20 ms·

The Great Siberian Thaw

185 points by narpaldhillon 5y ago

narpaldhillon 5y ago
https://archive.md/RT1X3 https://archive.md/RT1X3
- nkurz 5y ago
  https://outline.com/FyUGg8 https://outline.com/FyUGg8
narpaldhillon 5y ago
I found this to be so fascinating, "At a certain point, nature takes over. Even the most forward-thinking legislature in the world can’t pass a law banning emissions from permafrost."
- klipt 5y ago
  Solar geoengineering could potentially stop further thawing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_geoengineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_geoengineering
  - Retric 5y ago
    That’s probably a significantly more difficult problem than stopping pollution as you actually need someone to pay for it directly. And of course we don’t know a good way to only try and cool the Arctic. <Massive simplifications ahead> You can ballpark this yourself a 288 K black body in equilibrium is radiating as much energy as it receives, at T^4. To drop that by 1C to 287K means blocking 1- ( 287^4 /288^4) or roughly 1.4% of all sunlight. As the earth’s radius 6,371 km ignoring the atmosphere, the classic sunshade at L1 idea needs a surface area of something like 1.7 million km^2. And that’s assuming we didn’t keep dumping any CO2 into the air and ignore the fact the earth isn’t in equilibrium it’s warming etc etc. A few ideas for getting various things into the upper atmosphere have been considered but reflecting an extra 1.4% or more sunlight would be a true ly Herculean task with any of those ideas and you couldn’t stop as they all decay over time.
    - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
      Why does every solar geoengineering project seem to pretend that decreasing solar radiation wouldn't impact photosynthesis which also binds CO2, and, uh, supports the entire food web / our civilization? We already are massively stressing the biosphere: mass extinctions, mass destruction of habitat, mass disruption of migration patterns, warming, plastic pollution, invasive species. And the suggestion is to reduce incoming photosynthetic energy by percentage points???????? I get that photosynthesis happens in a narrow band of frequencies compared to other solar radiation that would be absorbed then emitted back/trapped as IR radiation... but still, geoengineering should focus on methods that explicitly track the bound/removed CO2. Note I do not for a second believe that schemes for sequestration by pumping CO2 deep underground won't have huge amounts of ignored/undetected leakage, especially since it is a petroleum industry scheme that already pretends massive methane leaks aren't occurring far more than is accounted for in current petrol extraction.
      - thriftwy 5y ago
        Photosynthesis is more limited by water than sunlight in many areas. So it may make sense to cool some subtropical areas.
      - throwaway10122 5y ago
        At least they try to solve issues with science/engineering instead of just giving up and throwing hands in air about climate change issues.
      - DennisP 5y ago
        Solar engineering is interesting because we've already observed it, for periods of a year or two after major volcanic eruptions. Those have put enough sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere to block about one percent of sunlight, and disaster did not ensue. Since the sulfur dioxide goes away after a year or two, if it does start to cause a problem then you can simply stop emitting it. However, if you absolutely want to avoid potential impact on crops, another proposed method is to use a fleet of wind-driven ships, seeding low-lying clouds over the oceans. As for storing CO2 underground, there is one method that might work: pumping it into basalt formations, where it turns into rock in about a year. There are several pilot projects doing this.
  - snitch182 5y ago
    and once we did it we would encounter the gargantuan sideeffects of that ...
missedthecue 5y ago
I wonder how much of the land is going to become farmable now
- lkxijlewlf 5y ago
  Too much?
  - masklinn 5y ago
    More like not much: the soil is non-existent, and because the latitude and weather remains dreadful the growing seasons are short. Furthermore Siberia will not be exempt from climactic instability, meaning unpredictable weather events (limited seasonal regularity) making YoY farming planning extremely difficult. Not only that, but the thawing creates extremely unstable ground, leading to very irregular subsidence.
- lovecg 5y ago
  I read somewhere that the soil is the problem, not just the local climate. And soil takes a long time to accumulate the good stuff. So in short, places with good soil will become less farmable and places with now better climate won’t have good soil. We’re all kinda screwed then.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    Mmm. Modern fertilizer has done a lot to neutralize the importance of good soil. You can't farm rocks, but the US west has done a lot with sand + fertilizer. As long as you have money, water, sun, heat, and something better than bedrock, I wouldn't call it unrealistic.
    - tazjin 5y ago
      Plus Belarus is a massive producer of said fertilizer, and Russia and Belarus have good trade relations. We'll see what happens ...
    - lb0 5y ago
pezzana 5y ago
> In 1998, Zimov brought the first horses to what he called Pleistocene Park, a fenced tract of land an hour’s boat ride from the research station. Since then, the park has grown to eight square miles, and it is now home to a hundred and fifty animals, not just horses but bison, sheep, yaks, and camels. To give them a head start, Nikita sped about the territory in the family’s “tank”—a hefty, all-terrain transport vehicle on treads—knocking down trees and undergrowth. For more on the human angle, see this piece, which includes a fascinating video: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleistocene-park/517779/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleisto...
kreelman 5y ago
I'm kind of surprised there isn't more interest in this article. Any big change like this would seem to me to hint at some large effects later on. In Russia alone, the changes have the potential to be huge. I guess it is still kind of "New Year" and people are hunkered down with COVID all over the world.
- chiefalchemist 5y ago
  It's not new news. This idea (i.e., permafrost thaw) has been circulating for quite some time. I'm sure I've read similar at least three times previously, probably more.
EGreg 5y ago
"and twice as much carbon as Earth’s atmosphere. " "As levels of carbon dioxide rose from 550ppm to 945ppm to 1400ppm, subjects’ scores under most headings declined substantially. (Problem-solving ability also seemed to suffer as levels of volatile organic compounds rose.)" "2,000-5,000 ppm: level associated with headaches, sleepiness, and stagnant, stale, stuffy air; poor concentration, loss of attention, increased heart rate and slight nausea may also be present. > 5,000 ppm: This indicates unusual air conditions where high levels of other gases also could be present." "Based on preliminary analysis, the global average atmospheric carbon dioxide in 2020 was 412.5 parts per million (ppm for short), setting a new record high amount despite the economic slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic." hmm
- sometimeshuman 5y ago
  Many stressors have an adaptation phase. It is plausible those effects get reduced with prolonged exposure in humans although that wasn't necessarily the case in mice: "Long-term exposure of mice to 890 ppm atmospheric CO 2 alters growth trajectories and elicits hyperactive behaviours in young adulthood" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34731494/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34731494/
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    I think I red a study, many years ago, about lowered performance in Mexico City due to their local higher CO2 concentration.
    - JamisonM 5y ago
      I feel like if it was many years ago lead pollution would be a nearly insurmountable confounder in such a study, but if you could find it I am sure it would be an interesting read.
sega_sai 5y ago
I've found the article so well written. It was a joy to read, notwithstanding the grim topic.
- hh3k0 5y ago
  I agree, it made me hope there'd be a way to pay for this particular article when I reach its end.
  - selectodude 5y ago
    There is - get yourself a subscription to The New Yorker. This piece of long-form is not unusual for them.
    - hh3k0 5y ago
      That came to mind, of course. I even used to have one! I cancelled it at some point because a) I could no longer stomach reading about US politics and b) I'm generally not much of a subcription guy. I might eventually pick it up again.
- fowkswe 5y ago
  The New Yorker's climate coverage is fantastic and terrifying. Look for articles by Elizabeth Kolbert, particularly the one's she did back in '05 - The Climate of Man I, II and III
akeck 5y ago
It's the land version of the Clathrate Gun.
vermilingua 5y ago
The Newsroom said it best, "your house is burning to the ground, the situation is dire; your house has already burned to the ground, situation's over." [1] I don't see a way that we plausibly reverse course, when nearly every government, the people running them, and the private sector leaders are all just doing an end-run to accumulate as much as they can, planet be damned. Every "climate target" gets re-evaluated and pushed back every five years, and nobody seems to be held accountable for it. Barring moonshot tech breakthrough or militant scaling-down of consumption worldwide, how can we survive? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0uZ9mfOUI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0uZ9mfOUI
- nelox 5y ago
  What makes you think we deserve to survive?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- chillwaves 5y ago
  After the coming resource\migration wars, some of this will sort itself out. Don't worry.
  - jay_kyburz 5y ago
    I just realized that perhaps the problem is not global warming. Perhaps the problem is that we are having children. If we all just decided to stop having kids, nobody would care what the weather was like at the end of the century.
    - screenbreakout 5y ago
      With the right partner, kids (depending on how you see it) make you work less,(if you decide to take time to help them grow) enjoy life more (hilarious situations) and grow as a person (suppress your ego) The good thing is they grow up fast and are the closest thing to positive change we can potentially actively have a hand in... also according to book quoted on HN the upper limit of human population is 1 trillion... so all we really need to do is work less, stop useless packaging and wasteful bureaucracy, enjoy life more and eat better by transforming the junk food (glucose syrup, wheat, rye (beer u and meat agriculture into a refugee(from work) based garden of nuts fruits and veg Try watching a french film called Demain (Tomorrow) ...plenty of immediate great solutions out there
xwdv 5y ago
Once the permafrost starts melting off, there isn’t much time left for us. Hold your children tight, and comfort them for the rest of their short lives.
- dukeofdoom 5y ago
  Don't worry you'll be okay. Every culture had an end times prophecy.
  - gremlinsinc 5y ago
    there's a difference between an end times prophecy and a confirmation that a planet killing asteroid will hit the earth in x months/years... there's ambiguity on how long we have left.. but we're headed towards extinction or nearly... maybe a few million survive to rebuild.. but life as we live today is completely unsustainable...
    - jay_kyburz 5y ago
      Yes, but if we apply ourselves, the life we live tomorrow can be both sustainable and better than what we have today.
- Proven 5y ago
xrd 5y ago
Is it possible to live in isolated sealed compounds that protect us from all that carbon? Can we build filtration systems?
- kragen 5y ago
  The gases being released aren't toxic until a hundred times higher than current levels. Filtering out methane and CO₂ is routine for life-support systems in submarines, spacecraft, and, yes, bunkers, so it's not infeasible. The problem is that they cause global warming, not toxicity, and we can't build an isolated sealed compound to protect the planet from them.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    > The gases being released aren't toxic until a hundred times higher than current levels. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. Current atmospheric CO2 level is 400ppm which already has a measurable impact on performance on tasks (compared to 250ppm couple decades ago). Increasing it to just 1000ppm further degrades performance. And 2500ppm makes it difficult to concentrate on anything complex. Even slight increase in concentration could lead to drastic changes over time when you consider everybody gets a little dumber. https://skepticalscience.com/how-sapiens-in-the-world-of-high-co2-concentration.html https://skepticalscience.com/how-sapiens-in-the-world-of-hig... * EDIT: kragen, I am being throttled so here is my response to your below comment: When there is plenty arguments and scientific consensus to the contrary, and the person presents numbers obviously derived from thin air, I think it is fair to state the person does not know what they are talking about. Toxicology is a complex topic. But it is safe to say CO2 becomes toxic way before it becomes lethal. Which is to say you see adverse effects even before the concentration reaches lethal level. It may maybe take hundreds of times before it becomes immediately lethal but it is already toxic at about current concentration or 2-5 times current concentration, depending on who you ask, and not "hundreds of times" higher.
    - kragen 5y ago
      It's true that high CO₂ levels cause cognitive impairment, but submarines routinely operate for months in the 2000–5000 ppm range, sometimes as high as 13000 ppm, over 30 times higher than the current atmospheric level but still too low to kill people by about a factor of 8. Subtle cognitive impairments at these levels have been found by some researchers, while others have been unable to replicate them even at 30000 ppm: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29789085/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29789085/ https://www.nap.edu/read/11170/chapter/5#54 https://www.nap.edu/read/11170/chapter/5#54 That's why the NOAEL is set at 25000 ppm, at which point CO₂ starts to cause visual disturbances, which I think fall short of "toxicity"; it's more like a recreational drug effect. If the Earth's atmosphere reached 100 times the current level, 40000 ppm CO₂ (4%!), you still wouldn't have a CO₂ toxicity problem in humans. However, you probably wouldn't have a biosphere much longer either, and at that point toxicity to humans would be a moot point. Also, by the way, the quality of the discussion would probably be significantly improved without you saying, "You obviously have no idea what you are talking about." Sometimes people might disagree with you because they know things you don't, for example because their information doesn't come from science popularizers, rather than because they don't know things you do. If you don't keep that in mind, you are likely to embarrass yourself frequently. Believe me, I have a lot of experience doing that. Less sneering, please.
kleton 5y ago
Nominative determinism that might have been missed by non-Slavophones: Zimov would translate to (belonging to winter), like the English surname, Winters.
tyronehed 5y ago
This permafrost melt is what will finally kill us off.

185 points by narpaldhillon 5y ago

narpaldhillon 5y ago

https://archive.md/RT1X3 https://archive.md/RT1X3

nkurz 5y ago
https://outline.com/FyUGg8 https://outline.com/FyUGg8

narpaldhillon 5y ago

I found this to be so fascinating, "At a certain point, nature takes over. Even the most forward-thinking legislature in the world can’t pass a law banning emissions from permafrost."

klipt 5y ago
Solar geoengineering could potentially stop further thawing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_geoengineering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_geoengineering
- Retric 5y ago
  That’s probably a significantly more difficult problem than stopping pollution as you actually need someone to pay for it directly. And of course we don’t know a good way to only try and cool the Arctic. <Massive simplifications ahead> You can ballpark this yourself a 288 K black body in equilibrium is radiating as much energy as it receives, at T^4. To drop that by 1C to 287K means blocking 1- ( 287^4 /288^4) or roughly 1.4% of all sunlight. As the earth’s radius 6,371 km ignoring the atmosphere, the classic sunshade at L1 idea needs a surface area of something like 1.7 million km^2. And that’s assuming we didn’t keep dumping any CO2 into the air and ignore the fact the earth isn’t in equilibrium it’s warming etc etc. A few ideas for getting various things into the upper atmosphere have been considered but reflecting an extra 1.4% or more sunlight would be a true ly Herculean task with any of those ideas and you couldn’t stop as they all decay over time.
  - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
    Why does every solar geoengineering project seem to pretend that decreasing solar radiation wouldn't impact photosynthesis which also binds CO2, and, uh, supports the entire food web / our civilization? We already are massively stressing the biosphere: mass extinctions, mass destruction of habitat, mass disruption of migration patterns, warming, plastic pollution, invasive species. And the suggestion is to reduce incoming photosynthetic energy by percentage points???????? I get that photosynthesis happens in a narrow band of frequencies compared to other solar radiation that would be absorbed then emitted back/trapped as IR radiation... but still, geoengineering should focus on methods that explicitly track the bound/removed CO2. Note I do not for a second believe that schemes for sequestration by pumping CO2 deep underground won't have huge amounts of ignored/undetected leakage, especially since it is a petroleum industry scheme that already pretends massive methane leaks aren't occurring far more than is accounted for in current petrol extraction.
    - thriftwy 5y ago
      Photosynthesis is more limited by water than sunlight in many areas. So it may make sense to cool some subtropical areas.
    - throwaway10122 5y ago
      At least they try to solve issues with science/engineering instead of just giving up and throwing hands in air about climate change issues.
    - DennisP 5y ago
      Solar engineering is interesting because we've already observed it, for periods of a year or two after major volcanic eruptions. Those have put enough sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere to block about one percent of sunlight, and disaster did not ensue. Since the sulfur dioxide goes away after a year or two, if it does start to cause a problem then you can simply stop emitting it. However, if you absolutely want to avoid potential impact on crops, another proposed method is to use a fleet of wind-driven ships, seeding low-lying clouds over the oceans. As for storing CO2 underground, there is one method that might work: pumping it into basalt formations, where it turns into rock in about a year. There are several pilot projects doing this.
- snitch182 5y ago
  and once we did it we would encounter the gargantuan sideeffects of that ...

missedthecue 5y ago

I wonder how much of the land is going to become farmable now

lkxijlewlf 5y ago
Too much?
- masklinn 5y ago
  More like not much: the soil is non-existent, and because the latitude and weather remains dreadful the growing seasons are short. Furthermore Siberia will not be exempt from climactic instability, meaning unpredictable weather events (limited seasonal regularity) making YoY farming planning extremely difficult. Not only that, but the thawing creates extremely unstable ground, leading to very irregular subsidence.
lovecg 5y ago
I read somewhere that the soil is the problem, not just the local climate. And soil takes a long time to accumulate the good stuff. So in short, places with good soil will become less farmable and places with now better climate won’t have good soil. We’re all kinda screwed then.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  Mmm. Modern fertilizer has done a lot to neutralize the importance of good soil. You can't farm rocks, but the US west has done a lot with sand + fertilizer. As long as you have money, water, sun, heat, and something better than bedrock, I wouldn't call it unrealistic.
  - tazjin 5y ago
    Plus Belarus is a massive producer of said fertilizer, and Russia and Belarus have good trade relations. We'll see what happens ...
  - lb0 5y ago

pezzana 5y ago

> In 1998, Zimov brought the first horses to what he called Pleistocene Park, a fenced tract of land an hour’s boat ride from the research station. Since then, the park has grown to eight square miles, and it is now home to a hundred and fifty animals, not just horses but bison, sheep, yaks, and camels. To give them a head start, Nikita sped about the territory in the family’s “tank”—a hefty, all-terrain transport vehicle on treads—knocking down trees and undergrowth. For more on the human angle, see this piece, which includes a fascinating video: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleistocene-park/517779/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/pleisto...

kreelman 5y ago

I'm kind of surprised there isn't more interest in this article. Any big change like this would seem to me to hint at some large effects later on. In Russia alone, the changes have the potential to be huge. I guess it is still kind of "New Year" and people are hunkered down with COVID all over the world.

chiefalchemist 5y ago
It's not new news. This idea (i.e., permafrost thaw) has been circulating for quite some time. I'm sure I've read similar at least three times previously, probably more.

EGreg 5y ago

"and twice as much carbon as Earth’s atmosphere. " "As levels of carbon dioxide rose from 550ppm to 945ppm to 1400ppm, subjects’ scores under most headings declined substantially. (Problem-solving ability also seemed to suffer as levels of volatile organic compounds rose.)" "2,000-5,000 ppm: level associated with headaches, sleepiness, and stagnant, stale, stuffy air; poor concentration, loss of attention, increased heart rate and slight nausea may also be present. > 5,000 ppm: This indicates unusual air conditions where high levels of other gases also could be present." "Based on preliminary analysis, the global average atmospheric carbon dioxide in 2020 was 412.5 parts per million (ppm for short), setting a new record high amount despite the economic slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic." hmm

sometimeshuman 5y ago
Many stressors have an adaptation phase. It is plausible those effects get reduced with prolonged exposure in humans although that wasn't necessarily the case in mice: "Long-term exposure of mice to 890 ppm atmospheric CO 2 alters growth trajectories and elicits hyperactive behaviours in young adulthood" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34731494/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34731494/
- lmilcin 5y ago
  I think I red a study, many years ago, about lowered performance in Mexico City due to their local higher CO2 concentration.
  - JamisonM 5y ago
    I feel like if it was many years ago lead pollution would be a nearly insurmountable confounder in such a study, but if you could find it I am sure it would be an interesting read.

sega_sai 5y ago

I've found the article so well written. It was a joy to read, notwithstanding the grim topic.

hh3k0 5y ago
I agree, it made me hope there'd be a way to pay for this particular article when I reach its end.
- selectodude 5y ago
  There is - get yourself a subscription to The New Yorker. This piece of long-form is not unusual for them.
  - hh3k0 5y ago
    That came to mind, of course. I even used to have one! I cancelled it at some point because a) I could no longer stomach reading about US politics and b) I'm generally not much of a subcription guy. I might eventually pick it up again.
fowkswe 5y ago
The New Yorker's climate coverage is fantastic and terrifying. Look for articles by Elizabeth Kolbert, particularly the one's she did back in '05 - The Climate of Man I, II and III

akeck 5y ago

It's the land version of the Clathrate Gun.

vermilingua 5y ago

The Newsroom said it best, "your house is burning to the ground, the situation is dire; your house has already burned to the ground, situation's over." [1] I don't see a way that we plausibly reverse course, when nearly every government, the people running them, and the private sector leaders are all just doing an end-run to accumulate as much as they can, planet be damned. Every "climate target" gets re-evaluated and pushed back every five years, and nobody seems to be held accountable for it. Barring moonshot tech breakthrough or militant scaling-down of consumption worldwide, how can we survive? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0uZ9mfOUI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0uZ9mfOUI

nelox 5y ago
What makes you think we deserve to survive?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
chillwaves 5y ago
After the coming resource\migration wars, some of this will sort itself out. Don't worry.
- jay_kyburz 5y ago
  I just realized that perhaps the problem is not global warming. Perhaps the problem is that we are having children. If we all just decided to stop having kids, nobody would care what the weather was like at the end of the century.
  - screenbreakout 5y ago
    With the right partner, kids (depending on how you see it) make you work less,(if you decide to take time to help them grow) enjoy life more (hilarious situations) and grow as a person (suppress your ego) The good thing is they grow up fast and are the closest thing to positive change we can potentially actively have a hand in... also according to book quoted on HN the upper limit of human population is 1 trillion... so all we really need to do is work less, stop useless packaging and wasteful bureaucracy, enjoy life more and eat better by transforming the junk food (glucose syrup, wheat, rye (beer u and meat agriculture into a refugee(from work) based garden of nuts fruits and veg Try watching a french film called Demain (Tomorrow) ...plenty of immediate great solutions out there

xwdv 5y ago

Once the permafrost starts melting off, there isn’t much time left for us. Hold your children tight, and comfort them for the rest of their short lives.

dukeofdoom 5y ago
Don't worry you'll be okay. Every culture had an end times prophecy.
- gremlinsinc 5y ago
  there's a difference between an end times prophecy and a confirmation that a planet killing asteroid will hit the earth in x months/years... there's ambiguity on how long we have left.. but we're headed towards extinction or nearly... maybe a few million survive to rebuild.. but life as we live today is completely unsustainable...
  - jay_kyburz 5y ago
    Yes, but if we apply ourselves, the life we live tomorrow can be both sustainable and better than what we have today.
Proven 5y ago

xrd 5y ago

Is it possible to live in isolated sealed compounds that protect us from all that carbon? Can we build filtration systems?

kragen 5y ago
The gases being released aren't toxic until a hundred times higher than current levels. Filtering out methane and CO₂ is routine for life-support systems in submarines, spacecraft, and, yes, bunkers, so it's not infeasible. The problem is that they cause global warming, not toxicity, and we can't build an isolated sealed compound to protect the planet from them.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  > The gases being released aren't toxic until a hundred times higher than current levels. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. Current atmospheric CO2 level is 400ppm which already has a measurable impact on performance on tasks (compared to 250ppm couple decades ago). Increasing it to just 1000ppm further degrades performance. And 2500ppm makes it difficult to concentrate on anything complex. Even slight increase in concentration could lead to drastic changes over time when you consider everybody gets a little dumber. https://skepticalscience.com/how-sapiens-in-the-world-of-high-co2-concentration.html https://skepticalscience.com/how-sapiens-in-the-world-of-hig... * EDIT: kragen, I am being throttled so here is my response to your below comment: When there is plenty arguments and scientific consensus to the contrary, and the person presents numbers obviously derived from thin air, I think it is fair to state the person does not know what they are talking about. Toxicology is a complex topic. But it is safe to say CO2 becomes toxic way before it becomes lethal. Which is to say you see adverse effects even before the concentration reaches lethal level. It may maybe take hundreds of times before it becomes immediately lethal but it is already toxic at about current concentration or 2-5 times current concentration, depending on who you ask, and not "hundreds of times" higher.
  - kragen 5y ago
    It's true that high CO₂ levels cause cognitive impairment, but submarines routinely operate for months in the 2000–5000 ppm range, sometimes as high as 13000 ppm, over 30 times higher than the current atmospheric level but still too low to kill people by about a factor of 8. Subtle cognitive impairments at these levels have been found by some researchers, while others have been unable to replicate them even at 30000 ppm: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29789085/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29789085/ https://www.nap.edu/read/11170/chapter/5#54 https://www.nap.edu/read/11170/chapter/5#54 That's why the NOAEL is set at 25000 ppm, at which point CO₂ starts to cause visual disturbances, which I think fall short of "toxicity"; it's more like a recreational drug effect. If the Earth's atmosphere reached 100 times the current level, 40000 ppm CO₂ (4%!), you still wouldn't have a CO₂ toxicity problem in humans. However, you probably wouldn't have a biosphere much longer either, and at that point toxicity to humans would be a moot point. Also, by the way, the quality of the discussion would probably be significantly improved without you saying, "You obviously have no idea what you are talking about." Sometimes people might disagree with you because they know things you don't, for example because their information doesn't come from science popularizers, rather than because they don't know things you do. If you don't keep that in mind, you are likely to embarrass yourself frequently. Believe me, I have a lot of experience doing that. Less sneering, please.

kleton 5y ago

Nominative determinism that might have been missed by non-Slavophones: Zimov would translate to (belonging to winter), like the English surname, Winters.

tyronehed 5y ago

This permafrost melt is what will finally kill us off.