Obligatory Climate Change Thread or Are We Fucked?

A place for more serious off-topic discussion and debates.

Can we stop global warming before it is too late?

Yes, optimistic that we can
2
20%
No, pessimistic that we can't
6
60%
The universe is indifferent to our suffering, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
1
10%
yolo, sounds like a grandchildren kind of problem lol!
1
10%
 
Total votes: 10

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LelekPL wrote:
October 14th, 2020, 1:24 pm
Pratham wrote:
October 14th, 2020, 9:43 am
Nomis wrote:
October 14th, 2020, 5:21 am
I hope polar bears can emigrate, which they're also partly already doing but still. I guess besides the Russians the Orcas are going to be the apex predators in the north pole.
lol @ Russians thinking they can capitalize on climate change. For how long? 10 years? :facepalm:
Much much longer unfortunately. Climate change will not make the whole world a dystopia in 10 or 100 years. Climate in first world countries will likely not change that much. Economically it will be getting worse for this reason and many others but not a catastrophe immediately either. The climate refugee crisis will be building for a number of years as people become insensitive to the issue and will likely resent the influx of people which they'll see as the main problem for their comfortable lifestyle becoming less comfortable. More division and conflict will come with it. But it will take time before the shit hits the fan. What this year has taught us is that devastating consequences don't happen overnight and your life will more or less feel the same as you live through slowly but steadily growing hardship. Dystopia is as boring if not more for first world passive observers than normalcy.
I wish I had your optimism :ninja:

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Hello NF, here's your daily dose of anxiety and dread.
Braving the elements like this is part of essential research: Sea ice is a bellwether of the climate change in the Arctic. Due to our ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions, the Arctic surface air temperatures have been warming rapidly — at twice the rate of the global average.

Historically, during the winter, sea ice has covered a vast swath of the Arctic Ocean, which fills much of the Arctic Circle. But as temperatures rise, it has been shrinking 12 percent every decade since measurements began in 1979.

Sea ice coverage fluctuates seasonally, hitting a low in September before forming again as temperatures drop in the fall — and expanding again by two to three times by the end of the winter in March. Webster and her team surveyed the summer conditions and the beginning of the “re-freeze.” But this year, that regrowth has been slower than ever. As October comes to a close, sea ice is at its lowest level for the month in recorded history.

Changes in the ice are part of a larger “cascade effect,” as Webster describes it, in which delayed winter ice growth leads to thinner ice, which melts more easily in the summer months compared to older, thicker sea ice. This creates more open ocean.

This transformation contributes to both regional and global warming. Where a white sea ice surface would have reflected sunlight, the dark water absorbs heat, which further reduces ice growth. This change in albedo (or reflectivity) on sea and land in the Arctic is one of the main reasons the region is heating at twice the global average rate, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2019 Arctic Report Card. According to the recent Nature Communications study, it will also be a significant contributor to global warming.

Near Greenland — which holds a massive ice sheet — the warming loop set off by sea ice loss has a minor effect on its warming, but not a substantial effect on the ice sheet itself, researchers found in a 2019 study in Geophysical Research Letters.

The sea ice shift could also impact seasonal weather, potentially intensifying extreme weather. However, Labe says the issue requires further research. “Scientists are actively studying the connections between Arctic sea ice loss and wintertime weather patterns in North America, Europe, and Asia,” he said. “However, these relationships remain highly uncertain in the scientific literature and for seasonal weather forecasts.”
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https://www.vox.com/21536859/arctic-sea ... ars-charts
Scientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean – known as the “sleeping giants of the carbon cycle” – have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast, the Guardian can reveal.

High levels of the potent greenhouse gas have been detected down to a depth of 350 metres in the Laptev Sea near Russia, prompting concern among researchers that a new climate feedback loop may have been triggered that could accelerate the pace of global heating.

The slope sediments in the Arctic contain a huge quantity of frozen methane and other gases – known as hydrates. Methane has a warming effect 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years. The United States Geological Survey has previously listed Arctic hydrate destabilisation as one of four most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change.

The scientists – who are part of a multi-year International Shelf Study Expedition – stressed their findings were preliminary. The scale of methane releases will not be confirmed until they return, analyse the data and have their studies published in a peer-reviewed journal.

But the discovery of potentially destabilised slope frozen methane raises concerns that a new tipping point has been reached that could increase the speed of global heating.

The Arctic is considered ground zero in the debate about the vulnerability of frozen methane deposits in the ocean.

With the Arctic temperature now rising more than twice as fast as the global average, the question of when – or even whether – they will be released into the atmosphere has been a matter of considerable uncertainty in climate computer models.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... tists-find

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LelekPL wrote:
October 14th, 2020, 1:24 pm
Pratham wrote:
October 14th, 2020, 9:43 am
Nomis wrote:
October 14th, 2020, 5:21 am
I hope polar bears can emigrate, which they're also partly already doing but still. I guess besides the Russians the Orcas are going to be the apex predators in the north pole.
lol @ Russians thinking they can capitalize on climate change. For how long? 10 years? :facepalm:
Much much longer unfortunately. Climate change will not make the whole world a dystopia in 10 or 100 years. Climate in first world countries will likely not change that much. Economically it will be getting worse for this reason and many others but not a catastrophe immediately either. The climate refugee crisis will be building for a number of years as people become insensitive to the issue and will likely resent the influx of people which they'll see as the main problem for their comfortable lifestyle becoming less comfortable. More division and conflict will come with it. But it will take time before the shit hits the fan. What this year has taught us is that devastating consequences don't happen overnight and your life will more or less feel the same as you live through slowly but steadily growing hardship. Dystopia is as boring if not more for first world passive observers than normalcy.
I think this is the main problem. If the climate had changed dramatically, natural disasters would have hit us massively, then the number of victims would probably make us think about how we live, how we exploit the resources of our planet and deplete it. After all, even now it is banal to open temperature charts by region, you can see that the climate is changing. For example, there is an area in which at the beginning of November there was usually already snow, light frost. And now the weather is warm in the same area. And this is not an isolated case, but a trend in recent years. On the one hand, this may be good, but on the other, what will happen if the soil melts in regions where there was permafrost? Perhaps, some infections will be reactivated, for which we are completely unprepared. From somewhere on our heads took COVID. Where is the guarantee that no more rubbish will appear? I really hope that over time, humanity will come to its senses and will help in this observation from near-earth orbit. Therefore, I watch with interest the development of such new companies as the aerospace company in UK. I believe that accurate data on changes will help us live right, without destroying the planet and ourselves.

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:lol: :lol: :lol:

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'The worst is yet to come': Draft UN climate report warns of drastic changes over 30 years
Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas -- these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.

The choices societies make now will determine whether our species thrives or simply survives as the 21st century unfolds, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says in a draft report seen exclusively by AFP.

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'This Isn’t a Heatwave — It’s a Dying Planet
Much of the Pacific Northwest is trapped under what climate scientists are calling a “heat dome.” It stretches up and down the coast. Temperatures have rocketed off the charts. It was 115 degrees in Portland, Oregon. That’s hotter than Cairo, Egypt, or Karachi, Pakistan.

This is a region of the world that should be temperate and cool — not boiling hot. But it’s trapped under a “heat dome,” which is a huge region of high pressure, that creates an effect literally akin to a pressure cooker. Yesterday’s “heat waves” — a few days of higher than normal temperatures are giving way to “heat domes” — something much more catastrophic, as the planet warms beyond all recognition, in ways profound hostile to us.

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Dobson wrote:
June 24th, 2021, 5:38 pm
'The worst is yet to come': Draft UN climate report warns of drastic changes over 30 years
Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas -- these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.

The choices societies make now will determine whether our species thrives or simply survives as the 21st century unfolds, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says in a draft report seen exclusively by AFP.
This is a terrible problem, only many pretend that it does not exist. Humanity urgently needs to stop mutilating and killing the planet, otherwise it will not end well.

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Greenhouse gas emissions must peak within 4 years, says leaked UN report
Global greenhouse gas emissions must peak in the next four years, coal and gas-fired power plants must close in the next decade and lifestyle and behavioural changes will be needed to avoid climate breakdown, according to the leaked draft of a report from the world’s leading authority on climate science. [...]

The report underlines the lifestyle changes that will be necessary, particularly in rich countries and among the wealthy globally. Refraining from over-heating or over-cooling homes, walking and cycling, cutting air travel and using energy-consuming appliances less can all contribute significantly to the reductions in emissions needed, the report finds.

Eating patterns in many parts of the rich world will also need to change. “A shift to diets with a higher share of plant-based protein in regions with excess consumption of calories and animal-source food can lead to substantial reductions in emissions, while also providing health benefits … Plant-based diets can reduce emissions by up to 50% compared to the average emission intensive western diet,” the report says.
Scientists urge end to fossil fuel use as landmark IPCC report readied
The world must abandon fossil fuels as a matter of urgency, rather than entrusting the future climate to untried “techno-fixes” such as sucking carbon out of the air, scientists and campaigners have urged, as governments wrangled over last-minute changes to a landmark scientific report. [...]

Governments have been accused of trying to water down the scientists’ findings, originally due to be published early on Monday but – after delays and disagreements on Sunday – postponed by six hours to later the same day. [...]

Nikki Reisch, the director of the energy and climate programme at the Center for International Environmental Law, said governments should be clear: “There is no room for more oil and gas full stop. [Some businesses] want to perpetuate the myth that we can carry on using fossil fuels. But we need a just transition away from fossil fuels, not techno-fixes.”
Climate change: IPCC scientists say it's 'now or never' to limit warming
First, the bad news - even if all the policies to cut carbon that governments had put in place by the end of 2020 were fully implemented, the world will still warm by 3.2C this century. [...]

That sort of temperature rise would see our planet hit by "unprecedented heatwaves, terrifying storms, and widespread water shortages". To avoid that fate, the world must keep the rise in temperatures at or under 1.5C this century, say researchers. [...]

But keeping temperatures down will require massive changes to energy production, industry, transport, our consumption patterns and the way we treat nature. To stay under 1.5C, according to the IPCC, means that carbon emissions from everything that we do, buy, use or eat must peak by 2025, and tumble rapidly after that, reaching net-zero by the middle of this century.

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Methane Feedback Loop Beyond Humans' Ability to Control May Have Begun—NOAA
Lan said that because the Earth's climate is already warming the methane produced from natural wetlands is only set to increase. This signals the beginning of a feedback loop—an ongoing cycle that cannot be broken.

"From natural processes, we know that wetland methane emissions are sensitive to change in precipitation and temperature," she said. "Methane production from microbes increases with increases in global temperature which is driven by long-term greenhouse gas emissions. More atmospheric methane, in turn, can further warm up the earth. That's the feedback loop we are referring to."
There it is again, that funny feeling.

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