5 ms·

Lake found at 11,000 feet in the Alps proves climate change is real

27 points by jicata 7y ago

tbassetto 7y ago
11,000 feet ~= 3350 meters Also, did we need more evidence that climate change is real? The article has a paragraph about deniers ("people […] cynical about the impact of climate change") but somehow I don't think they will change their mind because there is a now a lake where there shouldn't be in the Alps.
- bsaul 7y ago
  plus from what i’ve read so far, climate change « deniers » think humans have very little to do with climate and that recent warming is a natural phenomenon that started 14k years ago. Not that it doesn’t exists.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    There are several types of deniers. Some actually don't believe the raw data about temperature change, some don't believe humans are responsible.
    - rusticpenn 7y ago
      And some believe that they will be dead by the time it becomes a problem.
      - p98yuhp 7y ago
        And some believe that they will change everything by calling others as deniers/believers/progressives/Nazis/Whatever
    - jfnixon 7y ago
      I don’t think you actually mean “raw data about temperature change” because most of the warming is only seen in the processed readings, not the raw data. Consider the USCRN raw temperature dsta, which comes from the gold standard observation network, with carefully sited locations and the best instruments. It was designed from the start to have reliable observational data needing few, if any, corrections. It has seen very little warming since it went live about 15 years ago. True, it only covers the US, and 15 years isn’t yet long enough to have enough statistical significance for a confident claim of little to no warming, but it is getting close. One can’t simply ignore the data, though. It will soon require an explanation.
  - phs318u 7y ago
    Sadly many who deny climate change use “shapeshifter” arguments (it doesn’t exist; it exists but it wasn’t us; it exists and it’s good for us; it exists and it’s bad for us but we’ll adapt) to support their case. As a climate scientist once complained, “they get to pick from an assortment of contradictory arguments and will shift from one to the other; we can only resort to one argument - the truth” (quote may be wrong, sorry, I can’t find the original reference nor remember who said it).
    - ansible 7y ago
      > Sadly many who deny climate change use “shapeshifter” arguments (it doesn’t exist; it exists but it wasn’t us; it exists and it’s good for us; it exists and it’s bad for us but we’ll adapt) to support their case. It is amusing / sad how closely that follows the Narcissist's Prayer: https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/4nymz1/a_narcissists_prayer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/4nymz1... A Narcissist's Prayer That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did... You deserved it.
      - flukus 7y ago
        Repeat Chorus. I've heard it called the ladder of denialism, but it's more of a mouse wheel, they end up back at the first step sooner or later.
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  Thanks. Measuring mountains in the Alps in feet makes no sense at all.
- Pimpus 7y ago
  Well, what does this "prove"? That the climate isn't 100% static? That snow melts? You can cherry pick data to support whatever conclusion you want. Clickbait.
  - Pimpus 7y ago
    Of course I get downvoted for discrediting fake news pushing an agenda. Ridiculous.
- jsingleton 7y ago
  You're right. We don't need more evidence, we need more action. Get involved with the strikes on the 20th. You can even put your website on strike https://digital.globalclimatestrike.net/ https://digital.globalclimatestrike.net/ (got some big names signed up already). Here are some good resources to combat science deniers but it's probably better to focus on people in the middle who know it's happening but have yet to take action. https://skepticalscience.com/ https://skepticalscience.com/ https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
ta190905md 7y ago
This article contains wild claims without backing them up or referencing any science at all. It references another article, an instagram post, and an interview. Mestre is apparently a climber, not a scientist. Greg Porter, the author, is a freelance copyrighter and pop culture commentator. This trend of "make it sound dead serious and catastrophic" is having the opposite effect that people like Greg are probably intending -- it's turning people off of what actually is a serious (albeit not this serious) issue.
kys228 7y ago
Catch my unpopular opinion: Climate will change and there is NOTHING we can do to stop it. Nothing. No amount of extra taxation will change anything.
climate231 7y ago
There are several lakes higher. https://www.thoughtco.com/highest-lakes-in-the-world-4169915 https://www.thoughtco.com/highest-lakes-in-the-world-4169915 How does this prove anything?
- mdda 7y ago
  People should probably check the pictures of the water on your cited webpage before they take this as some kind of evidence. The lakes listed seem like mostly geothermally heated, or no longer existing.
  - climate231 7y ago
    More cited here: http://www.highestlake.com/highest-lake-world.html http://www.highestlake.com/highest-lake-world.html
    - eesmith 7y ago
      Yes, and that page says "There are many catchment areas high in the mountains that are capable of collecting liquid water, and some of these are now filled with snow and ice. As the climate gets warmer, it's probable that they will melt out and a new high lake will emerge." Hence, new high lakes may be evidence of warming, which might be from climate change, or from volcanic heating, or changes in weather patterns causing more rain. Some examples of new lakes: "Imja Lake is forming by glacial melting and did not even exist in 1960." "Ridonglabo Lake" is a classical moraine lake produced by climate warming. The glacier retreated from its terminal moraine, leaving a depression in which glacial meltwater could collect into a lake. We know this happened between 1925 and 1988 because we have two maps of the area from those years. "Laguna Glaciar lake is a glacial lake near Sorata in Bolivia at 5,038 meters above sea level. The lake has gotten much larger during the last 50 years due to the warming climate in that area." You wrote "How does this prove anything?" Assuming you aren't asking the abstract question "What is proof?", it contributes support to the widely-held understanding that global warming is occurring. Limited support, IMHO, when taken as a standalone data point, as local climate does not always reflect global climate.
  - 7y ago
eb0la 7y ago
""" It seems that, unless we change our ways, moving to Africa is the only option. Egypt will be lost, but the rest of the nation will remain mostly unaffected. """ ¿When did Africa became a nation? Last time I checked it was a continent.
- neoberg 7y ago
  You know there are 2 nations in the world. Muricans and others.
ngngngng 7y ago
I don't know anyone that denies that climate change is real, but I know plenty of people that deny that it's caused by us. To these people it's just caused by God. A "sign of the times" if you will.
- kayaeb 7y ago
  This is reductive. Plenty of people argue that climate science is not a single-variable problem, i.e. the correlation between temperature and atmospheric carbon is not monotonic. This is supported by geological histories, which do have various cyclings of temperature and carbon abundances well before the anthropocene era and often out of sync with each other. Throwing hands in the air and saying "they all think it's God or something" is... tiresome.
strken 7y ago
I'm not sure that the argument presented here justifies being called an "extinction-level event". Displacement of hundreds of millions of people, sure, but how are melting glaciers and rising sea levels alone going to drive us extinct? Wouldn't desertification be more of a concern, especially in tropical regions of Asia, America, and Africa?
Gravityloss 7y ago
I get advertisements for cheap flights on the page.
ElFitz 7y ago
The tsunamis part made me laugh. But then I thought I should check it out, because it seeming evidently absurd to me doesn't mean it's wrong. I wish I hadn't: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/16/climate-change-triggers-earthquakes-tsunamis-volcanoes https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/16/climate-change...
siempreb 7y ago
> It cannot be stressed enough that pools of water should not be forming at the top of mountains. That’s just not what Mother Nature had in mind. Does the author really know what Mother Nature had in mind than? When statements are clearly made up, it is not good journalism and the whole article becomes questionable.
Const-me 7y ago
> The levels of ice found in the Arctic Sea are already depleting at an alarming rate. The consequence of this is pretty obvious – it leads to rising sea levels. The ice found in the Arctic Sea floats on the surface of that sea. It’s pretty obvious when floating ice melts, water level doesn’t change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_principle

27 points by jicata 7y ago

11,000 feet ~= 3350 meters Also, did we need more evidence that climate change is real? The article has a paragraph about deniers ("people […] cynical about the impact of climate change") but somehow I don't think they will change their mind because there is a now a lake where there shouldn't be in the Alps.

bsaul 7y ago
plus from what i’ve read so far, climate change « deniers » think humans have very little to do with climate and that recent warming is a natural phenomenon that started 14k years ago. Not that it doesn’t exists.
- adrianN 7y ago
  There are several types of deniers. Some actually don't believe the raw data about temperature change, some don't believe humans are responsible.
  - rusticpenn 7y ago
    And some believe that they will be dead by the time it becomes a problem.
    - p98yuhp 7y ago
      And some believe that they will change everything by calling others as deniers/believers/progressives/Nazis/Whatever
  - jfnixon 7y ago
    I don’t think you actually mean “raw data about temperature change” because most of the warming is only seen in the processed readings, not the raw data. Consider the USCRN raw temperature dsta, which comes from the gold standard observation network, with carefully sited locations and the best instruments. It was designed from the start to have reliable observational data needing few, if any, corrections. It has seen very little warming since it went live about 15 years ago. True, it only covers the US, and 15 years isn’t yet long enough to have enough statistical significance for a confident claim of little to no warming, but it is getting close. One can’t simply ignore the data, though. It will soon require an explanation.
- phs318u 7y ago
  Sadly many who deny climate change use “shapeshifter” arguments (it doesn’t exist; it exists but it wasn’t us; it exists and it’s good for us; it exists and it’s bad for us but we’ll adapt) to support their case. As a climate scientist once complained, “they get to pick from an assortment of contradictory arguments and will shift from one to the other; we can only resort to one argument - the truth” (quote may be wrong, sorry, I can’t find the original reference nor remember who said it).
  - ansible 7y ago
    > Sadly many who deny climate change use “shapeshifter” arguments (it doesn’t exist; it exists but it wasn’t us; it exists and it’s good for us; it exists and it’s bad for us but we’ll adapt) to support their case. It is amusing / sad how closely that follows the Narcissist's Prayer: https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/4nymz1/a_narcissists_prayer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/4nymz1... A Narcissist's Prayer That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did... You deserved it.
    - flukus 7y ago
      Repeat Chorus. I've heard it called the ladder of denialism, but it's more of a mouse wheel, they end up back at the first step sooner or later.
Freak_NL 7y ago
Thanks. Measuring mountains in the Alps in feet makes no sense at all.
Pimpus 7y ago
Well, what does this "prove"? That the climate isn't 100% static? That snow melts? You can cherry pick data to support whatever conclusion you want. Clickbait.
- Pimpus 7y ago
  Of course I get downvoted for discrediting fake news pushing an agenda. Ridiculous.
jsingleton 7y ago
You're right. We don't need more evidence, we need more action. Get involved with the strikes on the 20th. You can even put your website on strike https://digital.globalclimatestrike.net/ https://digital.globalclimatestrike.net/ (got some big names signed up already). Here are some good resources to combat science deniers but it's probably better to focus on people in the middle who know it's happening but have yet to take action. https://skepticalscience.com/ https://skepticalscience.com/ https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/

ta190905md 7y ago

This article contains wild claims without backing them up or referencing any science at all. It references another article, an instagram post, and an interview. Mestre is apparently a climber, not a scientist. Greg Porter, the author, is a freelance copyrighter and pop culture commentator. This trend of "make it sound dead serious and catastrophic" is having the opposite effect that people like Greg are probably intending -- it's turning people off of what actually is a serious (albeit not this serious) issue.

kys228 7y ago

Catch my unpopular opinion: Climate will change and there is NOTHING we can do to stop it. Nothing. No amount of extra taxation will change anything.

climate231 7y ago

There are several lakes higher. https://www.thoughtco.com/highest-lakes-in-the-world-4169915 https://www.thoughtco.com/highest-lakes-in-the-world-4169915 How does this prove anything?

mdda 7y ago
People should probably check the pictures of the water on your cited webpage before they take this as some kind of evidence. The lakes listed seem like mostly geothermally heated, or no longer existing.
- climate231 7y ago
  More cited here: http://www.highestlake.com/highest-lake-world.html http://www.highestlake.com/highest-lake-world.html
  - eesmith 7y ago
    Yes, and that page says "There are many catchment areas high in the mountains that are capable of collecting liquid water, and some of these are now filled with snow and ice. As the climate gets warmer, it's probable that they will melt out and a new high lake will emerge." Hence, new high lakes may be evidence of warming, which might be from climate change, or from volcanic heating, or changes in weather patterns causing more rain. Some examples of new lakes: "Imja Lake is forming by glacial melting and did not even exist in 1960." "Ridonglabo Lake" is a classical moraine lake produced by climate warming. The glacier retreated from its terminal moraine, leaving a depression in which glacial meltwater could collect into a lake. We know this happened between 1925 and 1988 because we have two maps of the area from those years. "Laguna Glaciar lake is a glacial lake near Sorata in Bolivia at 5,038 meters above sea level. The lake has gotten much larger during the last 50 years due to the warming climate in that area." You wrote "How does this prove anything?" Assuming you aren't asking the abstract question "What is proof?", it contributes support to the widely-held understanding that global warming is occurring. Limited support, IMHO, when taken as a standalone data point, as local climate does not always reflect global climate.
- 7y ago

eb0la 7y ago

""" It seems that, unless we change our ways, moving to Africa is the only option. Egypt will be lost, but the rest of the nation will remain mostly unaffected. """ ¿When did Africa became a nation? Last time I checked it was a continent.

neoberg 7y ago
You know there are 2 nations in the world. Muricans and others.

ngngngng 7y ago

I don't know anyone that denies that climate change is real, but I know plenty of people that deny that it's caused by us. To these people it's just caused by God. A "sign of the times" if you will.

kayaeb 7y ago
This is reductive. Plenty of people argue that climate science is not a single-variable problem, i.e. the correlation between temperature and atmospheric carbon is not monotonic. This is supported by geological histories, which do have various cyclings of temperature and carbon abundances well before the anthropocene era and often out of sync with each other. Throwing hands in the air and saying "they all think it's God or something" is... tiresome.

strken 7y ago

I'm not sure that the argument presented here justifies being called an "extinction-level event". Displacement of hundreds of millions of people, sure, but how are melting glaciers and rising sea levels alone going to drive us extinct? Wouldn't desertification be more of a concern, especially in tropical regions of Asia, America, and Africa?

Gravityloss 7y ago

I get advertisements for cheap flights on the page.

ElFitz 7y ago

The tsunamis part made me laugh. But then I thought I should check it out, because it seeming evidently absurd to me doesn't mean it's wrong. I wish I hadn't: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/16/climate-change-triggers-earthquakes-tsunamis-volcanoes https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/16/climate-change...

siempreb 7y ago

> It cannot be stressed enough that pools of water should not be forming at the top of mountains. That’s just not what Mother Nature had in mind. Does the author really know what Mother Nature had in mind than? When statements are clearly made up, it is not good journalism and the whole article becomes questionable.

Const-me 7y ago

> The levels of ice found in the Arctic Sea are already depleting at an alarming rate. The consequence of this is pretty obvious – it leads to rising sea levels. The ice found in the Arctic Sea floats on the surface of that sea. It’s pretty obvious when floating ice melts, water level doesn’t change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_principle