7 ms·

Earth is losing ice faster today than in the mid-1990s, study suggests

156 points by psim1 6y ago

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
This is unsurprising to me. Global heat retention changes are mostly due to changes in the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases. While the rate at which those greenhouse gases is added has dropped due to the economic effects of the pandemic, the absolute concentration of greenhouse gases is still increasing. Combined with the destabilization of the polar vortex, I anticipate the ice melt rate to continue to increase.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Exactly. Carbon emission controls the second derivative of global temperature. What we've done is reduce the pressure with which the accelerator is pushed to the floor of the car, but it hasn't had time to spring back up yet and close the throttle. FWIW: people were warning about this control problem (and even using that very metaphor) back in the 1980's.
  - joshspankit 6y ago
    Are we even at “zero throttle” now? Or have we gone from 150mph to 45?
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      CO2 is the second derivative of temp, so it is equivalent to acceleration, so the speed is still going up. distance = Industraly caused temperature difference speed = Co2 Acceleration = Co2 emissions. There are no realistic IPCC models where the car starts to coast or decelerate before 2100. https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-high-emissions-rcp8-5-global-warming-scenario https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-high-emissions-rcp...
Dumblydorr 6y ago
With the falling costs of getting cargo to orbit, will it ever be possible to install solar reflectors that keep the polar regions from heating up? This would keep intact the reflective white poles for longer, a positive development. How big would the reflectors have to be, would they be in the L1 lagrange point? Maybe if SpaceX keeps lowering launch costs it will eventually be a no brainier?
- zhouyisu 6y ago
  I'm just thinking the same thing. BTW the excess energy can be reflected to orbit labs or moon to make something more interesting (reactors, generators, water electrolysis etc)
- kreeben 6y ago
  Reflective white poles that are covered up are no longer acting in a reflecting manner. If they are not acting in a reflective manner, since they're being covered up, what good are they? In my mind, geostationary satellites with reflective properties are a solution to a symptom but not to the root cause. I was always taught to fix the root cause of problems, not their symptoms. Therefore I find your strategy to be sup optimal. Having said that, I agree that if we find the root cause to be unsolvable, we should look into fixing some of the symptoms instead.
  - graeme 6y ago
    The poles would still prevent sea level rise. Or avoiding melt of the land based ice sheets would anyway. I agree with you on solving root causes. If we don’t, the oceans will acidify with co2 and there may also be bad effects from higher co2 in the air. Emerging studies show cognitive declines. That said, both of those are slower moving crises to some extent. We may face acute challenges from excess heat and changing weather patterns. So it’s possible we’ll require an emergency stopgap while we fix the underlying issues.
  - legulere 6y ago
    You don’t need to completely obstruct all light. Just as much as needed to keep the ice from melting. The rest is done by the high albedo.
pluc 6y ago
That's fine, everything is fine. We'll just buy more ice when we run out
- chovybizzass 6y ago
  can't we just freeze the ocean water? pfft. "global warming".
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    Definitely one of the essential steps to creating our snowpiercer future.
- dTal 6y ago
  "...solving the problem once and for all." "but-" "ONCE AND FOR ALL!!"
ryanmarsh 6y ago
End of an ice age.
zhouyisu 6y ago
As spacex mature, is the science fiction that use mirrors to adjust sun energy possible? Could this solve global warming?
- bantunes 6y ago
  We can wait for private enterprise to build giant mirrors in orbit or, you know, lobby for subsidies for oil, coal and gas to end and become more sustainable, thus transitioning to a society that doesn't need giant mirrors in orbit to survive.
  - zhouyisu 6y ago
    Maybe we need to do both. Green energy or carbon neutral is good, but cannot achieve instantly. Most countries are inside treaty, but stop oil, coal and gas will give countries outside treaty a unaffair advantage, making the goal harder to reach.
    - bantunes 6y ago
      It just seems like deploying and maintaining giant mirrors in orbit is really against Occam's Razor here.
  - latch 6y ago
    And meat
- margalabargala 6y ago
  I did the math on this once out of curiosity. If we launch lots of bits of thin, reflective mylar film to the L2 Lagrange point with the sun, it will reflect incoming light and lower the Earth's insolation. About $200 billion worth of Falcon Heavy launches, all carrying mylar film to L2, would be sufficient to lower insolation by 1/20th of a percent, which would indeed halt global warming. Obviously this would have tons of other consequences for the planet, and doesn't account for solar wind pushing the mylar out of position, etc.
- hh3k0 6y ago
malka 6y ago
I dont get why this is #1 post. It is absolutely non surprising.
- psim1 6y ago
  Must every frontpage post contain an element of surprise? I submitted it as a reminder that climate change is still occurring, there's still research being done, and is still an issue we globally need to address. Climate change has not been surprising for decades. But it remains important.
  - at-fates-hands 6y ago
    > and is still an issue we globally need to address. How are we not addressing the issue?
    - psim1 6y ago
      If sincere about your question: what do you think? Note that I did not say it was not being addressed. But work obviously remains.
      - at-fates-hands 6y ago
        > Note that I did not say it was not being addressed That's exactly what you said: > and is still an issue we globally need to address. When you say something "needs to be addressed" it means to give attention to or deal with a matter or problem. Your initial statement inferred nothing was being done and attention needed to be given to the problem. If you actually meant what you wrote in your response, then why not just say that? As opposed to inferring that nothing is being done?
        phaemon 6y ago
        They didn't imply (not "infer") that nothing was being done. They implied that not enough was being done and more attention needed to be given to the problem. That seems reasonable, doesn't it?
jug 6y ago
Well, anything else with rising temperatures would be an amazing discovery indeed.
sleepysysadmin 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25874471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25874471 Climate change: US emissions in 2020 in biggest fall since WWII (bbc.com) Which makes sense, tons of unemployment and work from home means far less emissions to be expected. This must be great for climate change? How come we're losing ice faster? That doesnt make sense. It should be the coldest year for a long time right? https://www.space.com/nasa-confirms-2020-hottest-year-on-record https://www.space.com/nasa-confirms-2020-hottest-year-on-rec... So the fix to climate change is reducing emissions. We do that because of a pandemic and it makes climate change worse?
- guepe 6y ago
  The effect of greenhouse emissions vs climate takes _decades_ to be seen. The paper here is not to be linked to the reduction in greenhouse emissions from 2020.
- sacred_numbers 6y ago
  The negative effects of climate change are caused by the total level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, not the current rate of emissions. The world reduced the rate of emissions by 10% last year. That's better than nothing, but the overall level of greenhouse gases still rose by a lot last year, so it makes sense that ice would continue to melt faster. This trend will continue until we have net negative emissions, which is pretty much only possible if we first have close to zero emissions from power generation, transportation, and agriculture, as well as cash subsidies for carbon removal and sequestration. The fix to climate change has never been reduced emissions, it has been negative emissions or zero emissions if you're willing to accept a slower, inferior solution. Reducing emissions just buys a little bit of time (but not much, based on what most of the world considers "reduced").
  - frockington1 6y ago
    What happened in the past when volcanoes erupted? Wouldn't the world consistently get warmer and warmer as greenhouse gases rise?
Taylor_OD 6y ago
Its so sad but so human that this just seems to be ignored in large part. If we knew a massive war would come and kill a huge portion of the earths population in the next 50-100 years would we react any better?
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  It’s not comparable to a massive war killing a huge portion of people. That’s a more immediate, visible consequence that is clear on how to avoid. It’s a slow moving extra/unpredictable hurricane/drought/monsoon/heat wave/cold snap that gradually reduces quality of life year after year, with no clear solution to prevent it and still enjoy all the modern trappings of life.
  - tzs 6y ago
    War might be one of the consequences of climate change. India and Pakistan both depend heavily on Himalayan glaciers for their fresh water (as do several other countries). Those glaciers are rapidly shrinking due to climate change. It is not implausible that this could lead to war over control of the dwindling fresh glacial water. And they both have nukes. They don't have the really big nukes that the big nuclear powers have, but it doesn't take big nukes to cause a worldwide catastrophe. This paper [1] (article about that paper here [2]) looks at the effect of a nuclear war between Pakistan and India with an exchange of 100 Hiroshima-size nukes between them (about 1/3 of their total arsenals) directed at their 100 most populated areas. The nukes are of course devastating to those in the area they hit, but it is the firestorms that follow that are bad for the rest of the world. Based on the amount of combustible material in those regions, the paper estimates about 1.5 Tg of soot aerosol would end up in the upper atmosphere. They used climate models to analyze that, and come up with a 1.8 C temperature reduction and 8% precipitation reduction for several years. They then used state of the art crop models to estimate the effect that would have on food crops. They found that the strongest effects would be in temperate regions of the US, Europe, and China for 10-15 years. It would not be a collapse of civilization type event, but it would result in a decade or more of serious food shortages worldwide which would probably kill a lot of people. And since it would not just be hitting the poor, undeveloped countries like the usual famines do nowadays, it could trigger more wars involving the countries that do have the large arsenals of much much bigger nukes than India and Pakistan have. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/117/13/7071 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/13/7071 [2] https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/03/16/even-limited-india-pakistan-nuclear-war-would-bring-global-famine/ https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/03/16/even-limited-india-...
wing-_-nuts 6y ago
We're never going to get climate change under control until we have carbon taxes. I don't get why conservative politicians aren't behind this? It's the definition of a libertarian free market solution! You could even make it revenue neutral by lowering income taxes. It's also arguably a better targeted tax. You tax the things you want less of. It's kind of silly to tax income when you could instead be taxing activity that's harmful to the planet. Far better for corporations to try and dodge taxes by emitting less co2 than offshoring to ireland.
- nickpp 6y ago
  Even better, a carbon tax would create a market for solutions of getting rid of CO2 in a cheaper way than the tax. Finally an incentive to put all that awesome entrepreneurial creativity that gave us all the benefits we are enjoying every day to work on saving the planet. Win-win...
- eloff 6y ago
  It makes so much sense, it's just crazy to see how little support there is for the idea. This and other things are starting to convince me that the average person is actually incapable of making smart policy decisions, and that if we used technology to implement a direct democracy, it would likely be worse than what we have now. I used to think it was a great idea, but I've lost some faith in humanity lately looking at people reacted to the pandemic.
  - fallingfrog 6y ago
    I think if you put it to a straight popular vote it would pass. Unfortunately many things that have massive popular support are politically impossible, because of our deeply unresponsive political system which largely ignores the will of the people.
- triceratops 6y ago
  > I don't get why conservative politicians aren't behind this? Because it doesn't benefit them. They're politicians. "Conservative" is just the label they've figured out will garner them the most votes. And "conservative" voters have been brainwashed over generations to believe this isn't a real crisis.
LatteLazy 6y ago
We have emitted more GHGs since 1990. We're emitting them faster than we did in 1990 and have been in basically every one of those 30 years. It really worries me that people think we're making progress. We're not, we're getting worse and the rate of worsening is accelerating!?

156 points by psim1 6y ago

This is unsurprising to me. Global heat retention changes are mostly due to changes in the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases. While the rate at which those greenhouse gases is added has dropped due to the economic effects of the pandemic, the absolute concentration of greenhouse gases is still increasing. Combined with the destabilization of the polar vortex, I anticipate the ice melt rate to continue to increase.

newacct583 6y ago
Exactly. Carbon emission controls the second derivative of global temperature. What we've done is reduce the pressure with which the accelerator is pushed to the floor of the car, but it hasn't had time to spring back up yet and close the throttle. FWIW: people were warning about this control problem (and even using that very metaphor) back in the 1980's.
- joshspankit 6y ago
  Are we even at “zero throttle” now? Or have we gone from 150mph to 45?
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    CO2 is the second derivative of temp, so it is equivalent to acceleration, so the speed is still going up. distance = Industraly caused temperature difference speed = Co2 Acceleration = Co2 emissions. There are no realistic IPCC models where the car starts to coast or decelerate before 2100. https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-high-emissions-rcp8-5-global-warming-scenario https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-high-emissions-rcp...

Dumblydorr 6y ago

With the falling costs of getting cargo to orbit, will it ever be possible to install solar reflectors that keep the polar regions from heating up? This would keep intact the reflective white poles for longer, a positive development. How big would the reflectors have to be, would they be in the L1 lagrange point? Maybe if SpaceX keeps lowering launch costs it will eventually be a no brainier?

zhouyisu 6y ago
I'm just thinking the same thing. BTW the excess energy can be reflected to orbit labs or moon to make something more interesting (reactors, generators, water electrolysis etc)
kreeben 6y ago
Reflective white poles that are covered up are no longer acting in a reflecting manner. If they are not acting in a reflective manner, since they're being covered up, what good are they? In my mind, geostationary satellites with reflective properties are a solution to a symptom but not to the root cause. I was always taught to fix the root cause of problems, not their symptoms. Therefore I find your strategy to be sup optimal. Having said that, I agree that if we find the root cause to be unsolvable, we should look into fixing some of the symptoms instead.
- graeme 6y ago
  The poles would still prevent sea level rise. Or avoiding melt of the land based ice sheets would anyway. I agree with you on solving root causes. If we don’t, the oceans will acidify with co2 and there may also be bad effects from higher co2 in the air. Emerging studies show cognitive declines. That said, both of those are slower moving crises to some extent. We may face acute challenges from excess heat and changing weather patterns. So it’s possible we’ll require an emergency stopgap while we fix the underlying issues.
- legulere 6y ago
  You don’t need to completely obstruct all light. Just as much as needed to keep the ice from melting. The rest is done by the high albedo.

pluc 6y ago

That's fine, everything is fine. We'll just buy more ice when we run out

chovybizzass 6y ago
can't we just freeze the ocean water? pfft. "global warming".
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  Definitely one of the essential steps to creating our snowpiercer future.
dTal 6y ago
"...solving the problem once and for all." "but-" "ONCE AND FOR ALL!!"

ryanmarsh 6y ago

End of an ice age.

zhouyisu 6y ago

As spacex mature, is the science fiction that use mirrors to adjust sun energy possible? Could this solve global warming?

bantunes 6y ago
We can wait for private enterprise to build giant mirrors in orbit or, you know, lobby for subsidies for oil, coal and gas to end and become more sustainable, thus transitioning to a society that doesn't need giant mirrors in orbit to survive.
- zhouyisu 6y ago
  Maybe we need to do both. Green energy or carbon neutral is good, but cannot achieve instantly. Most countries are inside treaty, but stop oil, coal and gas will give countries outside treaty a unaffair advantage, making the goal harder to reach.
  - bantunes 6y ago
    It just seems like deploying and maintaining giant mirrors in orbit is really against Occam's Razor here.
- latch 6y ago
  And meat
margalabargala 6y ago
I did the math on this once out of curiosity. If we launch lots of bits of thin, reflective mylar film to the L2 Lagrange point with the sun, it will reflect incoming light and lower the Earth's insolation. About $200 billion worth of Falcon Heavy launches, all carrying mylar film to L2, would be sufficient to lower insolation by 1/20th of a percent, which would indeed halt global warming. Obviously this would have tons of other consequences for the planet, and doesn't account for solar wind pushing the mylar out of position, etc.
hh3k0 6y ago

malka 6y ago

I dont get why this is #1 post. It is absolutely non surprising.

psim1 6y ago
Must every frontpage post contain an element of surprise? I submitted it as a reminder that climate change is still occurring, there's still research being done, and is still an issue we globally need to address. Climate change has not been surprising for decades. But it remains important.
- at-fates-hands 6y ago
  > and is still an issue we globally need to address. How are we not addressing the issue?
  - psim1 6y ago
    If sincere about your question: what do you think? Note that I did not say it was not being addressed. But work obviously remains.
    - at-fates-hands 6y ago
      > Note that I did not say it was not being addressed That's exactly what you said: > and is still an issue we globally need to address. When you say something "needs to be addressed" it means to give attention to or deal with a matter or problem. Your initial statement inferred nothing was being done and attention needed to be given to the problem. If you actually meant what you wrote in your response, then why not just say that? As opposed to inferring that nothing is being done?
      - phaemon 6y ago
        They didn't imply (not "infer") that nothing was being done. They implied that not enough was being done and more attention needed to be given to the problem. That seems reasonable, doesn't it?

jug 6y ago

Well, anything else with rising temperatures would be an amazing discovery indeed.

sleepysysadmin 6y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25874471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25874471 Climate change: US emissions in 2020 in biggest fall since WWII (bbc.com) Which makes sense, tons of unemployment and work from home means far less emissions to be expected. This must be great for climate change? How come we're losing ice faster? That doesnt make sense. It should be the coldest year for a long time right? https://www.space.com/nasa-confirms-2020-hottest-year-on-record https://www.space.com/nasa-confirms-2020-hottest-year-on-rec... So the fix to climate change is reducing emissions. We do that because of a pandemic and it makes climate change worse?

guepe 6y ago
The effect of greenhouse emissions vs climate takes _decades_ to be seen. The paper here is not to be linked to the reduction in greenhouse emissions from 2020.
sacred_numbers 6y ago
The negative effects of climate change are caused by the total level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, not the current rate of emissions. The world reduced the rate of emissions by 10% last year. That's better than nothing, but the overall level of greenhouse gases still rose by a lot last year, so it makes sense that ice would continue to melt faster. This trend will continue until we have net negative emissions, which is pretty much only possible if we first have close to zero emissions from power generation, transportation, and agriculture, as well as cash subsidies for carbon removal and sequestration. The fix to climate change has never been reduced emissions, it has been negative emissions or zero emissions if you're willing to accept a slower, inferior solution. Reducing emissions just buys a little bit of time (but not much, based on what most of the world considers "reduced").
- frockington1 6y ago
  What happened in the past when volcanoes erupted? Wouldn't the world consistently get warmer and warmer as greenhouse gases rise?

Taylor_OD 6y ago

Its so sad but so human that this just seems to be ignored in large part. If we knew a massive war would come and kill a huge portion of the earths population in the next 50-100 years would we react any better?

lotsofpulp 6y ago
It’s not comparable to a massive war killing a huge portion of people. That’s a more immediate, visible consequence that is clear on how to avoid. It’s a slow moving extra/unpredictable hurricane/drought/monsoon/heat wave/cold snap that gradually reduces quality of life year after year, with no clear solution to prevent it and still enjoy all the modern trappings of life.
- tzs 6y ago
  War might be one of the consequences of climate change. India and Pakistan both depend heavily on Himalayan glaciers for their fresh water (as do several other countries). Those glaciers are rapidly shrinking due to climate change. It is not implausible that this could lead to war over control of the dwindling fresh glacial water. And they both have nukes. They don't have the really big nukes that the big nuclear powers have, but it doesn't take big nukes to cause a worldwide catastrophe. This paper [1] (article about that paper here [2]) looks at the effect of a nuclear war between Pakistan and India with an exchange of 100 Hiroshima-size nukes between them (about 1/3 of their total arsenals) directed at their 100 most populated areas. The nukes are of course devastating to those in the area they hit, but it is the firestorms that follow that are bad for the rest of the world. Based on the amount of combustible material in those regions, the paper estimates about 1.5 Tg of soot aerosol would end up in the upper atmosphere. They used climate models to analyze that, and come up with a 1.8 C temperature reduction and 8% precipitation reduction for several years. They then used state of the art crop models to estimate the effect that would have on food crops. They found that the strongest effects would be in temperate regions of the US, Europe, and China for 10-15 years. It would not be a collapse of civilization type event, but it would result in a decade or more of serious food shortages worldwide which would probably kill a lot of people. And since it would not just be hitting the poor, undeveloped countries like the usual famines do nowadays, it could trigger more wars involving the countries that do have the large arsenals of much much bigger nukes than India and Pakistan have. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/117/13/7071 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/13/7071 [2] https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/03/16/even-limited-india-pakistan-nuclear-war-would-bring-global-famine/ https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/03/16/even-limited-india-...

wing-_-nuts 6y ago

We're never going to get climate change under control until we have carbon taxes. I don't get why conservative politicians aren't behind this? It's the definition of a libertarian free market solution! You could even make it revenue neutral by lowering income taxes. It's also arguably a better targeted tax. You tax the things you want less of. It's kind of silly to tax income when you could instead be taxing activity that's harmful to the planet. Far better for corporations to try and dodge taxes by emitting less co2 than offshoring to ireland.

nickpp 6y ago
Even better, a carbon tax would create a market for solutions of getting rid of CO2 in a cheaper way than the tax. Finally an incentive to put all that awesome entrepreneurial creativity that gave us all the benefits we are enjoying every day to work on saving the planet. Win-win...
eloff 6y ago
It makes so much sense, it's just crazy to see how little support there is for the idea. This and other things are starting to convince me that the average person is actually incapable of making smart policy decisions, and that if we used technology to implement a direct democracy, it would likely be worse than what we have now. I used to think it was a great idea, but I've lost some faith in humanity lately looking at people reacted to the pandemic.
- fallingfrog 6y ago
  I think if you put it to a straight popular vote it would pass. Unfortunately many things that have massive popular support are politically impossible, because of our deeply unresponsive political system which largely ignores the will of the people.
triceratops 6y ago
> I don't get why conservative politicians aren't behind this? Because it doesn't benefit them. They're politicians. "Conservative" is just the label they've figured out will garner them the most votes. And "conservative" voters have been brainwashed over generations to believe this isn't a real crisis.

LatteLazy 6y ago

We have emitted more GHGs since 1990. We're emitting them faster than we did in 1990 and have been in basically every one of those 30 years. It really worries me that people think we're making progress. We're not, we're getting worse and the rate of worsening is accelerating!?