6 ms·

No, the story is that we begin the melting by raising the earth's temperature a little. You'd think that if we reduced our carbon emissions, the ice would stop

No, the story is that we begin the melting by raising the earth's temperature a little. You'd think that if we reduced our carbon emissions, the ice would stop melting. > But once the ice crosses the threshold, it would inevitably continue to melt Bear in mind that the atmosphere retains carbon dioxide for ~50 years, that other melt events are dumping methane into the atmosphere from permafrost. It's not just one factor heating the planet.

realworldperson 4y ago
[dead]
graeme 4y ago
>You'd think that if we reduced our carbon emissions, the ice would stop melting. People think of climate change like a river. You reduce emissions, you reduce the size of the emissions, you reduce the size of the problem. But it's more like a bathtub. Emissions are the water filling the tub, but the real problem is the water level already in the tub. If you reduce emissions, you reduce the size of the flow into the tub. But....water is still flowing in and the water is still rising. If we had zero emissions it would take earth systems much much longer than 50 years to bring things back down to where they were.
- peteradio 4y ago
  Filling a bath tub requires active control, are you saying humans need to actively control the climate of the entire earth?
  - graeme 4y ago
    Suppose a tub was best at two inches of water, got worse for every inch, and overflowed at four feet. And you had turned on the tap and there is now three feet of water. You propose: 1. Reducing the rate of the tap 2. Turning off the tap 3. Turning off the tap and removing water until it gets back to two inches Most people think of climate change prevention as #1. #3 is what actually gets you back to ideal. But if you get back to that level and then leave the tap off, things are fine and no active management is required.
  - bradgessler 4y ago
    I don’t understand the bathtub analogy, but I will say it should be a goal of humanity to control the climate of the entire earth. The alternative is we don’t and are forever at the whim of what Earth and the solar system decides to throw at us. I’ve found this argument to be appealing to people on both sides of the climate change debate.
    - fennecfoxy 4y ago
      I agree tbh, a modern focus is one of conservation; what better way to guarantee the ongoing proliferation of various species other than being able to control the environment they live in. Controlling the climate (and by that of course we mean very carefully holding it at what it should be) benefits all life on the planet.
upsidesinclude 4y ago
>have to remain elevated for hundreds of years or even longer for this feedback loop to become effective. To further reiterate: hundreds of years or even longer for this feedback loop to become effective.
- seadan83 4y ago
  Said another way, within two full human lifetimes the planets climate could further be irreversibly changed locking in 23 feet of sea level rise from Greenland alone. Though, generally for emissions we are talking about a first order derivative. Just because you've slowed down from 100 to 50 does not mean you won't still run out of roadway. So, if we are a hair away from that tippingpoint, and magically go to zero emissions, we'll still hit the tipping point. Hence, it's not two lifetimes, but that is the total runway left so far for this. You can also consider the other extreme where CO2 is dumped into the atmosphere that everything shortens up. Another analogy, boil some water, put it off the burner, drop a small amount if ice in the water. The water won't cool off fast enough for the ice to not melt. It may take 10 minutes for that to happen, but the point of no return was when the water started at a boil.
  - upsidesinclude 4y ago
    You and the models of climate 200 hundred years hence have no actual idea of what will occur. You will be dead, however and this is certain. It is baffling to me that it is a concern to you or frankly anyone that is not of extraordinary wealth. Why? I tell you why: all effective measures at "reducing climate change" (very status quo) will unquestionably make life more laborious and less comfortable for the lower 98% of humanity. Our sacrifices will permit the 2% (or fewer) extravagance beyond what we've ever seen. The permafrost will melt unleashing massive forests worth of growth, huge swaths of frozen soil will become inhabitable and fertile. The ancestors of the Americas lived on the coast, 400 feet below today's surf. No one lamenting the old huts weve lost along the way
    - seadan83 4y ago
      > You and the models of climate 200 hundred years hence have no actual idea of what will occur This seems like an "attack the messenger" argument. If there is enough global heating to melt the ice sheets over Greenland - the climate would be different. 1000 years ago, the climate of the Earth was not melting the ice sheets of Greenland. Now that they are on track to melt, that is different. I only said the climate would be changed. Beyond this, the article is very well presenting a model of what would happen to Greenland's ice sheets over centuries. Otherwise, in my comment, I'm paraphrasing the conclusions of the article and giving explanatory examples which are based on thermodynamics and what was concluded in the article. It's not my opinion (and so making this personal is irrelevant). Otherwise you're free to contradict the validity of the model, you could have a very good research paper if you could nitpick how the article is flawed. Otherwise, saying "the models have no idea" is either nihilistic or ignorant and is very reductive. It's like saying, "I'm projecting my finances to go to zero in a year based on the current trajectory. Bah, why change anything, who knows what will happen a year from now!" > It is baffling to me that it is a concern to you or frankly anyone that is not of extraordinary wealth. - Why would the non wealthy be any less concerned about their great grand children than would be the wealthy? - Is concern for future generations of humans and every other species on the plant baffling to you? > Why? I tell you why: all effective measures at "reducing climate change" (very status quo) will unquestionably make life more laborious and less comfortable for the lower 98% of humanity. Our sacrifices will permit the 2% (or fewer) extravagance beyond what we've ever seen. That is your opinion. To share my opinion, I find that "comfortable" way of life to not be entirely satisfactory. That way of life (industrialized capitalism, eg: Japan or the USA) leads to high rates of suicide, depression, poor environment (polluted airs, roadways, rivers) to all be very unsatisfactory (IMO). I recall how clean the air became when there were no jets and no cars on the road for as little as one week, and that was quite pleasing. You're also assuming that the needed changes are going to require _your_ personal sacrifice. If we, as normal people, can effectively adopt mass transit, electric cars; the rest of the needed changes are from industry. > Our sacrifices will permit the 2% (or fewer) extravagance beyond what we've ever seen. This is provided with no evidence and is not a logical conclusion from any of your previous statements. It's already the case that a minority are causing an disproportionate amount of emissions. In some ways, how is this not already the case? If that is already the case, then the "sacrifices" are not relevant to the "extravagance" of the 2% (our sacrifices are not a necessary and sufficient condition for that extravagance, the two are independent of each other given that extravagance seems to exist today without those sacrifices) > The permafrost will melt unleashing massive forests worth of growth, huge swaths of frozen soil will become inhabitable and fertile. I think you meant habitable? Beyond this, this seems like a disingenuous argument since you stated earlier that no model knows what the climate will be like in 200 years - therefore how can we conclude the permafrost would melt? Though, taking the nihilism aside, permafrost melting would be another tipping point. This article describes another tipping point that also exists. But, the growth of forests is not a given (so, it's not necessarily the case that we can all just shift north & south). For example, there is a C02 level (around 1300ppm) that could be reached that could cause cumulus clouds to no longer form [0]. At that point, we're not getting massive forests but instead earth would be on track to be a hot-house planet (eg: Venus) > The ancestors of the Americas lived on the coast, 400 feet below today's surf. No one lamenting the old huts weve lost along the way No, but it is lamentable that Buffalo, Wolfs, bears have nearly disappeared along with bio-diversity and a lot of first growth forests. Looking at satellite pictures, it's quite amazing how much clear cutting has taken place; and travelling through those clear cuts is depressing. I personally lament this loss. So, just as we can lament the destruction of environment from those 400 years ago (more 200 years ago really), people 200 years in the future will lament us ruining the environment for them. We may disagree, but I prefer to be a steward of the environment rather than wreck it for the sake of marginal "comfort". [0] https://www.carbonbrief.org/extreme-co2-levels-could-trigger-clouds-tipping-point-and-8c-of-global-warming/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/extreme-co2-levels-could-trigger...
tzs 4y ago
> Bear in mind that the atmosphere retains carbon dioxide for ~50 years It's 300-1000 years [1]. [1] https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-...
- hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  Good thing plants eat carbon dioxide then, so we don't need to wait for it to break down by itself. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more plants grow and convert it to oxygen.
  - gridspy 4y ago
    Plants only store the CO2 until they decompose a relatively short time later. The only way to end up with a net decrease in CO2 this way is to bury the plants deep. Of course that is the process that initially created coal.
    - thriftwy 4y ago
      We could also start treating timber so that it would last and then build houses out of it. Too bad we're not doing it enough.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    You can see the earth "breathing" CO2 in this data. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ The amplitude of the world's natural CO2 cycle is on par with about 1.5 years of anthropogenic emission. Which is certainly impressive, but it's cylic and fairly steady. Plants are not growing fast enough to support the fantasy you describe.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    The carbon cycle is an interesting and complicated subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle TLDR is that a large part of the carbon we dump into the atmosphere is only removed by geological processes that take hundreds or thousands of years.

realworldperson 4y ago

[dead]

graeme 4y ago

>You'd think that if we reduced our carbon emissions, the ice would stop melting. People think of climate change like a river. You reduce emissions, you reduce the size of the emissions, you reduce the size of the problem. But it's more like a bathtub. Emissions are the water filling the tub, but the real problem is the water level already in the tub. If you reduce emissions, you reduce the size of the flow into the tub. But....water is still flowing in and the water is still rising. If we had zero emissions it would take earth systems much much longer than 50 years to bring things back down to where they were.

peteradio 4y ago
Filling a bath tub requires active control, are you saying humans need to actively control the climate of the entire earth?
- graeme 4y ago
  Suppose a tub was best at two inches of water, got worse for every inch, and overflowed at four feet. And you had turned on the tap and there is now three feet of water. You propose: 1. Reducing the rate of the tap 2. Turning off the tap 3. Turning off the tap and removing water until it gets back to two inches Most people think of climate change prevention as #1. #3 is what actually gets you back to ideal. But if you get back to that level and then leave the tap off, things are fine and no active management is required.
- bradgessler 4y ago
  I don’t understand the bathtub analogy, but I will say it should be a goal of humanity to control the climate of the entire earth. The alternative is we don’t and are forever at the whim of what Earth and the solar system decides to throw at us. I’ve found this argument to be appealing to people on both sides of the climate change debate.
  - fennecfoxy 4y ago
    I agree tbh, a modern focus is one of conservation; what better way to guarantee the ongoing proliferation of various species other than being able to control the environment they live in. Controlling the climate (and by that of course we mean very carefully holding it at what it should be) benefits all life on the planet.

upsidesinclude 4y ago

>have to remain elevated for hundreds of years or even longer for this feedback loop to become effective. To further reiterate: hundreds of years or even longer for this feedback loop to become effective.

seadan83 4y ago
Said another way, within two full human lifetimes the planets climate could further be irreversibly changed locking in 23 feet of sea level rise from Greenland alone. Though, generally for emissions we are talking about a first order derivative. Just because you've slowed down from 100 to 50 does not mean you won't still run out of roadway. So, if we are a hair away from that tippingpoint, and magically go to zero emissions, we'll still hit the tipping point. Hence, it's not two lifetimes, but that is the total runway left so far for this. You can also consider the other extreme where CO2 is dumped into the atmosphere that everything shortens up. Another analogy, boil some water, put it off the burner, drop a small amount if ice in the water. The water won't cool off fast enough for the ice to not melt. It may take 10 minutes for that to happen, but the point of no return was when the water started at a boil.
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  You and the models of climate 200 hundred years hence have no actual idea of what will occur. You will be dead, however and this is certain. It is baffling to me that it is a concern to you or frankly anyone that is not of extraordinary wealth. Why? I tell you why: all effective measures at "reducing climate change" (very status quo) will unquestionably make life more laborious and less comfortable for the lower 98% of humanity. Our sacrifices will permit the 2% (or fewer) extravagance beyond what we've ever seen. The permafrost will melt unleashing massive forests worth of growth, huge swaths of frozen soil will become inhabitable and fertile. The ancestors of the Americas lived on the coast, 400 feet below today's surf. No one lamenting the old huts weve lost along the way
  - seadan83 4y ago
    > You and the models of climate 200 hundred years hence have no actual idea of what will occur This seems like an "attack the messenger" argument. If there is enough global heating to melt the ice sheets over Greenland - the climate would be different. 1000 years ago, the climate of the Earth was not melting the ice sheets of Greenland. Now that they are on track to melt, that is different. I only said the climate would be changed. Beyond this, the article is very well presenting a model of what would happen to Greenland's ice sheets over centuries. Otherwise, in my comment, I'm paraphrasing the conclusions of the article and giving explanatory examples which are based on thermodynamics and what was concluded in the article. It's not my opinion (and so making this personal is irrelevant). Otherwise you're free to contradict the validity of the model, you could have a very good research paper if you could nitpick how the article is flawed. Otherwise, saying "the models have no idea" is either nihilistic or ignorant and is very reductive. It's like saying, "I'm projecting my finances to go to zero in a year based on the current trajectory. Bah, why change anything, who knows what will happen a year from now!" > It is baffling to me that it is a concern to you or frankly anyone that is not of extraordinary wealth. - Why would the non wealthy be any less concerned about their great grand children than would be the wealthy? - Is concern for future generations of humans and every other species on the plant baffling to you? > Why? I tell you why: all effective measures at "reducing climate change" (very status quo) will unquestionably make life more laborious and less comfortable for the lower 98% of humanity. Our sacrifices will permit the 2% (or fewer) extravagance beyond what we've ever seen. That is your opinion. To share my opinion, I find that "comfortable" way of life to not be entirely satisfactory. That way of life (industrialized capitalism, eg: Japan or the USA) leads to high rates of suicide, depression, poor environment (polluted airs, roadways, rivers) to all be very unsatisfactory (IMO). I recall how clean the air became when there were no jets and no cars on the road for as little as one week, and that was quite pleasing. You're also assuming that the needed changes are going to require _your_ personal sacrifice. If we, as normal people, can effectively adopt mass transit, electric cars; the rest of the needed changes are from industry. > Our sacrifices will permit the 2% (or fewer) extravagance beyond what we've ever seen. This is provided with no evidence and is not a logical conclusion from any of your previous statements. It's already the case that a minority are causing an disproportionate amount of emissions. In some ways, how is this not already the case? If that is already the case, then the "sacrifices" are not relevant to the "extravagance" of the 2% (our sacrifices are not a necessary and sufficient condition for that extravagance, the two are independent of each other given that extravagance seems to exist today without those sacrifices) > The permafrost will melt unleashing massive forests worth of growth, huge swaths of frozen soil will become inhabitable and fertile. I think you meant habitable? Beyond this, this seems like a disingenuous argument since you stated earlier that no model knows what the climate will be like in 200 years - therefore how can we conclude the permafrost would melt? Though, taking the nihilism aside, permafrost melting would be another tipping point. This article describes another tipping point that also exists. But, the growth of forests is not a given (so, it's not necessarily the case that we can all just shift north & south). For example, there is a C02 level (around 1300ppm) that could be reached that could cause cumulus clouds to no longer form [0]. At that point, we're not getting massive forests but instead earth would be on track to be a hot-house planet (eg: Venus) > The ancestors of the Americas lived on the coast, 400 feet below today's surf. No one lamenting the old huts weve lost along the way No, but it is lamentable that Buffalo, Wolfs, bears have nearly disappeared along with bio-diversity and a lot of first growth forests. Looking at satellite pictures, it's quite amazing how much clear cutting has taken place; and travelling through those clear cuts is depressing. I personally lament this loss. So, just as we can lament the destruction of environment from those 400 years ago (more 200 years ago really), people 200 years in the future will lament us ruining the environment for them. We may disagree, but I prefer to be a steward of the environment rather than wreck it for the sake of marginal "comfort". [0] https://www.carbonbrief.org/extreme-co2-levels-could-trigger-clouds-tipping-point-and-8c-of-global-warming/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/extreme-co2-levels-could-trigger...

tzs 4y ago

> Bear in mind that the atmosphere retains carbon dioxide for ~50 years It's 300-1000 years [1]. [1] https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-...

hypertele-Xii 4y ago
Good thing plants eat carbon dioxide then, so we don't need to wait for it to break down by itself. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more plants grow and convert it to oxygen.
- gridspy 4y ago
  Plants only store the CO2 until they decompose a relatively short time later. The only way to end up with a net decrease in CO2 this way is to bury the plants deep. Of course that is the process that initially created coal.
  - thriftwy 4y ago
    We could also start treating timber so that it would last and then build houses out of it. Too bad we're not doing it enough.
- klyrs 4y ago
  You can see the earth "breathing" CO2 in this data. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ The amplitude of the world's natural CO2 cycle is on par with about 1.5 years of anthropogenic emission. Which is certainly impressive, but it's cylic and fairly steady. Plants are not growing fast enough to support the fantasy you describe.
- adrianN 4y ago
  The carbon cycle is an interesting and complicated subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle TLDR is that a large part of the carbon we dump into the atmosphere is only removed by geological processes that take hundreds or thousands of years.