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How climate change is melting, drying and flooding Earth – in pictures

196 points by headalgorithm 7y ago

BonerBoi420 7y ago
Why is it so hard to find actual satellite images of the norther polar ice cap?
- inetknght 7y ago
  Would you recognize it without ice?
  - Valmar 7y ago
    That's not the point of their question...
- mikeash 7y ago
  Probably because satellites in LEO are too low to get such a broad view, and the camera-equipped satellites that are higher up are all over the equator.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    I found several. The most recent: https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/noaa-shares-first-new-view-north-pole-earth-day https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/noaa-shares-first-new-vi...
- pjc50 7y ago
  Is it? Landsat is polar, so it should be there. Is this just a projection issue?
- Diederich 7y ago
  http://nsidc.org/soac http://nsidc.org/soac is a pretty good resource. https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/imagery-and-data https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/imagery-and-data has a nice display of actual images.
solarwind 7y ago
https://realclimatescience.com/1500-years-of-heatwaves/ https://realclimatescience.com/1500-years-of-heatwaves/
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  Of course, this is a bunch of nutpicked scans from newspapers with no scientific value beyond making some climate trolls feel smug. The level of science and attention given to the issue today is unprecedented and the fact that there were heatwaves in the past is not controversial. CO2 emitted by human activity is demonstrably warming the Earth in line with predictions going back 40 years, the predictions without drastic action are disastrous, and the observed is generally trending worse than predictions.
  - solarwind 7y ago
    What are your primary sources for these statements, or are you just parroting what you've heard? Have you looked at any of the raw data?
    - EliRivers 7y ago
      Can sealions not use google?
      - beat 7y ago
        No, they want you to google it for them. It's part of the sealion code of conduct.
    - mikestew 7y ago
      You might as well ask for the primary source of my assertion that Donald Trump is the sitting president of the United States. Ergo, the answer is "the front page of any major newspaper". Now that I've tripped the wire, please do go on about how that doesn't count.
      - 7y ago
surfsvammel 7y ago
Climate change is the only thing in my lifetime to fully horrify me. I imagine those before us feeling similar horror in the face of world war. Still. They acted. I find myself going on like normal. Why am I not fighting with everything I got, if, for nothing else, for the future of my children? There seem to be some psychological dissonance. Is the challenge just too big, the enemy just to diffuse, for us to bother?
- vkou 7y ago
  Climate change is one of two things that horrify me. The second is the nuclear sword of Damocles that has been hanging over our heads for 50 years. I don't understand why everyone thinks that now that the Cold war is over, everything's fine. I'm incredibly concerned by the inaction, and the direction of the action being taken (Especially by climate activists), but I'll give people credit - at least there is a demand for the first problem to be taken seriously.
  - olivermarks 7y ago
    Exactly, couldn't agree more and why I'm fully supporting Gabbard in her US presidential run
  - derg 7y ago
    I don't see how the two aren't linked to be completely honest. Yeah the cold war "softened" a bit, but with conflicts arising due to climate change, the future wars could turn incredibly nasty, _especially_ with nuclear weapons and unstable people with access to them now asking why we can't use them....
  - irrational 7y ago
    It seems like the solution to both problems is the same. We need far far more nuclear power plants to get off of oil and coal. Can we convert the plutonium or whatnot in nuclear bombs into fuel for the new nuclear reactors?
    - epistasis 7y ago
jeromebaek 7y ago
The fact that these photos are so beautiful makes me uncomfortable. Without context, these are simply beautiful pictures of nature. With context, it's terrifying.
olivermarks 7y ago
There are some wonderfully artful images in this post but it is woefully short of evidence of anything. The 2010 image of the east Kenyan person in water by Andrew McConnell/Panos looks staged to me. There are endless articles with 'could' and 'may' in them which are making people very anxious. I'm all for good stewardship of the planet but am old enough to recall when we were all doomed to soon freeze to death last century https://youtu.be/mOC7ePWCHGk https://youtu.be/mOC7ePWCHGk
- LocalPCGuy 7y ago
  There is plenty of evidence, but I agree that this article specifically doesn't make a very good evidence backed argument. I also didn't find the pictures particularly emotionally poignant where they might move people to action researching the problems being described. Unfortunately, articles like this often hurt rather than help, IMO.
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  How many times we we all have to see the Times cover and this History Channel pop science piece. 99% of climatologist agree on the science and the effects of warming are plainly visible to the layman.
  - olivermarks 7y ago
    Have the courage of your convictions and don't use throwaways to lay down the law with your opinion please?
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      The account is 6yr old. I'd wager it's not exactly a throwaway at this point.
      - olivermarks 7y ago
        fair point
    - deleted 7y ago
temptemptemp111 7y ago
How are you so-called smart people so easily fooled by this? Can you just go to the damn kitchen a get a glass full of water, put some ice cubes in it, and wait for them to melt? I thought you were real engineers...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hsdflsdhjs 7y ago
Since when was nature.com a political organization?
- derg 7y ago
  Climate change is not political
  - parsnips 7y ago
    When socialism is the solution, seems like it is.
    - derg 7y ago
      Stating the current effects of climate change (and any future effects) !== [x] socio-economic and political system is the answer.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - parsnips 7y ago
      Also US CO2 emissions are down since 2000, thanks to fracking. When you go to bed fearing climate change, thank a Republican for lowering US CO2 emissions.
      - ctrl-j 7y ago
        Fracking might be helping with CO2, but it's also releasing a ton of methane which might not be as bad in the long term but is really really bad in the short term. If we've got a few decades before the point of no return... great! If not.. oh well, it's been a good run I guess? Not to mention the absolute havoc it's wrecking on local environments. It's also only good if it's a stop-gap for renewables.. so I'll thank a republican once they stop blocking measures to improve and subsidize solar, wind, and other clean energy solutions.
      - 7y ago
pier25 7y ago
> The sudden thawing of Arctic permafrost is of great concern to scientists, who say that the methane and carbon dioxide gas that the process releases is accelerating global warming. This type of language really bothers me. That methane and other feedbacks are accelerating global warming are proven facts.
- mikestew 7y ago
  I don't understand how the quoted statement and yours differ. The scientists say thawing permafrost accelerates warming, and you say that's a fact. Can you be more specific for the caffeine-deprived?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- Diederich 7y ago
  > This type of language really bothers me. Why? It seems like the statement agrees with yours: "The sudden thawing of Arctic permafrost is of great concern to scientists, who say that the methane and carbon dioxide gas that the process releases is accelerating global warming."
  - umvi 7y ago
    GP doesn't want the statement to read: "scientists believe X", he wants it to read: "X is a fact that is not up for debate" reply
    - pier25 7y ago
      Yes, that's what I would expect from Nature. Maybe not from the NY Times.
  - pier25 7y ago
    By stating that "someone else says X" it doesn't imply that X is a fact only that maybe it is. The statement is not wrong, it just bothers me that Nature of all mediums would do that on this particular topic. It's really mindblowing that feedbacks aren't more present in conversations about climate change considering these are probably the most dangerous and IMO terrifying aspects. Even the IPCC has been evading the subject: > Mario Molina, who shared the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1995 for his work on depletion of the ozone layer, said: “The IPCC report demonstrates that it is still possible to keep the climate relatively safe, provided we muster an unprecedented level of cooperation, extraordinary speed and heroic scale of action. But even with its description of the increasing impacts that lie ahead, the IPCC understates a key risk: that self-reinforcing feedback loops could push the climate system into chaos before we have time to tame our energy system, and the other sources of climate pollution.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/09/tipping-points-could-exacerbate-climate-crisis-scientists-fear https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/09/tipping-...
chiefalchemist 7y ago
Climate change is a process. To be clear, I believe it is happening and that human lifestyle decisions contribute to it. That said, snapshots of floods and droughts - which happen all the time regardless - are a distraction. At an extreme, they give ammo to the deniers as they can look at such and article and say, "Floods? Droughts? No news here. Mother Nature at work."
helpPeople 7y ago
I have talked to many people on this. I don't think you can teach the ignorant people facts. I wonder if you taught them philosophy, if all would fall into place.
- goda90 7y ago
  Philosophy will help, but they need facts early on. For instance a knowledge of basic chemistry would help a bunch. On social media I saw an older gentleman who's been involved in a quite technical field all his life, but he makes incorrect statements regarding climate change like "we don't know how carbon moves in the environment". The basics of chemistry would help him see that we have a very clear picture of most parts of the carbon cycle.
- lucb1e 7y ago
  (Note: I edited out a big chunk of text that contained personal details that I am not sure I want to have set in stone online. I think the comment still makes sense, but in case it doesn't, please just ask to clarify how statement B logically follows from statement A, or in case A seems to be missing altogether, just how come I think B is true.) My world view changed dramatically over the past, say, five years, with all the news that has been coming at us, friends that talk about it, and a tiny bit of research (actually that's just opening Wikipedia whenever someone on reddit says something that sounds off). Climate change wasn't a big topic for me before that, partially because my parents hardly talked about it, school barely mentioned it, and I didn't have to make many choices of my own. Now I do and now it's also a bunch in the news, and now I also bring it up with friends and talk about it to colleagues. It just takes time to spread through society. I don't agree that there is a certain group of "ignorant people" that can never be taught versus <insert name for the opposing group>, especially when you put it in a way that makes it sound like the group of ignorant people on this planet that can never be taught is very large. > I wonder if you taught them philosophy What does that have to do with anything? I don't know exactly what philosophy is, but I'm pretty sure I don't need it to understand that the climate is going to shit from our carbon-based waste gases.
WhompingWindows 7y ago
Can we start discussing geo-engineering strategies more seriously? Andrew Yang's mention of space mirrors was derisively put-down, but can someone lay out why it isn't a good idea? If SpaceX and others continue to make getting things into orbit much cheaper, what's the argument against putting highly reflective barriers in the Lagrange point, which is a point constantly between the Earth and the Sun. If we deflected even 1% of sunlight, wouldn't that be enough to lower temperatures back down towards 0 C, as opposed to +1.1 C where we are now? And why not focus the sunlight-blocking onto the poles, which we need to maintain our climate and which are experiencing even more rapid change? Is the argument against these strategies that relying on geoengineering will take focus away from transitioning our energy system? I just think we have no hope of transitioning our energy system in time, emissions are STILL rising year over year...we have to think about how to cool the planet while we decarbonize our energy.
- hannasanarion 7y ago
  Well, for one thing, you would need to block out 2% of sunlight to counteract the warming effect that we've seen since the industrial revolution. But more importantly, you are underestimating the scale. The earth is big, and L1 is far away. A device that blocks 2% of the sunlight at that distance would have to cover 4.5 million square kilometers, a disc that size would be larger than the moon, or about the size of the entire United States including Alaska. It would also require engines that need to be constantly refueled, because solar wind, which is really strong at the scale we're talking about, would push it away in just a few months. And the screen would need to be smart, because L1 is only quasi-stable. The actual point where there is zero differential gravity is, well, a point, and any deviation from that point will inevitably increase until the object eventually falls into a regular orbit, so to stay there you need to be constantly monitoring your own orbit and correcting for deviations. Only L4 and L5 are self-correcting (which is why there are no known natural objects at L1-3 of any two-body system)
  - zebez 7y ago
    Would you need a single mirror? Many smaller mirrors sounds more plausible.
dev_dull 7y ago
The thing that really bugs when when discussing climate change is that it's one of the clearest examples of confirmation bias I've ever experienced as an adult. Forget geological time, if anything out of the ordinary weather-related occurs then it's because of XYZ climate change reason. The same people telling me the world will spiral out of control in just 12 years are also saying that we shouldn't build any nuclear power plants, or that the root cause of climate change is "institutional racism"[1]. It is really starting to look more like a religion to me than a science, and I don't say that lightly. 1. https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/xwneej/racism-climate-change-crisis-jamie-margolin-zero-hour https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/xwneej/racism-climate-cha...
- umvi 7y ago
  Not just weather, but almost anything can be attributed to climate change - poverty, depression, suicide, crime, decline in insects, decline in birds, etc.
  - mercurysmessage 7y ago
    Who could have possibly predicted that the climate affects a lot of the planet.
  - wolco 7y ago
    The horrible last season of GoT, drop in gun crimes, raise in gun crimes. You can use that with anything. When a school shooting happens I always hear how video games and scary goth music push them over the edge.
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    Is your point here that it's implausible that rising temperatures could cause any of those things on your list? Because at least two of them have an obvious link to temperatures (especially if you think about what average temperatures and weather do to birds/insects' primary food sources)... We also know that depression (and as an indirect result, suicide) have known links to weather in some territories, so it's not implausible that climate change could impact that too. Though I'd expect higher temperatures to lower depression rates, it's possible suffering through even hotter summers without A/C could exacerbate depression among poor people, since there's nothing you can do to escape it. If back to back heat waves brought on by climate change threaten you (maybe your grandma's sick and can't take the heat), and you can't afford any of the solutions like a nice air conditioner, maybe you get desperate and turn to crime so you can find the money to keep grandma from getting injured by the heat? I wouldn't personally say 'I bet that happens' but I also wouldn't bet money against a study being able to pull it out of the data. We had old people dying in homes not too long ago as a result of a power outage in the American southeast - Florida I think? - and it was a news-level scandal. If hot summers and reduced rainfall kill crops, that's going to boost poverty levels in farming counties...
tito 7y ago
Here's an open-source chart of carbon dioxide levels globally: https://carbon.datahub.io https://carbon.datahub.io Data is pulled from MLO on Mauna Loa in Hawaii, the gold standard for data going back to 1958.
- Androider 7y ago
  That is terrifying.
tito 7y ago
I help run AirMiners, the world's largest community of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs working to pull carbon dixoide from the atmosphere. Check it out here: http://airminers.org http://airminers.org
evanwarfel 7y ago
Every time I read a new climate change article or headline, I think about how much of a squandered opportunity the MIT Media Lab represents. It has a budget of $80MM, access to some of the best minds on the planet, and not beholden to the perverse incentives that afflict politicians and corporate executives. Are we supposed to believe it's impossible to generate useful and commercializable IP while simultaneously tackling climate change? If anyone wants to brainstorm... what would it take for universities to announce cross-campus climate change initiatives dedicated to rethinking basic social systems? The California-China Climate Change Institute is the only one that I know of (1). (1) https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Jerry-Brown-to-head-California-China-institute-to-14454114.php#photo-16392889 https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Jerry-Brown-to-...
ausjke 7y ago
Is this all caused by us humans? I'm totally against pollution caused by us, but for global warming, who is the major source contributing to it, could it be beyond us, e.g. the solar system cycles etc. We had ice age/geenhouse eras in the past without human's existence at all? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth List of Icehouse and Greenhouse Periods A greenhouse period ran from 4.6 to 2.4 billion years ago. Huronian Glaciation – an icehouse period that ran from 2.4 billion years ago to 2.1 billion years ago A greenhouse period ran from 2.1 billion to 720 million years ago. Cryogenian – an icehouse period that ran from 720 to 635 million years ago, at times the entire Earth was frozen over A greenhouse period ran from 635 million years ago to 450 million years ago. Andean-Saharan glaciation – an icehouse period that ran from 450 to 420 million years ago A greenhouse period ran from 420 million years ago to 360 million years ago. Late Paleozoic Ice Age – an icehouse period that ran from 360 to 260 million years ago A greenhouse period ran from 260 million years ago to 33.9 million years ago Late Cenozoic Ice Age – the current icehouse period which began 33.9 million years ago
- ausjke 7y ago
  for the down votes please educate me, I'm not on either side, I just want to know more.
- adrianN 7y ago
  Yes, it is all caused by us. The cycles you speak of would currently put is into a cooling phase. Check out this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_...
  - ausjke 7y ago
    if that's true, maybe we should just heating up the earth while it's going to be frozen, so we're actually doing our future generations a favor?
    - adrianN 7y ago
wtdata 7y ago
I know I will be downvoted for stating a fact but I agree with you. The gist of the so called environmentalists is (factually, these really are their proposals when you look at their numbers): ok USA and EU, you have to urgently stop your emissions, even if that means total economic breakdown. China and specially India, it's ok you can continue your emissions, and increase then by even more than the all 1st world will cut theirs (even if they cut it to 0), that's just fine since your are entitled to it because you didn't do it in the past. End result: a planet with even more emissions than today and a destroyed economy in the western world. But somehow, this will save the planet according to people pushing this catastrophic scenario. Sorry no, these people aren't pushing major climate action to save the planet, they are doing it because they think it's hip to push this idea that the Western way of life should be destroyed to give way to their political ideology.
- mercurysmessage 7y ago
  Neither of you have legitimate arguments, and are both in fact strawmanning your "opposition". I'd suggest actually reading the IPCC report if you haven't yet, as it's all of our future.
  - wtdata 7y ago
    My arguments are the facts. Climate action, measuring exactly this, has China as doing "OK" and India as doing "great" when their comulative projected ”increase" by 2030 will be similar than all present emissions by USA and EU. This is the ideology being pushed at the moment. https://climateactiontracker.org/ https://climateactiontracker.org/
    - wolco 7y ago
      I wasn't aware, thank you for presenting a different view I wasn't exposed to.
    - mercurysmessage 7y ago
      > The gist of the so called environmentalists is (factually, these really are their proposals when you look at their numbers): ok USA and EU, you have to urgently stop your emissions, even if that means total economic breakdown. China and specially India, it's ok you can continue your emissions, and increase then by even more than the all 1st world will cut theirs (even if they cut it to 0), that's just fine since your are entitled to it because you didn't do it in the past. No, those are not factual. It's a strawman.
Peckingjay 7y ago
After reading this article you're quoting I can't help but think you are either a troll or you just couldn't understand what the article was talking about. The article doesn't say that racism is the root cause of climate change, it merely draws a parallel between the behaviours of denial found in people who refuse to believe in climate change or that racism is present in our societies/institutions. In fact, you could probably have guessed that just from reading the title. EDIT: This was relevant to article https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/what-deniers-climate-change-and-racism-share/579190/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/what-denie... originally linked. (After 2 successive link changes it does feel like OP made his point and then tried to fish for an article justifying it)
- Udik 7y ago
  Huh? "Addressing climate change could help us decrease racial inequality, if we seize the opportunity. If we don’t, racism will continue to exacerbate climate change, while climate change fuels racism."
  - irq11 7y ago
    That quote in no way says that racism is a “root cause” of climate change. It should be obvious that the impacts of climate change impact different races differently, but also, there are actually pretty good arguments to be made that racism makes climate change worse (e.g. segregation of poor minorities leads them to do desperate things to survive...like burn down rainforest). The quote isn’t irrational.
    - ravar 7y ago
      " If we don’t, racism will continue to exacerbate climate change"
      - irq11 7y ago
        “exacerbate” does not mean “is a root cause”.
carapace 7y ago
Climate change is a symptom, the underlying problem is our divorce from Nature. There are other symptoms: plastic is everywhere; insects and birds are vanishing; etc. We treat the world as source and sink when it is really cyclical. Applied ecology ("Permaculture", regenerative agriculture, "food forests", etc.) shows that we can supply most of our needs locally and within our Solar energy budget: food, waste processing, medicine, fuel, building materials, etc. And it's fun and easy.
dqpb 7y ago
How humans are melting, drying, and flooding Earth.
tamaharbor 7y ago
What did the United States do to recover from the 1930's Dust Bowl in the Midwest?
Reedx 7y ago
It's ridiculous we're still not rallying around nuclear power (in addition to renewables). "Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change, because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day. The problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation. TerraPower, the company I started 10 years ago, uses an approach called a traveling wave reactor that is safe, prevents proliferation, and produces very little waste. We had hoped to build a pilot project in China, but recent policy changes here in the U.S. have made that unlikely. We may be able to build it in the United States if the funding and regulatory changes that I mentioned earlier happen." -Bill Gates, Dec 2018 [1] And even before that it's already the safest form of energy. [2] Fear has shot us in the foot and continues preventing us from making substantial progress. 1) https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Year-in-Review-2018 https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Year-in-Review-2... 2) https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy
- adrianN 7y ago
  Nuclear can play a role, but it's already too late to build a sufficient number of reactors, let alone wait until new reactor designs are proven. What we can do right now that doesn't have a 10+ year waiting period is reducing energy demand and building a shit ton of wind, solar, and storage. Wind turbines can be build in a matter of weeks and start reducing GHG emissions immediately. Houses can be insulated and equipped with solar panels in days. Switching heating to heat pumps can also be done in a matter of days. If we want to we can start building reactors too, but the big changes need to start yesterday.
  - Reedx 7y ago
    Unfortunately wind/solar aren't a complete solution[1]. Batteries are several orders of magnitude too expensive to solve for the Tokyo problem (days without power) and producing things like steel and concrete. Nuclear offers a solution and is deployable today. And yeah, really should've been done a long time ago. 1. https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=520 https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=520
- 7y ago
tamaharbor 7y ago
Has anyone noticed climate change has pushed all hurricanes away from Mainland USA?
adrianN 7y ago
At the time of writing, this story has 186 points and is 2 hours old. It doesn't appear on the front page of HN anymore whereas plenty of older stories with fewer votes do. This pattern can be observed with all submissions related to climate change. Can someone explain this to me?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
sgolecha 7y ago
I wish people took this seriously. This is a slow moving disaster and that elicits a non-response from most of us. Once the temperatures rise beyond 2C, there are many consequences - 1. Food yields and nutrition drops significantly. 2. Entire species go extinct (we already see that happening). We cannot survive independently. An entire ecosystem is needed for us to lead a healthy and happy life. E.g. insecticides are causing die-offs of butterflies, bees etc.. 3. Once wild weather becomes the norm - fires, food shortages, hurricanes etc.. massive rioting will follow. Insurance will be expensive or non-existent (they already don’t cover Act of God) and that means financial insecurity for most of us. The other overlooked fact is that the greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for a long long time. So, once the climate changes it won’t be a 1-day/1-week or a 1-year event. We talk a lot of geo-engineering etc.. but why not make small sacrifices now (eat less meat, buy local and used stuff, no single use plastic, less air-travel etc..) and save the beautiful planet that we already have. Yes, it will cause some economic dislocations but we will be fine. Companies will adapt or healthy and environment friendly alternatives will come up. Take this seriously folks. We don’t have another planet to go to and our children are counting on us.
- sgolecha 7y ago
  Another way to think about this: Let's say I give you $100M. You can either invest responsibly in a well diversified portfolio (less risk adjust return) or play Russian roulette. Would like like to play roulette with your children/grand-children's lives or the entire living ecosystem ? Think about it for a sec.
- dorgo 7y ago
  > small sacrifices My impression ist that people are talking about sacrifices for the sake of sacrafices and not to solve the problem. If the global warming (and related problems) would be (magically) solved tomorrow, they would be disappointed because no sacrifices were needed any more. Are sacrifices even enough to solve global warming? And sacrifices have a marketing problem. It's hard to sell them to billions of people.
  - sgolecha 7y ago
bradezone 7y ago
Some facts: https://fee.org/articles/5-surprising-scientific-facts-about-earth-s-climate/ https://fee.org/articles/5-surprising-scientific-facts-about...

196 points by headalgorithm 7y ago

BonerBoi420 7y ago

Why is it so hard to find actual satellite images of the norther polar ice cap?

inetknght 7y ago
Would you recognize it without ice?
- Valmar 7y ago
  That's not the point of their question...
mikeash 7y ago
Probably because satellites in LEO are too low to get such a broad view, and the camera-equipped satellites that are higher up are all over the equator.
- mirimir 7y ago
  I found several. The most recent: https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/noaa-shares-first-new-view-north-pole-earth-day https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/noaa-shares-first-new-vi...
pjc50 7y ago
Is it? Landsat is polar, so it should be there. Is this just a projection issue?
Diederich 7y ago
http://nsidc.org/soac http://nsidc.org/soac is a pretty good resource. https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/imagery-and-data https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/imagery-and-data has a nice display of actual images.

solarwind 7y ago

https://realclimatescience.com/1500-years-of-heatwaves/ https://realclimatescience.com/1500-years-of-heatwaves/

throwaway5752 7y ago
Of course, this is a bunch of nutpicked scans from newspapers with no scientific value beyond making some climate trolls feel smug. The level of science and attention given to the issue today is unprecedented and the fact that there were heatwaves in the past is not controversial. CO2 emitted by human activity is demonstrably warming the Earth in line with predictions going back 40 years, the predictions without drastic action are disastrous, and the observed is generally trending worse than predictions.
- solarwind 7y ago
  What are your primary sources for these statements, or are you just parroting what you've heard? Have you looked at any of the raw data?
  - EliRivers 7y ago
    Can sealions not use google?
    - beat 7y ago
      No, they want you to google it for them. It's part of the sealion code of conduct.
  - mikestew 7y ago
    You might as well ask for the primary source of my assertion that Donald Trump is the sitting president of the United States. Ergo, the answer is "the front page of any major newspaper". Now that I've tripped the wire, please do go on about how that doesn't count.
    - 7y ago

surfsvammel 7y ago

Climate change is the only thing in my lifetime to fully horrify me. I imagine those before us feeling similar horror in the face of world war. Still. They acted. I find myself going on like normal. Why am I not fighting with everything I got, if, for nothing else, for the future of my children? There seem to be some psychological dissonance. Is the challenge just too big, the enemy just to diffuse, for us to bother?

vkou 7y ago
Climate change is one of two things that horrify me. The second is the nuclear sword of Damocles that has been hanging over our heads for 50 years. I don't understand why everyone thinks that now that the Cold war is over, everything's fine. I'm incredibly concerned by the inaction, and the direction of the action being taken (Especially by climate activists), but I'll give people credit - at least there is a demand for the first problem to be taken seriously.
- olivermarks 7y ago
  Exactly, couldn't agree more and why I'm fully supporting Gabbard in her US presidential run
- derg 7y ago
  I don't see how the two aren't linked to be completely honest. Yeah the cold war "softened" a bit, but with conflicts arising due to climate change, the future wars could turn incredibly nasty, _especially_ with nuclear weapons and unstable people with access to them now asking why we can't use them....
- irrational 7y ago
  It seems like the solution to both problems is the same. We need far far more nuclear power plants to get off of oil and coal. Can we convert the plutonium or whatnot in nuclear bombs into fuel for the new nuclear reactors?
  - epistasis 7y ago

jeromebaek 7y ago

The fact that these photos are so beautiful makes me uncomfortable. Without context, these are simply beautiful pictures of nature. With context, it's terrifying.

olivermarks 7y ago

There are some wonderfully artful images in this post but it is woefully short of evidence of anything. The 2010 image of the east Kenyan person in water by Andrew McConnell/Panos looks staged to me. There are endless articles with 'could' and 'may' in them which are making people very anxious. I'm all for good stewardship of the planet but am old enough to recall when we were all doomed to soon freeze to death last century https://youtu.be/mOC7ePWCHGk https://youtu.be/mOC7ePWCHGk

LocalPCGuy 7y ago
There is plenty of evidence, but I agree that this article specifically doesn't make a very good evidence backed argument. I also didn't find the pictures particularly emotionally poignant where they might move people to action researching the problems being described. Unfortunately, articles like this often hurt rather than help, IMO.
throwaway5752 7y ago
How many times we we all have to see the Times cover and this History Channel pop science piece. 99% of climatologist agree on the science and the effects of warming are plainly visible to the layman.
- olivermarks 7y ago
  Have the courage of your convictions and don't use throwaways to lay down the law with your opinion please?
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    The account is 6yr old. I'd wager it's not exactly a throwaway at this point.
    - olivermarks 7y ago
      fair point
  - deleted 7y ago

temptemptemp111 7y ago

How are you so-called smart people so easily fooled by this? Can you just go to the damn kitchen a get a glass full of water, put some ice cubes in it, and wait for them to melt? I thought you were real engineers...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

hsdflsdhjs 7y ago

Since when was nature.com a political organization?

derg 7y ago
Climate change is not political
- parsnips 7y ago
  When socialism is the solution, seems like it is.
  - derg 7y ago
    Stating the current effects of climate change (and any future effects) !== [x] socio-economic and political system is the answer.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - parsnips 7y ago
    Also US CO2 emissions are down since 2000, thanks to fracking. When you go to bed fearing climate change, thank a Republican for lowering US CO2 emissions.
    - ctrl-j 7y ago
      Fracking might be helping with CO2, but it's also releasing a ton of methane which might not be as bad in the long term but is really really bad in the short term. If we've got a few decades before the point of no return... great! If not.. oh well, it's been a good run I guess? Not to mention the absolute havoc it's wrecking on local environments. It's also only good if it's a stop-gap for renewables.. so I'll thank a republican once they stop blocking measures to improve and subsidize solar, wind, and other clean energy solutions.
    - 7y ago

pier25 7y ago

> The sudden thawing of Arctic permafrost is of great concern to scientists, who say that the methane and carbon dioxide gas that the process releases is accelerating global warming. This type of language really bothers me. That methane and other feedbacks are accelerating global warming are proven facts.

mikestew 7y ago
I don't understand how the quoted statement and yours differ. The scientists say thawing permafrost accelerates warming, and you say that's a fact. Can you be more specific for the caffeine-deprived?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Diederich 7y ago
> This type of language really bothers me. Why? It seems like the statement agrees with yours: "The sudden thawing of Arctic permafrost is of great concern to scientists, who say that the methane and carbon dioxide gas that the process releases is accelerating global warming."
- umvi 7y ago
  GP doesn't want the statement to read: "scientists believe X", he wants it to read: "X is a fact that is not up for debate" reply
  - pier25 7y ago
    Yes, that's what I would expect from Nature. Maybe not from the NY Times.
- pier25 7y ago
  By stating that "someone else says X" it doesn't imply that X is a fact only that maybe it is. The statement is not wrong, it just bothers me that Nature of all mediums would do that on this particular topic. It's really mindblowing that feedbacks aren't more present in conversations about climate change considering these are probably the most dangerous and IMO terrifying aspects. Even the IPCC has been evading the subject: > Mario Molina, who shared the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1995 for his work on depletion of the ozone layer, said: “The IPCC report demonstrates that it is still possible to keep the climate relatively safe, provided we muster an unprecedented level of cooperation, extraordinary speed and heroic scale of action. But even with its description of the increasing impacts that lie ahead, the IPCC understates a key risk: that self-reinforcing feedback loops could push the climate system into chaos before we have time to tame our energy system, and the other sources of climate pollution.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/09/tipping-points-could-exacerbate-climate-crisis-scientists-fear https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/09/tipping-...

chiefalchemist 7y ago

Climate change is a process. To be clear, I believe it is happening and that human lifestyle decisions contribute to it. That said, snapshots of floods and droughts - which happen all the time regardless - are a distraction. At an extreme, they give ammo to the deniers as they can look at such and article and say, "Floods? Droughts? No news here. Mother Nature at work."

helpPeople 7y ago

I have talked to many people on this. I don't think you can teach the ignorant people facts. I wonder if you taught them philosophy, if all would fall into place.

goda90 7y ago
Philosophy will help, but they need facts early on. For instance a knowledge of basic chemistry would help a bunch. On social media I saw an older gentleman who's been involved in a quite technical field all his life, but he makes incorrect statements regarding climate change like "we don't know how carbon moves in the environment". The basics of chemistry would help him see that we have a very clear picture of most parts of the carbon cycle.
lucb1e 7y ago
(Note: I edited out a big chunk of text that contained personal details that I am not sure I want to have set in stone online. I think the comment still makes sense, but in case it doesn't, please just ask to clarify how statement B logically follows from statement A, or in case A seems to be missing altogether, just how come I think B is true.) My world view changed dramatically over the past, say, five years, with all the news that has been coming at us, friends that talk about it, and a tiny bit of research (actually that's just opening Wikipedia whenever someone on reddit says something that sounds off). Climate change wasn't a big topic for me before that, partially because my parents hardly talked about it, school barely mentioned it, and I didn't have to make many choices of my own. Now I do and now it's also a bunch in the news, and now I also bring it up with friends and talk about it to colleagues. It just takes time to spread through society. I don't agree that there is a certain group of "ignorant people" that can never be taught versus <insert name for the opposing group>, especially when you put it in a way that makes it sound like the group of ignorant people on this planet that can never be taught is very large. > I wonder if you taught them philosophy What does that have to do with anything? I don't know exactly what philosophy is, but I'm pretty sure I don't need it to understand that the climate is going to shit from our carbon-based waste gases.

WhompingWindows 7y ago

Can we start discussing geo-engineering strategies more seriously? Andrew Yang's mention of space mirrors was derisively put-down, but can someone lay out why it isn't a good idea? If SpaceX and others continue to make getting things into orbit much cheaper, what's the argument against putting highly reflective barriers in the Lagrange point, which is a point constantly between the Earth and the Sun. If we deflected even 1% of sunlight, wouldn't that be enough to lower temperatures back down towards 0 C, as opposed to +1.1 C where we are now? And why not focus the sunlight-blocking onto the poles, which we need to maintain our climate and which are experiencing even more rapid change? Is the argument against these strategies that relying on geoengineering will take focus away from transitioning our energy system? I just think we have no hope of transitioning our energy system in time, emissions are STILL rising year over year...we have to think about how to cool the planet while we decarbonize our energy.

hannasanarion 7y ago
Well, for one thing, you would need to block out 2% of sunlight to counteract the warming effect that we've seen since the industrial revolution. But more importantly, you are underestimating the scale. The earth is big, and L1 is far away. A device that blocks 2% of the sunlight at that distance would have to cover 4.5 million square kilometers, a disc that size would be larger than the moon, or about the size of the entire United States including Alaska. It would also require engines that need to be constantly refueled, because solar wind, which is really strong at the scale we're talking about, would push it away in just a few months. And the screen would need to be smart, because L1 is only quasi-stable. The actual point where there is zero differential gravity is, well, a point, and any deviation from that point will inevitably increase until the object eventually falls into a regular orbit, so to stay there you need to be constantly monitoring your own orbit and correcting for deviations. Only L4 and L5 are self-correcting (which is why there are no known natural objects at L1-3 of any two-body system)
- zebez 7y ago
  Would you need a single mirror? Many smaller mirrors sounds more plausible.

dev_dull 7y ago

The thing that really bugs when when discussing climate change is that it's one of the clearest examples of confirmation bias I've ever experienced as an adult. Forget geological time, if anything out of the ordinary weather-related occurs then it's because of XYZ climate change reason. The same people telling me the world will spiral out of control in just 12 years are also saying that we shouldn't build any nuclear power plants, or that the root cause of climate change is "institutional racism"[1]. It is really starting to look more like a religion to me than a science, and I don't say that lightly. 1. https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/xwneej/racism-climate-change-crisis-jamie-margolin-zero-hour https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/xwneej/racism-climate-cha...

umvi 7y ago
Not just weather, but almost anything can be attributed to climate change - poverty, depression, suicide, crime, decline in insects, decline in birds, etc.
- mercurysmessage 7y ago
  Who could have possibly predicted that the climate affects a lot of the planet.
- wolco 7y ago
  The horrible last season of GoT, drop in gun crimes, raise in gun crimes. You can use that with anything. When a school shooting happens I always hear how video games and scary goth music push them over the edge.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  Is your point here that it's implausible that rising temperatures could cause any of those things on your list? Because at least two of them have an obvious link to temperatures (especially if you think about what average temperatures and weather do to birds/insects' primary food sources)... We also know that depression (and as an indirect result, suicide) have known links to weather in some territories, so it's not implausible that climate change could impact that too. Though I'd expect higher temperatures to lower depression rates, it's possible suffering through even hotter summers without A/C could exacerbate depression among poor people, since there's nothing you can do to escape it. If back to back heat waves brought on by climate change threaten you (maybe your grandma's sick and can't take the heat), and you can't afford any of the solutions like a nice air conditioner, maybe you get desperate and turn to crime so you can find the money to keep grandma from getting injured by the heat? I wouldn't personally say 'I bet that happens' but I also wouldn't bet money against a study being able to pull it out of the data. We had old people dying in homes not too long ago as a result of a power outage in the American southeast - Florida I think? - and it was a news-level scandal. If hot summers and reduced rainfall kill crops, that's going to boost poverty levels in farming counties...

tito 7y ago

Here's an open-source chart of carbon dioxide levels globally: https://carbon.datahub.io https://carbon.datahub.io Data is pulled from MLO on Mauna Loa in Hawaii, the gold standard for data going back to 1958.

Androider 7y ago
That is terrifying.

tito 7y ago

I help run AirMiners, the world's largest community of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs working to pull carbon dixoide from the atmosphere. Check it out here: http://airminers.org http://airminers.org

evanwarfel 7y ago

Every time I read a new climate change article or headline, I think about how much of a squandered opportunity the MIT Media Lab represents. It has a budget of $80MM, access to some of the best minds on the planet, and not beholden to the perverse incentives that afflict politicians and corporate executives. Are we supposed to believe it's impossible to generate useful and commercializable IP while simultaneously tackling climate change? If anyone wants to brainstorm... what would it take for universities to announce cross-campus climate change initiatives dedicated to rethinking basic social systems? The California-China Climate Change Institute is the only one that I know of (1). (1) https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Jerry-Brown-to-head-California-China-institute-to-14454114.php#photo-16392889 https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Jerry-Brown-to-...

ausjke 7y ago

Is this all caused by us humans? I'm totally against pollution caused by us, but for global warming, who is the major source contributing to it, could it be beyond us, e.g. the solar system cycles etc. We had ice age/geenhouse eras in the past without human's existence at all? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth List of Icehouse and Greenhouse Periods A greenhouse period ran from 4.6 to 2.4 billion years ago. Huronian Glaciation – an icehouse period that ran from 2.4 billion years ago to 2.1 billion years ago A greenhouse period ran from 2.1 billion to 720 million years ago. Cryogenian – an icehouse period that ran from 720 to 635 million years ago, at times the entire Earth was frozen over A greenhouse period ran from 635 million years ago to 450 million years ago. Andean-Saharan glaciation – an icehouse period that ran from 450 to 420 million years ago A greenhouse period ran from 420 million years ago to 360 million years ago. Late Paleozoic Ice Age – an icehouse period that ran from 360 to 260 million years ago A greenhouse period ran from 260 million years ago to 33.9 million years ago Late Cenozoic Ice Age – the current icehouse period which began 33.9 million years ago

ausjke 7y ago
for the down votes please educate me, I'm not on either side, I just want to know more.
adrianN 7y ago
Yes, it is all caused by us. The cycles you speak of would currently put is into a cooling phase. Check out this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_...
- ausjke 7y ago
  if that's true, maybe we should just heating up the earth while it's going to be frozen, so we're actually doing our future generations a favor?
  - adrianN 7y ago

wtdata 7y ago

I know I will be downvoted for stating a fact but I agree with you. The gist of the so called environmentalists is (factually, these really are their proposals when you look at their numbers): ok USA and EU, you have to urgently stop your emissions, even if that means total economic breakdown. China and specially India, it's ok you can continue your emissions, and increase then by even more than the all 1st world will cut theirs (even if they cut it to 0), that's just fine since your are entitled to it because you didn't do it in the past. End result: a planet with even more emissions than today and a destroyed economy in the western world. But somehow, this will save the planet according to people pushing this catastrophic scenario. Sorry no, these people aren't pushing major climate action to save the planet, they are doing it because they think it's hip to push this idea that the Western way of life should be destroyed to give way to their political ideology.

mercurysmessage 7y ago
Neither of you have legitimate arguments, and are both in fact strawmanning your "opposition". I'd suggest actually reading the IPCC report if you haven't yet, as it's all of our future.
- wtdata 7y ago
  My arguments are the facts. Climate action, measuring exactly this, has China as doing "OK" and India as doing "great" when their comulative projected ”increase" by 2030 will be similar than all present emissions by USA and EU. This is the ideology being pushed at the moment. https://climateactiontracker.org/ https://climateactiontracker.org/
  - wolco 7y ago
    I wasn't aware, thank you for presenting a different view I wasn't exposed to.
  - mercurysmessage 7y ago
    > The gist of the so called environmentalists is (factually, these really are their proposals when you look at their numbers): ok USA and EU, you have to urgently stop your emissions, even if that means total economic breakdown. China and specially India, it's ok you can continue your emissions, and increase then by even more than the all 1st world will cut theirs (even if they cut it to 0), that's just fine since your are entitled to it because you didn't do it in the past. No, those are not factual. It's a strawman.

Peckingjay 7y ago

After reading this article you're quoting I can't help but think you are either a troll or you just couldn't understand what the article was talking about. The article doesn't say that racism is the root cause of climate change, it merely draws a parallel between the behaviours of denial found in people who refuse to believe in climate change or that racism is present in our societies/institutions. In fact, you could probably have guessed that just from reading the title. EDIT: This was relevant to article https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/what-deniers-climate-change-and-racism-share/579190/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/what-denie... originally linked. (After 2 successive link changes it does feel like OP made his point and then tried to fish for an article justifying it)

Udik 7y ago
Huh? "Addressing climate change could help us decrease racial inequality, if we seize the opportunity. If we don’t, racism will continue to exacerbate climate change, while climate change fuels racism."
- irq11 7y ago
  That quote in no way says that racism is a “root cause” of climate change. It should be obvious that the impacts of climate change impact different races differently, but also, there are actually pretty good arguments to be made that racism makes climate change worse (e.g. segregation of poor minorities leads them to do desperate things to survive...like burn down rainforest). The quote isn’t irrational.
  - ravar 7y ago
    " If we don’t, racism will continue to exacerbate climate change"
    - irq11 7y ago
      “exacerbate” does not mean “is a root cause”.

carapace 7y ago

Climate change is a symptom, the underlying problem is our divorce from Nature. There are other symptoms: plastic is everywhere; insects and birds are vanishing; etc. We treat the world as source and sink when it is really cyclical. Applied ecology ("Permaculture", regenerative agriculture, "food forests", etc.) shows that we can supply most of our needs locally and within our Solar energy budget: food, waste processing, medicine, fuel, building materials, etc. And it's fun and easy.

dqpb 7y ago

How humans are melting, drying, and flooding Earth.

tamaharbor 7y ago

What did the United States do to recover from the 1930's Dust Bowl in the Midwest?

Reedx 7y ago

It's ridiculous we're still not rallying around nuclear power (in addition to renewables). "Nuclear is ideal for dealing with climate change, because it is the only carbon-free, scalable energy source that’s available 24 hours a day. The problems with today’s reactors, such as the risk of accidents, can be solved through innovation. TerraPower, the company I started 10 years ago, uses an approach called a traveling wave reactor that is safe, prevents proliferation, and produces very little waste. We had hoped to build a pilot project in China, but recent policy changes here in the U.S. have made that unlikely. We may be able to build it in the United States if the funding and regulatory changes that I mentioned earlier happen." -Bill Gates, Dec 2018 [1] And even before that it's already the safest form of energy. [2] Fear has shot us in the foot and continues preventing us from making substantial progress. 1) https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Year-in-Review-2018 https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Year-in-Review-2... 2) https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy

adrianN 7y ago
Nuclear can play a role, but it's already too late to build a sufficient number of reactors, let alone wait until new reactor designs are proven. What we can do right now that doesn't have a 10+ year waiting period is reducing energy demand and building a shit ton of wind, solar, and storage. Wind turbines can be build in a matter of weeks and start reducing GHG emissions immediately. Houses can be insulated and equipped with solar panels in days. Switching heating to heat pumps can also be done in a matter of days. If we want to we can start building reactors too, but the big changes need to start yesterday.
- Reedx 7y ago
  Unfortunately wind/solar aren't a complete solution[1]. Batteries are several orders of magnitude too expensive to solve for the Tokyo problem (days without power) and producing things like steel and concrete. Nuclear offers a solution and is deployable today. And yeah, really should've been done a long time ago. 1. https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=520 https://youtu.be/d1EB1zsxW0k?t=520
7y ago

tamaharbor 7y ago

Has anyone noticed climate change has pushed all hurricanes away from Mainland USA?

adrianN 7y ago

At the time of writing, this story has 186 points and is 2 hours old. It doesn't appear on the front page of HN anymore whereas plenty of older stories with fewer votes do. This pattern can be observed with all submissions related to climate change. Can someone explain this to me?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

sgolecha 7y ago

I wish people took this seriously. This is a slow moving disaster and that elicits a non-response from most of us. Once the temperatures rise beyond 2C, there are many consequences - 1. Food yields and nutrition drops significantly. 2. Entire species go extinct (we already see that happening). We cannot survive independently. An entire ecosystem is needed for us to lead a healthy and happy life. E.g. insecticides are causing die-offs of butterflies, bees etc.. 3. Once wild weather becomes the norm - fires, food shortages, hurricanes etc.. massive rioting will follow. Insurance will be expensive or non-existent (they already don’t cover Act of God) and that means financial insecurity for most of us. The other overlooked fact is that the greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for a long long time. So, once the climate changes it won’t be a 1-day/1-week or a 1-year event. We talk a lot of geo-engineering etc.. but why not make small sacrifices now (eat less meat, buy local and used stuff, no single use plastic, less air-travel etc..) and save the beautiful planet that we already have. Yes, it will cause some economic dislocations but we will be fine. Companies will adapt or healthy and environment friendly alternatives will come up. Take this seriously folks. We don’t have another planet to go to and our children are counting on us.

sgolecha 7y ago
Another way to think about this: Let's say I give you $100M. You can either invest responsibly in a well diversified portfolio (less risk adjust return) or play Russian roulette. Would like like to play roulette with your children/grand-children's lives or the entire living ecosystem ? Think about it for a sec.
dorgo 7y ago
> small sacrifices My impression ist that people are talking about sacrifices for the sake of sacrafices and not to solve the problem. If the global warming (and related problems) would be (magically) solved tomorrow, they would be disappointed because no sacrifices were needed any more. Are sacrifices even enough to solve global warming? And sacrifices have a marketing problem. It's hard to sell them to billions of people.
- sgolecha 7y ago

bradezone 7y ago

Some facts: https://fee.org/articles/5-surprising-scientific-facts-about-earth-s-climate/ https://fee.org/articles/5-surprising-scientific-facts-about...