred? How do I know that the idea that global warming causes an increase in southern ice is not just an after the fact rationalization?
  - 9y ago

clarkrinker 9y ago

Hopefully there is a Stargate in there

Turing_Machine 9y ago

2017: "On current trends, the Arctic ocean will be largely ice-free in summer by 2040." 2009: "[S]cientists at Cambridge University predict the Arctic ocean will be largely ice-free during the summer within the next ten years (i.e., by 2019)" http://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2009-10-15-voa41/414370.html http://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2009-10-15-voa41/414370.html 2007: Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013' http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7139797.stm The date for the Arctic becoming "largely ice-free" appears to be receding about as fast as break-even fusion power. :-)

saagarjha 9y ago
One of the few things that benefit from pushed-back dates.
epistasis 9y ago
It's good for you to point out how little the headlines represent the actual content of the articles, much less the science itself. For example, that 2007 article: "In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly. It might not be as early as 2013 but it will be soon, much earlier than 2040." Which lines up with the 2017 article. Cutting edge science is not headline-friendly!
- mxfh 9y ago
  A bit of a buried lede, and not quite headline material in the 2007 BBC article: "My thinking on this is that 2030 is not an unreasonable date to be thinking of."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ljw1001 9y ago
Somehow you think this is the important part of the message?
- awqrre 9y ago

musgrove 9y ago

Then in other words, how it's known today is uncertain. "Almost certainly" isn't the same as "certainly." Subtle, but huge and important difference that coders should know.

mythrwy 9y ago

I'm not a "denialist" by any stretch, I believe CO2 causes warming. I believe the scientists probably know at least somewhat of what they speak (although I am skeptical of timelines). That being said, what is feasible to do? Stop eating hamburgers? Drive Teslas? Carbon Tax Credits derived in meetings attended by people who arrive in jets? There just isn't a practical solution in sight. There really isn't. Just feel good type measures that don't solve the problem and wont. Never mind that the science is a bit unclear on exactly what, when and how much. It's a global problem. The "globe" hasn't been able to effectively work together to solve much simpler problems like drugs and human trafficking at any scale. And this is a bigger problem requiring more collaboration. I'm sorry, for all the hand wringing effective solutions are just not going to happen. No how, no way. Not in a timely manner. The only "real" solution in sight that I see is a massive population decrease through war or famine or plague. Or else sudden loss of civilization and technology which will produce the same thing. Is that price worth the benefits? I may consider this when "timelines" actually turn out as predicted. Until that time I'm driving a car and eating hamburgers. And living somewhere away from coastlines.

knz 9y ago
Personally I think we are way past prevention and rapidly approaching the last hope for mitigation of climate change. The answer doesn't have to be a massive population decline - measures like reducing our emissions from power generation (https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... - 29%) and more electrified transportation would have a real impact. It is unrealistic to assume dramatic lifestyle changes will help us but instead of wasting billions of wars and walls we could be investing in renewable energy and more efficient use of carbon fuels. Instead we have an administration pushing hard in the opposite direction - investing in coal and oil, removing fuel economy improvements, and destroying the ability of organizations like NASA to even observe the effects of climate change. It's madness.
- alphapapa 9y ago
  > measures like reducing our emissions from power generation and more electrified transportation would have a real impact. This always confuses me, because human CO2 emissions are about 3% of natural emissions. If the planet were so sensitive to +/- 3%, wouldn't it have gone past the point-of-no-return millions of years ago? But here we are today, and the ice core data shows wild fluctuations over periods of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years that greatly exceed anything we've experienced.

jamesblonde 9y ago

The article is actually very good, without being alarmist, giving the facts: the arctic will be ice free within many of our lifetimes there are two main feedback effects from an ice-free Arctic that we know will be bad, but there is uncertainty in how bad they will be: (1) the albedo effect means less of the suns energy will be reflected back into space by white ice and warming will accelerate due to darker water absorbing more energy (2) the clathrate gun hypothesis - how much of the methane in the Arctic basin that is trapped as ice clathrates will be released into the atmosphere (methane is about 8 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2). The other main point of the article is that the Arctic sea ice melting is unambiguously bad. Ignore the opening of the NE-passage. It's all-round bad news for us and our progeny.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago

Does anybody have any idea of how bad climate change would actually be to the United States? It is actually isolated from most of the world by two oceans. The US southern border is pretty inhospitable desert. The US would have defacto access to all of Canada's resources (worst case it would invade Canada and annex the productive areas most of which are near the border). With the fall of the global trade, over time the US may be more like the 1950s in terms of wealth equality. While the rest of the world becomes a hell, the US might become an isolated paradise.

noiv 9y ago
Check out this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:_Our_Future_on_a_Hotter_Planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees:_Our_Future_on_a_H... It has some examples what happened to the US territory in a warmer climate. Can't remember thinking of a paradise.

basicplus2 9y ago

The arctic as we know it today is as it is today and therefore cannot possibly be gone.

faragon 9y ago

How that will impact in international shipping prices, for good?

red023 9y ago

I do not buy into this human caused climate change religion. https://www.corbettreport.com/tag/climate-change/ https://www.corbettreport.com/tag/climate-change/

grzm 9y ago
As per the guidelines, please do not comment about being downvoted or express the expectation of downvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You may be downvoted just for ignoring the guidelines, not for the content of your comment. If you're actually concerned about receiving downvotes, take extra care to present your statement in the most civil, substantive, and constructive way.
- red023 9y ago
  You tell me the difference between rules and guidelines. The guidelines speak about speaking about being downvoted. I interpreted that as after it actually happened. What I did was that I predict it will happen. And that for a fact will happen if I have this sentence in there or not it will happen anyway. Because HN news and the stupid karma system is actually extremely counterproductive. You get rewarded for maintaining the status quo and get punished to questioning it. In any context, not only in scientific. The hive mind is what its right and you have to conform with it to get karma. So I don't give a shit! There you have another reason, I dared to use the word shit, crucify me now!
- red023 9y ago
  Removed it, happy now? Lets see what happens shall we?

dotancohen 9y ago

What will happen to the energy that is now melting the ice? Surely the energy source (i.e. the summer sun) will not go away, so where will the energy go that was until now melting the ice? If the answer is "it will warm the ocean" then that is troubling indeed. It takes almost as much energy to melt a given mass of ice (-1° to 1°) as it takes to bring it to a near boil (1° to 99°).