7 ms·

Rain at the Summit of Greenland

132 points by Kaibeezy 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
just_steve_h 5y ago
OnlyFans bans porn: over 1000 comments. Tesla announces humanoid robot: 190 comments. Rain at the summit of Greenland: 1 comment, after 7 hours.
- adrianN 5y ago
  There must be a fairly large number of people who flag submissions related to climate change. They disappear quickly from the front page.
  - newman555 5y ago
    but why?
    - adrianN 5y ago
      The threads such submissions generate tend to be full of flame wars, so there is a fraction of the userbase which doesn't believe climate change is a big deal, and I suppose there is a fraction of the userbase that doesn't like topics that generate flame wars.
      - newman555 5y ago
        I have to say I didn’t notice anyone saying anything positive or dismissing about the climate change on HN lately, it seems we generally agree that the problem is very real. Although it seems that when it comes to solutions - lots of discussions and disagreement there.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - sundaeofshock 5y ago
        I suspect many flags come from client change deniers; both paid shills and folks influenced by said shills.
        ianhawes 5y ago
        Where can I sign up to be a paid shill? Moreover, is HN considered a large enough community for people to _pay_ to shill on topics unrelated to tech/startups?
        vegetablepotpie 5y ago
        I don’t think you get paid to shill. The real money is in convincing others to volunteer to shill on your behalf.
        ckastner 5y ago
        From the HN guidelines [1]: " Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." Also, the article is currently on the front page, so the discussion about it being buried by flags is moot. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - Kaibeezy 5y ago
      Always the right question, Mathesar.
- Kaibeezy 5y ago
  Fresh water pouring into the North Atlantic is what will shut down the Gulf Stream, plunging northern and western Europe into a far colder climate more typical for their latitude. Yeah, you’d think this would be bigger news. See also Warning Signals for Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, Nature, 2 weeks ago (good discussion that got shut down as a duplicate, although it’s the primary source paper and all the rest were secondary, but whatever, bots or something): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28085342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28085342
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    We don't control the AMOC or any other oceanic cycle, including the AMO, PDO, ENSO, etc. If the AMOC reduces circulation, then the planet will cool as a whole, and we'll probably find ourselves retreading into a Little Ice Age, as experienced from the 1400s to mid 1800s. At any rate that would be counter to the projections of runaway warming.
    - jazzyjackson 5y ago
      Why does reduced circulation cool the planet as a whole? I would expect the heat to stay where it’s hot in the tropics and the cool to stay where it’s cold in the poles, with hurricanes and tornadoes making up the vortexful barrier between them, but iana fluid dynamicyst
      - Kaibeezy 5y ago
        IIRC, when the Arctic stays cold, there’s more sea ice, which reflects more sunlight than open water, reducing total/overall temperatures. ETA: The sea is dark; the ice is white. That makes a big difference when it comes to reflecting sunlight. The dark sea absorbs heat while the ice reflects a much larger proportion of the sun’s energy (the “Albedo-effect”). So a smaller sea ice extent means more open, dark water, which results in more absorption of the sun’s energy in the seawater, and thus more warming of the seawater. The warmer seawater raises the temperature of the air above, which means that ice formation will take place later in the year. And next year, when melting sets in, there is less ice and melting may happen faster, which means that the sea is open to absorb even more energy from the sun. And so on. Scientists call it a positive feedback that enhances the changes even further. And this specific feedback has been documented in the Arctic. To what degree this will have effects outside the Arctic is still an open question. The diminishing sea ice also has the potential to change global ocean circulation. In the Arctic Ocean, especially east of Greenland, a process takes place that is considered to be crucial for the circulation of the oceans. As the waters flowing north to this area cool, sea ice forms; leaving the water below the ice much saltier and denser. This heavier water sinks to the bottom and flows south along the deep plains of the Atlantic Ocean. The force of this, in combination with similar processes in Antarctica, is so tremendous that these mechanisms actually fuel global ocean circulation. The cold water follows the bottom of the Atlantic, resurfaces, for instance, in the Indian Ocean and returns as a warm ocean surface current in the Atlantic Ocean, commonly known as “The Gulf Stream”. The system is often referred to as “The Great Conveyor Belt”. To what extent “The Great Conveyor Belt” will be affected by the diminishing Arctic sea ice is still an open question. http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/understanding-the-arctic-sea-ice/ http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/understanding-...
- tenkabuto 5y ago
  How I interpreted these before seeing this comment and its children: > OnlyFans bans porn: over 1000 comments. > Tesla announces humanoid robot: 190 comments. > Rain: 1 comment, after 7 hours.
- nicbou 5y ago
  The first two are fun and interesting. This one is just depressing. There isn't much to add, especially when such news become regular.
- bamboozled 5y ago
  In a world that's seemingly falling apart, OnlyFans keeps people sedated and somewhat happy.
- Bombthecat 5y ago
  No one wants to talk and think about the coming collapse and if things get worse, extinction event...
  - nradov 5y ago
    Even in the worst case scenario it's not an extinction event. Probably at least 50% will survive.
    - Bombthecat 5y ago
      4 billion? I doubt that.. Wars will start over water, food, land..
    - baron_harkonnen 5y ago
      50% of species would be considered an extinction event, and that is absolutely on the table. We're already in the 6th largest mass extinction event in the history of life on this planet. I would strongly recommend reading Peter Ward's "Under a Green Sky" (or his academic papers if that's more your style). He makes a very compelling argument about the relationship between rising CO2 and many of the previous major (and minor) extinction events. To be clear, I'm not saying "extinction is certain!" but in "the worst case scenario" mass extinction is absolutely a real possibility. If we reach the neighborhood of 5+C (which is in the realm of possibility, especially when talking about 'worst case') we're looking at a planet that is very hostile to human and most other current life. A few books I would recommend (all in the popular non-fiction category but backed up with plenty of academic sources): - Peter Ward "Under a Green Sky" - Elizabeth Kolbert "The Sixth Extinction" - Mark Lynas "Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency" (update of his earlier "Six Degrees") Ward is an academic, and Kolbert and Lynas are science journalists, but both have plentiful, credible citations. Again, there are so many big unknowns that very little can be said for sure, but saying that a mass extinction (and more specifically human extinction) event is not possible is simply wrong given our current understanding of the situation.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't break the site guidelines like this. "Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
chrisco255 5y ago
http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/ http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/ Greenland Surface Mass Balance remains 10-20 gigatons above the 1981-2010 median (click Acc for accumulations). What is unusual about this year, is how short the melt season was in general. Greenland normally melts off for nearly 3 months of the year. This year has seen only 5 weeks or so of melting. The ice has recovered significantly from 10 years ago when it experienced a record loss.
- phaemon 5y ago
  As is very clearly stated in the page you linked to: "It does not include the mass that is lost when glaciers calve off icebergs and melt as they come into contact with warm seawater." There has of course been no "recovery". You can see the Greenland Ice Sheet loss at: https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/30/greenland-ice-loss-2002-2020/ https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/30/greenland-ice-loss-2... This one is a continual talking point for climate change deniers, and is corrected every time, but it still gets trotted out. I strongly advise you to actually learn something about this topic as I've seen you attempt to post on it before.
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    Between your link and mine, it shows that Greenland loses ~279 gigatons / year to calving and warm water contact. But so far this year, alone, according to the DMI it has gained ~400 gigatons in snow and ice(even after factoring for daily melt offs on the surface). And we're not even done with the year yet. That's a net gain.
    - adrianN 5y ago
      As I read it, your parent's link shows a net numbers.
      - chrisco255 5y ago
        It's not clear to me that it is net numbers, and it doesn't show 2021, which is the year we're talking about. I'd like to see the actual data and a study and not an MP4 file to be sure.
alfiedotwtf 5y ago
"This is coal, don't be afraid, it can't hurt you" -- Prime Minister Scott Morrison, 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-morrison-brings-a-chunk-of-coal-into-parliament-video https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-m...
swframe2 5y ago
Reminds me of Thanos... We are on a path to drastically downsize the human population. We could stop it but that would mean millions of wealthy people have to make less but they are going to need money so they can buy the only land that remains livable.
nunobrito 5y ago
Those who are old enough will certainly remember the ozone hole, then the global warming and now finally "climate change". All the previous ones were dismissed/forgotten by the press but I like "climate change" because it can never be proven wrong. The climate has always changed so you really can't miss this time. ^_^ Nevertheless, historical evidence documents how the climate has _always_ changed across the thousands of years. More snow or less snow across 20 thousand years is normal. This university page does a proper collection of the related sources: https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronze/climate.htm https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronze/climate.htm

132 points by Kaibeezy 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

OnlyFans bans porn: over 1000 comments. Tesla announces humanoid robot: 190 comments. Rain at the summit of Greenland: 1 comment, after 7 hours.

adrianN 5y ago
There must be a fairly large number of people who flag submissions related to climate change. They disappear quickly from the front page.
- newman555 5y ago
  but why?
  - adrianN 5y ago
    The threads such submissions generate tend to be full of flame wars, so there is a fraction of the userbase which doesn't believe climate change is a big deal, and I suppose there is a fraction of the userbase that doesn't like topics that generate flame wars.
    - newman555 5y ago
      I have to say I didn’t notice anyone saying anything positive or dismissing about the climate change on HN lately, it seems we generally agree that the problem is very real. Although it seems that when it comes to solutions - lots of discussions and disagreement there.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - sundaeofshock 5y ago
      I suspect many flags come from client change deniers; both paid shills and folks influenced by said shills.
      - ianhawes 5y ago
        Where can I sign up to be a paid shill? Moreover, is HN considered a large enough community for people to _pay_ to shill on topics unrelated to tech/startups?
        vegetablepotpie 5y ago
        I don’t think you get paid to shill. The real money is in convincing others to volunteer to shill on your behalf.
      - ckastner 5y ago
        From the HN guidelines [1]: " Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." Also, the article is currently on the front page, so the discussion about it being buried by flags is moot. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - Kaibeezy 5y ago
    Always the right question, Mathesar.
Kaibeezy 5y ago
Fresh water pouring into the North Atlantic is what will shut down the Gulf Stream, plunging northern and western Europe into a far colder climate more typical for their latitude. Yeah, you’d think this would be bigger news. See also Warning Signals for Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, Nature, 2 weeks ago (good discussion that got shut down as a duplicate, although it’s the primary source paper and all the rest were secondary, but whatever, bots or something): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28085342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28085342
- chrisco255 5y ago
  We don't control the AMOC or any other oceanic cycle, including the AMO, PDO, ENSO, etc. If the AMOC reduces circulation, then the planet will cool as a whole, and we'll probably find ourselves retreading into a Little Ice Age, as experienced from the 1400s to mid 1800s. At any rate that would be counter to the projections of runaway warming.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    Why does reduced circulation cool the planet as a whole? I would expect the heat to stay where it’s hot in the tropics and the cool to stay where it’s cold in the poles, with hurricanes and tornadoes making up the vortexful barrier between them, but iana fluid dynamicyst
    - Kaibeezy 5y ago
      IIRC, when the Arctic stays cold, there’s more sea ice, which reflects more sunlight than open water, reducing total/overall temperatures. ETA: The sea is dark; the ice is white. That makes a big difference when it comes to reflecting sunlight. The dark sea absorbs heat while the ice reflects a much larger proportion of the sun’s energy (the “Albedo-effect”). So a smaller sea ice extent means more open, dark water, which results in more absorption of the sun’s energy in the seawater, and thus more warming of the seawater. The warmer seawater raises the temperature of the air above, which means that ice formation will take place later in the year. And next year, when melting sets in, there is less ice and melting may happen faster, which means that the sea is open to absorb even more energy from the sun. And so on. Scientists call it a positive feedback that enhances the changes even further. And this specific feedback has been documented in the Arctic. To what degree this will have effects outside the Arctic is still an open question. The diminishing sea ice also has the potential to change global ocean circulation. In the Arctic Ocean, especially east of Greenland, a process takes place that is considered to be crucial for the circulation of the oceans. As the waters flowing north to this area cool, sea ice forms; leaving the water below the ice much saltier and denser. This heavier water sinks to the bottom and flows south along the deep plains of the Atlantic Ocean. The force of this, in combination with similar processes in Antarctica, is so tremendous that these mechanisms actually fuel global ocean circulation. The cold water follows the bottom of the Atlantic, resurfaces, for instance, in the Indian Ocean and returns as a warm ocean surface current in the Atlantic Ocean, commonly known as “The Gulf Stream”. The system is often referred to as “The Great Conveyor Belt”. To what extent “The Great Conveyor Belt” will be affected by the diminishing Arctic sea ice is still an open question. http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/understanding-the-arctic-sea-ice/ http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/understanding-...
tenkabuto 5y ago
How I interpreted these before seeing this comment and its children: > OnlyFans bans porn: over 1000 comments. > Tesla announces humanoid robot: 190 comments. > Rain: 1 comment, after 7 hours.
nicbou 5y ago
The first two are fun and interesting. This one is just depressing. There isn't much to add, especially when such news become regular.
bamboozled 5y ago
In a world that's seemingly falling apart, OnlyFans keeps people sedated and somewhat happy.
Bombthecat 5y ago
No one wants to talk and think about the coming collapse and if things get worse, extinction event...
- nradov 5y ago
  Even in the worst case scenario it's not an extinction event. Probably at least 50% will survive.
  - Bombthecat 5y ago
    4 billion? I doubt that.. Wars will start over water, food, land..
  - baron_harkonnen 5y ago
    50% of species would be considered an extinction event, and that is absolutely on the table. We're already in the 6th largest mass extinction event in the history of life on this planet. I would strongly recommend reading Peter Ward's "Under a Green Sky" (or his academic papers if that's more your style). He makes a very compelling argument about the relationship between rising CO2 and many of the previous major (and minor) extinction events. To be clear, I'm not saying "extinction is certain!" but in "the worst case scenario" mass extinction is absolutely a real possibility. If we reach the neighborhood of 5+C (which is in the realm of possibility, especially when talking about 'worst case') we're looking at a planet that is very hostile to human and most other current life. A few books I would recommend (all in the popular non-fiction category but backed up with plenty of academic sources): - Peter Ward "Under a Green Sky" - Elizabeth Kolbert "The Sixth Extinction" - Mark Lynas "Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency" (update of his earlier "Six Degrees") Ward is an academic, and Kolbert and Lynas are science journalists, but both have plentiful, credible citations. Again, there are so many big unknowns that very little can be said for sure, but saying that a mass extinction (and more specifically human extinction) event is not possible is simply wrong given our current understanding of the situation.
dang 5y ago
Please don't break the site guidelines like this. "Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

chrisco255 5y ago

http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/ http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/ Greenland Surface Mass Balance remains 10-20 gigatons above the 1981-2010 median (click Acc for accumulations). What is unusual about this year, is how short the melt season was in general. Greenland normally melts off for nearly 3 months of the year. This year has seen only 5 weeks or so of melting. The ice has recovered significantly from 10 years ago when it experienced a record loss.

phaemon 5y ago
As is very clearly stated in the page you linked to: "It does not include the mass that is lost when glaciers calve off icebergs and melt as they come into contact with warm seawater." There has of course been no "recovery". You can see the Greenland Ice Sheet loss at: https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/30/greenland-ice-loss-2002-2020/ https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/30/greenland-ice-loss-2... This one is a continual talking point for climate change deniers, and is corrected every time, but it still gets trotted out. I strongly advise you to actually learn something about this topic as I've seen you attempt to post on it before.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Between your link and mine, it shows that Greenland loses ~279 gigatons / year to calving and warm water contact. But so far this year, alone, according to the DMI it has gained ~400 gigatons in snow and ice(even after factoring for daily melt offs on the surface). And we're not even done with the year yet. That's a net gain.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    As I read it, your parent's link shows a net numbers.
    - chrisco255 5y ago
      It's not clear to me that it is net numbers, and it doesn't show 2021, which is the year we're talking about. I'd like to see the actual data and a study and not an MP4 file to be sure.

alfiedotwtf 5y ago

"This is coal, don't be afraid, it can't hurt you" -- Prime Minister Scott Morrison, 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-morrison-brings-a-chunk-of-coal-into-parliament-video https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-m...

swframe2 5y ago

Reminds me of Thanos... We are on a path to drastically downsize the human population. We could stop it but that would mean millions of wealthy people have to make less but they are going to need money so they can buy the only land that remains livable.

nunobrito 5y ago

Those who are old enough will certainly remember the ozone hole, then the global warming and now finally "climate change". All the previous ones were dismissed/forgotten by the press but I like "climate change" because it can never be proven wrong. The climate has always changed so you really can't miss this time. ^_^ Nevertheless, historical evidence documents how the climate has _always_ changed across the thousands of years. More snow or less snow across 20 thousand years is normal. This university page does a proper collection of the related sources: https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronze/climate.htm https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronze/climate.htm