What’s the date range here?
It is not particularly good. The ice melt on Greenland will be spectacular this year. It will be quite a sight.
The latest projections has 100% ocean ice melt in the summers in the Arctic within the next 17 years. We may not even make it that long.
What can be done to stop it?
Well, there’s a lot of nuance to how that should be answered. Climate variability has been around for as long as the earth has existed. And, timescales, and our existence within those timescales matter. For context; this is the climate trend in the last 420,000 years:
The current spike remains below “historical norms”. Think of dinosaurs roaming the tropical high latitudes in northern Canada as an example of how far we still have to potentially go. It is likely to continue to go up (overall) in response to the 3 main natural contributors to climate change: changes in the sun’s energy output, regular changes in the earth’s orbital cycle and large volcanic eruptions that dump particulates into the stratosphere with fluctuations in that overall mean slope increase.
Next is the change over the last 20,000 years or so since the last ice age. See that little spike right at the end? That’s us.
Last, here’s that spike in isolation over the last 2,000 years:
This graph shows the separation of natural and human forcing agents on the current upward spike. It’s pretty telling:
So, we are indeed having an impact on an already upward trend. One of the questions we have to ask ourselves is; is this a problem? We, as humans, tend to want things to stay the same. We crave the predictability that sameness provides. Yet, we live on a highly variable planet and our success, as a species, is based our our fantastic ability to adapt. So, I think the right question is not “what can be done to stop it”, it’s “what should we be doing with the limited resources we have”. Which leads to:
One of the other nuances is; should we even try to stop it? Doing so outside of the normal and expected advantageous advances in technology that are likely to move humanity away from fossil fuel use and its subsequent contribution to greenhouse gasses would be prohibitively expensive and ignore many of the key drivers of human behavior. If we, as a species, choose to devote the resources necessary to halt or reverse ageotropic human forcing on the climate (trillions of $$), it will come at a cost to other important areas: healthcare, housing, wealth generation, leisure, etc… Humans have shown time and again that making such long-term investments are not realistic, especially when the impact on their daily lives is immediate. We’ve also show that we will repeatedly make sort-term, self serving decisions that are at direct odds with the available weather data, even risking short-term wellness. Massive human living/working development in Tornado Alley is one. Massive development along Hurricane-prone areas is another. Given the backdrop that, with the current rate of technological change underway, our current destructive ageotropic impact is self-correcting, I just don’t see it happening. The question is, how bad will it get before those enabling technology changes take place and how much disruption will humanity have to endure. If the course of human history is any indication, the answer to both of those things is “quite high” but that is tempered by the fact that that history shows that humans are one of the most adaptable species to ever inhabit this planet. Yes, seas will rise. Yes, coastal communities will have to relocate. Yes, it’ll get less habitable in some places and more habitable in others and people will migrate in response. Just as has happened throughout the course of human history. So, I am inclined to say we should let the natural course of rapid technological advancement continue, which will ameliorate the need for fossil fuels, will lead the the generation of lab-grown meats and animal products and will lead to reforestation, just like is happening in Europe.
Apropos of nothing, I recently discovered this YouTube channel and it is fucking awesome. If you like Smarter Every Day, you’ll like this channel.
Probably my favorite video of his: a motorized, 3D tracking basketball hoop.
I hate you.
[dives into rabbit hole]
“The point of this robot is to impress my wife.”
That’s about as good a reason as there is, I guess.
@das that is the most thoughtful, nuanced, science and reality driven take on the subject I’ve ever seen.
It therefore has no place in today’s public discourse
Science denying is much easier than science understanding. To continue to paraphrase one of my favorite Ball Four quotes…“science is like church…many attend, few understand”.
The submersible vehicle meant to take people with more money than sense to see the Titanic is missing. I fear the worst. There are a number of systems that make the vessel surface, even in case of power failure. Once surfaced, they ought to be able to make radio contact with the tender ship. They should have surfaced by now, and I fear a hull breach.
In 1978 I worked on a supply boat that had been converted to a submersible tender. The Aquarius was our submersible and we launched it with a crane that had been welded to the deck. Two crewmen in a Zodiac inflatable attached and detached the crane hook. Aquarius didn’t dive anywhere near as deep as the Titanic, the two man crew would videotape pipeline crossings and platform risers. We had radio communication at the surface and sonar pings subsurface. We had the sonar occasionally drop out, but always radio once the vessel surfaced. Some anxious, but not too uncommon, moments until radio silence broke. I was part of the boat crew. The sub crew were two in Aquarius with about four more support on the surface and they were all professional divers. Craziest people I ever worked with.
I fear you are correct. Those “Titanic tourists” sleep with the fishes.
Every professional diver I ever worked with was absolutely, certifiably, batshit insane. I don’t know if it’s lack of oxygen or what, but those sumbitches were just nuts.
The sub was cobbled together with off-the-shelf parts and driven by a PS3 game controller. This is the most unserious, deadly serious thing ever.
https://twitter.com/David_Leavitt/status/1671127467354890240
A PS3 controller would’ve cost more and been better quality than that Logitech piece of shit.
It seems now that the submersible and crew are doomed. If it was a hull collapse, the end came almost instantly. If a leak, they had some time to contemplate; if fouled on nets or other debris, they had days to contemplate their decision.
I should say are still contemplating their decision as I think they have enough oxygen to still have a viable cabin.
I read that, unless something terrible happened, they had roughly 96 hours of life support.
But even if they made it back to the surface, they cannot open the sub from the inside, period. it’s all bolted shut from the outside.
Well this is morbid as hell.
Yes. Yes it is.
As someone who never learned how to swim, I’d rather run out of air than drown.
WTF? Why? The water pressure will keep it closed when submerged.
Standard flanges are cheaper.
