4 ms·

Climate change: Impacts 'accelerating' as leaders gather for UN talks

57 points by headalgorithm 7y ago

chrisco255 7y ago
This article claims sea level rise has accelerated in the past 5 years but this is not what NASA data shows: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/ We see a near constant rate of rise since 1993, with maybe even a slight slowdown since 2016. One thing that's definitely accelerating is the hype around climate change.
- jsingleton 7y ago
  I assume that is not a quote, as I can't find it anywhere on that page, yet you have made it sound like one.
  - dilutedh2o 7y ago
    I think that is an interpretation of the graph showing sea level rise since 1994, which is on that page.
    - jsingleton 7y ago
      Looking at the graph there it appears the slope from 2010 onwards is steeper than before 2010 but I'd have to look at the raw data to check. Edit: It's clearer on the second graph below. From 1870 to present it looks very much like an exponential growth curve, particularly the last few decades.
      - gus_massa 7y ago
        The second graph is evidently curved, but it can be fitted quite good by a parabola. Crappy fit: https://imgur.com/a/ViBR21p https://imgur.com/a/ViBR21p Why do you think it is an exponential function?
        dwaltrip 7y ago
        Exponential or parabolic, the rise is still accelerating. The second derivate of sea level is positive in either case.
        gus_massa 7y ago
        Yep, like .2 mm/y^2. Exponentials grow much faster than parabolas. When you see that an exponential changes from almost 0 to something, it will change from something to too big to fit in the graph soon, really soon. Parabolas grow more smoothly. The difference is important to make some realistic predictions.
- Angostura 7y ago
  Where did you pull that 'quote from' the most recent NASA statement on sea-level rise I can find is from last year: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/new-study-finds-sea-level-rise-accelerating/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/new-study-finds-sea-level... "New study finds sea level rise accelerating" From that NASA page: > Global sea level rise is accelerating incrementally over time rather than increasing at a steady rate, as previously thought, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data. > If the rate of ocean rise continues to change at this pace, sea level will rise 26 inches (65 centimeters) by 2100 — enough to cause significant problems for coastal cities, according to the new assessment by Nerem and colleagues from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; CU Boulder; the University of South Florida in Tampa; and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The team, driven to understand and better predict Earth's response to a warming world, published their work Feb. 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. > "This is almost certainly a conservative estimate," Nerem said. "Our extrapolation assumes that sea level continues to change in the future as it has over the last 25 years. Given the large changes we are seeing in the ice sheets today, that's not likely." > Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere increase the temperature of air and water, which causes sea level to rise in two ways. First, warmer water expands, and this "thermal expansion" of the ocean has contributed about half of the 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) of global mean sea level rise we've seen over the last 25 years, Nerem said. Second, melting land ice flows into the ocean, also increasing sea level across the globe. Now, you are absolutely right that the WMO is talking about faster rates of rise than NASA - from their release: > Over the five-year period May 2014 -2019, the rate of global mean sea-level rise has amounted to 5 mm per year, compared with 4 mm per year in the 2007-2016 ten-year period. This is substantially faster than the average rate since 1993 of 3.2 mm/year. The contribution of land ice melt from the world glaciers and the ice sheets has increased over time and now dominate the sea level budget, rather than thermal expansion. It will be interesting to see what data sources that they are using for these figures, compared with NASA. Of course, I fervently hope that WMO is wrong - but I don't hold out much hope that they've simply cocked up the figures. One final correction - the "hype" isn't accelerating. In fact, given the data, we are being remarkably laid back.
- defterGoose 7y ago
  You felt the need to make a top level comment containing the two most common tropes of climate change denial: a vague interpretation of and gesture towards some "real data", and a nod to the idea that what's really wrong about AGCC is the degree to which people are interested/concerned. My points being: A. You can window any exponential function and make it look linear, especially when it contains a lot of noise like this one, and B. You may find that people are increasingly unlikely to take you seriously when you format your opinions like this.
  - codeddesign 7y ago
    Honestly - I find it difficult to take you seriously when the initial section of your comment is bashing his opinion. If you have a competing opinion or just don’t like their’s you can then make a rebuttal (as you did in section A). Your entire initial comment and then section B makes your argument no better than his. Let’s stop bashing and be constructive, regardless of whether you like/agree with someone’s comment or not
    - defterGoose 7y ago
      The high level of snark was intentional. Although that tends not to be super popular around here, being scientifically precise does seem to be. I generally feel that my comment style straddles the line between snarky and civil. Although it's probably true that my attitude here isn't the most constructive, it's also true that for some people (I'll yet withhold final judgement regarding OP), any attempt to educate or have dialog falls on deaf ears. This gets really tiring when online forums are replete with people willing to espouse opinions based on incomplete or distorted understanding with little more than an offhand remark. So if I come across as frustrated, well, maybe you can try to forgive that. It's harder for me to forgive pseudoscientific evangelism.
      - chrisco255 7y ago
        Your comment just underscores the religious devotion that alarmists have to their shaky hypothesis that the world faces imminent doom at the hands of man-made climate change. The sea level has been rising for over 20,000 years. Just to give you perspective on the changes since the Halocene era began, here's more documented evidence for you to snark about: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Holocene_sea_level_rise#/media/File%3APost-Glacial_Sea_Level.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Holocene_sea_level_ris... This shows 20K years of sea level rise since the end of the last glacial period. Numerous centuries in that time contain more rapid sea level rise than present. So, all of that hundreds of feet of rise for the past 20 millenia were natural...except for the past few dozen centimeters of rise? That's all man-made? Give me a break. It's really frustrating when history deniers like you try to act like you're more educated than the people you're debating when you have a huge gap in your knowledge.
jsingleton 7y ago
This appears to be the report in question: https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/landmark-united-science-report-informs-climate-action-summit https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/landmark-unite... > Sea-level rise is accelerating, sea water is becoming more acidic > The observed rate of global mean sea-level rise accelerated from 3.04 millimeters per year (mm/yr) during the period 1997–2006 to approximately 4mm/yr during the period 2007–2016. This is due to the increased rate of ocean warming and melting of the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets. There has been an overall increase of 26% in ocean acidity since the beginning of the industrial era. Appears to correlate with the NASA data of 3.3 millimeters increase per year.
wallace_f 7y ago
UN groups, the IPCC and others all need to have their economic incentives aligned with actually solving climate change. The vast majority of government money, including the trillions spent on The War on Poverty, trillions more on The War on Drugs, and even more also on our literal wars... as well as almost every other bureaucracy... Almost all the time they all fall victim to this bureacratic intertia. The problems never are solved, just more and more money is thrown into them.
- stefek99 7y ago
  It helps to get into the mindset of a politician... Different incentives.
stefek99 7y ago
I was rushing with https://genesis.re/book/ https://genesis.re/book/ to finish before the UN. Hope it helps. 100% hacker approach.
- spraak 7y ago
  Wow, this looks interesting, and most of all I'm excited to see something actionable instead of just "we're fscked"
perfunctory 7y ago
Climate crisis is getting scarier and scarier by the day. Don't know about you guys but I am done with sitting behind my computer and whining about what "they" should or shouldn't do. I am joining Extinction Rebellion.
- spraak 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing that; I hadn't heard about it before, but I've been wondering what I can actively do. Browsing r/collapse has had me thinking about at least joining/creating a community and growing food.
carapace 7y ago
WTF? flagged?
- jsingleton 7y ago
  Maybe worth emailing the mods?

57 points by headalgorithm 7y ago

This article claims sea level rise has accelerated in the past 5 years but this is not what NASA data shows: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/ https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/ We see a near constant rate of rise since 1993, with maybe even a slight slowdown since 2016. One thing that's definitely accelerating is the hype around climate change.

jsingleton 7y ago
I assume that is not a quote, as I can't find it anywhere on that page, yet you have made it sound like one.
- dilutedh2o 7y ago
  I think that is an interpretation of the graph showing sea level rise since 1994, which is on that page.
  - jsingleton 7y ago
    Looking at the graph there it appears the slope from 2010 onwards is steeper than before 2010 but I'd have to look at the raw data to check. Edit: It's clearer on the second graph below. From 1870 to present it looks very much like an exponential growth curve, particularly the last few decades.
    - gus_massa 7y ago
      The second graph is evidently curved, but it can be fitted quite good by a parabola. Crappy fit: https://imgur.com/a/ViBR21p https://imgur.com/a/ViBR21p Why do you think it is an exponential function?
      - dwaltrip 7y ago
        Exponential or parabolic, the rise is still accelerating. The second derivate of sea level is positive in either case.
        gus_massa 7y ago
        Yep, like .2 mm/y^2. Exponentials grow much faster than parabolas. When you see that an exponential changes from almost 0 to something, it will change from something to too big to fit in the graph soon, really soon. Parabolas grow more smoothly. The difference is important to make some realistic predictions.
Angostura 7y ago
Where did you pull that 'quote from' the most recent NASA statement on sea-level rise I can find is from last year: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/new-study-finds-sea-level-rise-accelerating/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2680/new-study-finds-sea-level... "New study finds sea level rise accelerating" From that NASA page: > Global sea level rise is accelerating incrementally over time rather than increasing at a steady rate, as previously thought, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data. > If the rate of ocean rise continues to change at this pace, sea level will rise 26 inches (65 centimeters) by 2100 — enough to cause significant problems for coastal cities, according to the new assessment by Nerem and colleagues from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; CU Boulder; the University of South Florida in Tampa; and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The team, driven to understand and better predict Earth's response to a warming world, published their work Feb. 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. > "This is almost certainly a conservative estimate," Nerem said. "Our extrapolation assumes that sea level continues to change in the future as it has over the last 25 years. Given the large changes we are seeing in the ice sheets today, that's not likely." > Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere increase the temperature of air and water, which causes sea level to rise in two ways. First, warmer water expands, and this "thermal expansion" of the ocean has contributed about half of the 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) of global mean sea level rise we've seen over the last 25 years, Nerem said. Second, melting land ice flows into the ocean, also increasing sea level across the globe. Now, you are absolutely right that the WMO is talking about faster rates of rise than NASA - from their release: > Over the five-year period May 2014 -2019, the rate of global mean sea-level rise has amounted to 5 mm per year, compared with 4 mm per year in the 2007-2016 ten-year period. This is substantially faster than the average rate since 1993 of 3.2 mm/year. The contribution of land ice melt from the world glaciers and the ice sheets has increased over time and now dominate the sea level budget, rather than thermal expansion. It will be interesting to see what data sources that they are using for these figures, compared with NASA. Of course, I fervently hope that WMO is wrong - but I don't hold out much hope that they've simply cocked up the figures. One final correction - the "hype" isn't accelerating. In fact, given the data, we are being remarkably laid back.
defterGoose 7y ago
You felt the need to make a top level comment containing the two most common tropes of climate change denial: a vague interpretation of and gesture towards some "real data", and a nod to the idea that what's really wrong about AGCC is the degree to which people are interested/concerned. My points being: A. You can window any exponential function and make it look linear, especially when it contains a lot of noise like this one, and B. You may find that people are increasingly unlikely to take you seriously when you format your opinions like this.
- codeddesign 7y ago
  Honestly - I find it difficult to take you seriously when the initial section of your comment is bashing his opinion. If you have a competing opinion or just don’t like their’s you can then make a rebuttal (as you did in section A). Your entire initial comment and then section B makes your argument no better than his. Let’s stop bashing and be constructive, regardless of whether you like/agree with someone’s comment or not
  - defterGoose 7y ago
    The high level of snark was intentional. Although that tends not to be super popular around here, being scientifically precise does seem to be. I generally feel that my comment style straddles the line between snarky and civil. Although it's probably true that my attitude here isn't the most constructive, it's also true that for some people (I'll yet withhold final judgement regarding OP), any attempt to educate or have dialog falls on deaf ears. This gets really tiring when online forums are replete with people willing to espouse opinions based on incomplete or distorted understanding with little more than an offhand remark. So if I come across as frustrated, well, maybe you can try to forgive that. It's harder for me to forgive pseudoscientific evangelism.
    - chrisco255 7y ago
      Your comment just underscores the religious devotion that alarmists have to their shaky hypothesis that the world faces imminent doom at the hands of man-made climate change. The sea level has been rising for over 20,000 years. Just to give you perspective on the changes since the Halocene era began, here's more documented evidence for you to snark about: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Holocene_sea_level_rise#/media/File%3APost-Glacial_Sea_Level.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Holocene_sea_level_ris... This shows 20K years of sea level rise since the end of the last glacial period. Numerous centuries in that time contain more rapid sea level rise than present. So, all of that hundreds of feet of rise for the past 20 millenia were natural...except for the past few dozen centimeters of rise? That's all man-made? Give me a break. It's really frustrating when history deniers like you try to act like you're more educated than the people you're debating when you have a huge gap in your knowledge.

jsingleton 7y ago

This appears to be the report in question: https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/landmark-united-science-report-informs-climate-action-summit https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/landmark-unite... > Sea-level rise is accelerating, sea water is becoming more acidic > The observed rate of global mean sea-level rise accelerated from 3.04 millimeters per year (mm/yr) during the period 1997–2006 to approximately 4mm/yr during the period 2007–2016. This is due to the increased rate of ocean warming and melting of the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets. There has been an overall increase of 26% in ocean acidity since the beginning of the industrial era. Appears to correlate with the NASA data of 3.3 millimeters increase per year.

wallace_f 7y ago

UN groups, the IPCC and others all need to have their economic incentives aligned with actually solving climate change. The vast majority of government money, including the trillions spent on The War on Poverty, trillions more on The War on Drugs, and even more also on our literal wars... as well as almost every other bureaucracy... Almost all the time they all fall victim to this bureacratic intertia. The problems never are solved, just more and more money is thrown into them.

stefek99 7y ago
It helps to get into the mindset of a politician... Different incentives.

stefek99 7y ago

I was rushing with https://genesis.re/book/ https://genesis.re/book/ to finish before the UN. Hope it helps. 100% hacker approach.

spraak 7y ago
Wow, this looks interesting, and most of all I'm excited to see something actionable instead of just "we're fscked"

perfunctory 7y ago

Climate crisis is getting scarier and scarier by the day. Don't know about you guys but I am done with sitting behind my computer and whining about what "they" should or shouldn't do. I am joining Extinction Rebellion.

spraak 7y ago
Thanks for sharing that; I hadn't heard about it before, but I've been wondering what I can actively do. Browsing r/collapse has had me thinking about at least joining/creating a community and growing food.

carapace 7y ago

WTF? flagged?

jsingleton 7y ago
Maybe worth emailing the mods?