16 ms·
Antarctica’s potential collapse could damage coastal cities across the globe
- ahel 9y agoCould?
- albeva 9y agoWonder what will all these climate deniers be saying when we start having flooding in coastal cities. Some idiots will probably blame it all on Gays who draw wrath of god ...
- ferongr 9y agoYou're not helping.
- CamperBob2 9y agoYou don't know many of the so-called deniers, do you?
- ferongr 9y agoIt doesn't matter. Belittling people never turns them your side.
- CamperBob2 9y agoI'll reiterate: you don't know these people. I do. They will claim it's the wrath of God, that $(PERCEIVED_SOCIAL_ILL) is to blame, and that the evangelical version of Protestant Christianity is the only remedy. They will not see it as "belittling" to point this out. They'll tell you this themselves. These people are in charge of the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and both legislative chambers in 32 states, including 17 with veto-proof majorities. They hold 33 governorships. They will probably control the Supreme Court soon, regardless of what happens with the Trump/Pence administration in the near term. Dismiss this at your peril.
- stupidhn 9y ago"These people".
- CamperBob2 9y ago.... aren't interested in virtue-signalling exercises on Hacker News.
- oldandtired 9y agoThere are many who claim the title of Christian and are no more Christian than any true-blue Atheist, Buddhist, Moslem, etc. The other "problem" is the commonly promulgated belief that if one does not subscribe to the view of anthropogenic climate change then one has to be a climate change denier. This belief has just as much stupidity and bigotry as saying that the earth is flat. Your "peril" is not being able to look at things with a much more nuanced view and actually recognise the big and little differences between people.
- kwk1 9y agoWow, you know all those people? And the whole of them, down to the individual, are irredeemable (global warming deniers)?
- throwaway938402 9y agoIt's utterly hopeless trying to communicate with climate change deniers. It has the opposite of the intended effect -- if you're the opposition and you're unhappy, they must be doing something right.
- flukus 9y agoSome are honestly misinformed and can respond to new information, some will never change their mind and others are paid to be denialists. It's worth responding to the first group, the response will indicate if they're really the second or third groups.
- agumonkey 9y agoHow to help ? mass only responds to politics but they get to elect their own idiot ... sad loop.
- thriftwy 9y agohttps://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberal... But in the president's formulation and in the formulation of smug stylists who have embraced some material account of uncool attitudes, the downturn, the jobs lost and the opportunities narrowed, are a force of nature — something that has "been happening" in the passive voice. ... This, I suspect, will one day become the Republican Party's rationale for addressing climate change: Look, we don't know how the dead hooker wound up in the hotel room. But she's here now, that's undeniable, so we've gotta get rid of the body.
- oldandtired 9y agoUp front - climate change occurs - I and my forebears have been observing it for generations. However, if we ever get to have flooding in coastal cities due to land-based ice melt, we will have long gone from here. The conditions required for the amount of land-based ice to melt will have meant that the extinction of most (if not all) life on this planet would have occurred long ago. It is simple enough to do the calculations, but I have rarely ever come across anyone (who promulgates the anthropogenic climate change agenda) to do them for themselves.
- pale-hands 9y ago> The conditions required for the amount of land-based ice to melt will have meant that the extinction of most (if not all) life on this planet would have occurred long ago. I very much doubt that you could support this statement. The geological record shows huge variations in sea-level, sometimes much higher than now, without any massive extinction. > It is simple enough to do the calculations, but I have rarely ever come across anyone (who promulgates the anthropogenic climate change agenda) to do them for themselves. Please share your calculations with us.
- DennisP 9y agoTrue. However, the record also shows several mass extinctions in conjunction with warming events similar to what we've got coming in the next century or two, if we don't make major changes fast.
- oldandtired 9y agoI can support it and you have just presented one of the major problems with the catastrophe scenarios predicted by various climate scientists (the geological record - think time-frames here). I have presented the calculations to various climate scientists and other than one "That's interesting, I'll get back to you", there have been no refutations of the calculations by them. > Please share your calculations with us. That's the whole point, the calculations can be done by a fifth grader, so I'll let you do your own homework. However, I will give you a clue - conversion involves over 1 million 25 megatonne nuclear bombs. I'll be nice and add, daily global incident solar energy is another clue. Once you have done your calculations then we can discuss any differences between results and outcomes.
- sctb 9y agoPlease don't post unsubstantive inflammatory comments here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- CamperBob2 9y agoWith all due respect, if you guys choose to post overtly political stories on HN, it doesn't seem fair to jump on your users who respond in kind. This person's comment wasn't all that inflammatory... and to the extent it was, well, it's probably time to start getting inflamed. Ignoring the problem -- or dismissing it with a soothing chorus of Kumbaya -- won't make it go away.
- i5h4n 9y agoA really well designed article. Kudos to the web design team at NYtimes on that.
- retube 9y agoReally clunky, jittery scroll with a load of blank space for me. Would much rather a clean, simple HTML+CSS layout without all the fancy javascript. (IE 10)
- RikNieu 9y ago> IE 10 How dare you. You, Sir, are part of the problem.
- Already__Taken 9y ago10?!
- ux-app 9y ago> (IE 10) try upgrading to Netscape Navigator? ;)
- throwaway9980 9y agoObvious troll is obvious. Hackernews readers don't use IE 10.
- nnq 9y agoIndeed, first time I come across such a website where scrolling is not jittery as f and either too slow or too fast! I generally hate these kinds of website, but this one seems executed flawlessly. ...or maybe kudos to the Chrome/Webkit team for finally fixing their weird scrolling behavior :) Years ago when I tried to implement such a thing myself the only browser that provided a decent experience on all platforms and devices with respect to such a scrolling-driven site was Firefox (and yeah, Safari, as Apple had a page like that themselves showing some mac pro or smth... but that worked like shit on anything except Safari on MacOS).
- pratap103 9y ago
- pyankoff 9y agoWhat's wrong with underwater ice melting? Ice density is lower than waters, so water level should actually decrease from that.
- misja111 9y agoIt's not the only flaw in the article. Also it chooses to ignore the fact that unlike the Arctic, the Antartic does actually not have any net ice loss at all; in some parts the ice is melting, but this loss is offset by other parts which are gaining in volume. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-o...
- doikor 9y agoThere is a difference between ice and sea ice. Basically Antartica has been losing land ice while sea ice has been growing. https://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice-intermediate.htm https://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice-inte... The important bit about sea vs land ice. > when land ice melts and flows into the oceans global sea levels rise on average; when sea ice melts sea levels do not change measurably but other parts of the climate system are affected, like increased absorbtion of solar energy by the darker oceans.
- misja111 9y ago> Basically Antartica has been losing land ice while sea ice has been growing. The Nasa article says the reverse, land ice is growing and sea ice melting. Also the NYT article states that it is especially the Antarctic sea ice that is vulnerable because of the rising ocean water temperature. But I've read your link and learned that the Nasa article is controversial. Well what do I know ..
- ykler 9y agoThe article is about ice on land melting. But actually when floating ice melts it increases sea levels a little bit as well, as explained here: https://www.quora.com/If-water-is-denser-than-ice-why-do-sea-levels-rise-when-the-ice-caps-melt https://www.quora.com/If-water-is-denser-than-ice-why-do-sea... Note, especially the first answer, which says that the effect from melting floating ice is quite small and that the primary drivers of rising sea levels from global warming are melting ice on land and thermal expansion of sea water.
- i_feel_great 9y agoHere is Brisbane, Australia, the property market for low-lying areas is still running hot. This is despite the flood of 2011 (which was so great it caused sea levels to drop by as much as 7mm) which destroyed many of them, and the insurance companies have either refused to insure them or at very high premiums with low coverage. No one cares, they still vote for politicians who promise the coal jobs will come back and still burn coal for most of the electricity.
- flukus 9y agoThat flood was from being a river valley, not from being low lying and coastal, coastal areas weren't affected. Toowoomba also flooded during that event, and that's on top of the great dividing range.
- semi-extrinsic 9y agoThe 2011 floods were in areas next to rivers; indeed some of the worst hit towns are nowhere near the coast, no? When it comes to ocean rise, no-one is predicting a "Day After Tomorrow"-style flood wave. The scientific paper linked in TFA has 6 feet over the next 80 years as the worst case scenario. This is in line with most other estimates (e.g. from the IPCC). I'm as afraid of climate change as the next person, but sea level rise affecting rich coastal cities is so slow, so easily measured, so easy to engineer our way out of, and so obviously a net profitable endeavour to protect against, as compared to many of the other climate change threats like ocean acidification, large ecosystem collapses, food shortages etc. I don't understand how any sensible person can worry about sea level rise affecting western cities.
- nerdponx 9y agoJust judging by how mother nature has acted in the last few years, I suspect that sea level rise will be anything but gradual. I'm sure someone here on HN has a climate science background and can weigh in; but even though the sea level rise will take place over the course of 80 years, it seems reasonable that it would happen in fits and starts, i.e. catastrophic flooding every few years.
- 9y ago
- rwnspace 9y agoOff-topic: I'm surely not alone in utterly despising this kind of website design? On-topic: If we think the immigration crisis is 'bad' now... It's like comparing a dispute over garden fences to WWII.
- XJOKOLAT 9y agoIt's ok ... we'll all just build walls. No, not just walls. Higher walls. And more of them. More, more. more. Olympic level eye roll Sorry, Monday morning is not the best time for this topic.
- XJOKOLAT 9y agoKeep down-voting. I love it :)
- sctb 9y agoPlease don't follow-up on an unsubstantive comment with an even more off-topic complaint about downvotes. > Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- MichaelBurge 9y agoThe good news is that wealth inequality will go down: Rich people all own expensive property near the coast, so it'll get flooded and they'll have to pay the poor to move them closer inward.
- Xylakant 9y agoThe wealthy also own all the expensive property inlands. In general, the poor don't own a lot of property at all, one of the reasons of the widening wealth gap (property prices rising only benefits the people that own property).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- codecamper 9y agoOne interesting observation is that the wealthy also do not seem to be concerned with a destabilizing climate. One would think with all that money & free time, they'd like the common people to stop messing up their planet please. I guess the wealthy are just way too outnumbered.
- mattparlane 9y agoHow did they decide what is West Antarctica and what is East Antarctica? Isn't it all North Antarctica?
- danieltillett 9y agoWestern hemisphere, Eastern hemisphere. Ultimately down to the 0 meridian running through Greenwich and for this you can thank English naval power.
- omellet 9y agoOr you can thank the English for figuring out how to measure longitude.
- danieltillett 9y agoWell yes :) Greenwich is actually not a bad location to place the 0 meridian since it makes the international date line run through the least populated region of the world.
- r721 9y agoTake notice that this is Part 2, here is the Part 1 (there's also Part 3): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/18/climate/antarctica-ice-melt-climate-change.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/18/climate/antar...
- jnsaff2 9y agoThere's a very good Omega Tau episode on this. http://omegataupodcast.net/229-ant-arctic-sea-ice/ http://omegataupodcast.net/229-ant-arctic-sea-ice/
- dwe3000 9y ago> Dr. DeConto and Dr. Pollard do not claim that this is a certainty Boil 'em in oil, the stinkin' deniers. Oh, wait, that's the scientists that this did this study about a time a century in the future. More sensationalist journalism just stirring up emotions.
- stctgion 9y ago6ft eh? I'm sure there's a technological solution to that https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago
- lhopki01 9y ago6ft by the end of the century. 160ft in total.
- averagewall 9y agoBoth these figures are just sensationalism. 6 feet is the newly added "extreme" scenario. The low is still 1 foot by 2100. Just to repeat that - current science predicts that sea level might rise by 1 foot in 2100. 160 feet for the whole Antarctic ice sheet is not a problem at all because it will take 1000s or at least 100s of years. Most buildings don't last even 100 years. Neither do a lot of national borders. We'll have rebuilt all our cities by then so it's plenty of time to gradually move the rebuilding further and further inland as the sea encroaches. Even better, our predictions are only going to get more and more accurate so we can do more planning further in advance. Nobody's predicting any disaster due to the whole Antarctic ice sheet melting. High sea level - yes, problem for people - no.
- TheRealDunkirk 9y agoIn the late 70's, I can remember a rash of stories on the nightly news, telling us that scientists were predicting that half of Florida was going to be underwater by the 2000's. Perhaps, even as a kid, I was sensitized to reporting on science, since my 4th-grade science text book was also predicting we'd be in a mini ice age in the 80's, and completely out of oil by 2000. And, dang it, I was looking forward to driving. It's forty years later, and the only land that I've read about that we've lost to global ocean level rise is some "islands" in the South Pacific that were only a couple millimeters above sea level anyway. Can someone here point me to actual, significant, usable land loss due to rising sea level? I'm not saying it hasn't happened, but I figure, if it had, it would be something that gets trotted out at every one of these discussions. Now we're getting a beautifully-rendered Times article where some NASA climatologist says that, in another 10 years, we could have some "significant retreat." After half a lifetime of hearing this, and not seeing anything like the kind of change that would threaten man's survival, I'm sorry, but I'm skeptical.
- mannykannot 9y agoIf you were really interested in what is actually happening, you would not be using half-remembered journalism from forty years ago as your source of information.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- NOSHSHNACKERS 9y agoDude.. there is about 40% less Louisianna than when we were kids.. Lots of coastal areas esp Miami are flooding more offten and staying flooded longer So yeah.. oh and oil sands.. stuff they would never have touched when we were kids so yeah.. no need to be skeptical just open your eyes brother
- Arnt 9y agoI remember that too, but wasn't it the end of the century, not the beginning? And the measurements in Florida have shown a rise of more than 1mm/y for a while now.
- kfk 9y agoI think we should fight greenhouse emissions as much as possible, but at the same time we should be realistic and plan accordingly. We should have a disaster plan (how to we move everybody to cities that won't be flooded, any nuclear plants on the coast to take care of? etc.) and a geo-engineering plan (can we capture this CO2 in some way?) and... a space exploration plan. who knows? maybe defeating aging will push us to think longer term
- pif 9y ago> a space exploration plan As you talk about a dramatic disaster touching billions of people, would you mind to explain me how space exploration could make a dent in such a colossal situation?
- dsr_ 9y agoAh, that's easy. The best sites to test designs for sustainable colonies on Mars are in the deserts; the best sites to test designs for sustainable colonies on Europa are in the oceans; the best sites to test designs for sustainable colonies on asteroids are at the tops of mountains. Once you have sustainable colonies in the deserts, the oceans and the mountaintops, you have much less urgency to move them out to space...
- kfk 9y agoIf you put yourself on a very long term trajectory, say 500 years, don't you think the only way to make a dent on the situation is space? I mean, what else would you do as a species? How else would you make sure humanity has a bright future?
- dboreham 9y agoI moved to a (cold) place 5500 ft above sea level nearly 20 years ago partly with global warming in mind. Unfortunately I didn't anticipate that climate change would lead to a significant increase in wild fires too.
- rhino369 9y agoThe worst care scenario for global warming is lightyears better than living on Mars, etc.
- jstewartmobile 9y agoThis stuff would probably go over better with the red state crowd if the same outlets hadn't chicken littled us in the 70s with global cooling. Also, I don't know how much of a difference we can make in the west when China and India are polluting so hard that it blots out the daylight.
- jstewartmobile 9y ago^ This was not meant as a denial of global warming. I'm just complaining about media sensationalism and Chinese air quality standards.
- flukus 9y agoNot denial, but still makes 2 claims (the first one is completely false) that deniers always make.
- jstewartmobile 9y agoApparently Wikipedia and I must be sharing a mass hallucination about Time, Newsweek, and a pop science show narrated by Leonard Nimoy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling#Concern_in_the_1960s_and_1970s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling#Concern_in_the_... If the media weren't such blatant purveyors of disaster porn, people would be taking this issue more seriously.
- shusson 9y ago> If that ice sheet were to disintegrate, it could raise the level of the sea by more than 160 feet I was wondering how they got 160ft, it looks like it's from this paper http://www.the-cryosphere.net/7/375/2013/tc-7-375-2013.pdf http://www.the-cryosphere.net/7/375/2013/tc-7-375-2013.pdf.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sneilan 9y agoI love how New York Times publishes these heartwarming articles first thing on a Monday morning. HELLO WELCOME TO MONDAY? SHOULD YOU BE SCARED YES YOU SHOULD BE SCARED.
- godshatter 9y ago> Extensive satellite monitoring began in the 1990s and, within a decade, evidence emerged that the ice sheet was already starting to speed up, retreat and destabilize. Since then, the rate at which some of the glaciers are dumping ice into the ocean has tripled. More than 100 billion tons are lost every year. I have a pet peeve about large numbers being thrown about without context. 100 billion tons of ice lost every year is a large number. How many tons of ice are in the whole of the ice sheet? 30M km^3 * 0.239913 mi^3/km^3 * 3.82 Gt/mi^3 = ~27.5 million gigatons. So that gives us about 275,000 years at current rates before the ice sheet is gone. I got the 30M km^3 from here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/antarctic_ice_sheet.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/antarctic_ice_sheet.htm and other conversions from here: http://www.sealevel.info/conversion_factors.html http://www.sealevel.info/conversion_factors.html
- blondie9x 9y agoIf the whole ice sheet disappears, we disappear.
- cmurf 9y agoI don't see the correlation. The disappearance itself doesn't seem to be the problem, but the accumulation of consequences of even the process of it disappearance that are the problem; not least of which is the cost of adaptation.
- blondie9x 9y agoIf it disappears sea level would rise significantly. Therefore we would disappear because most of our civilization would be effected that lives around sea level.
- lambdadmitry 9y agoThat's a non-sequitur right there. It's not like the entire Antarctica melts in a year or two; in the worst case, it's multi-decade process. It's pretty easy to adapt to such change; we (obviously) built cities before and can do that again.