Conspiracy theories surrounding human influenced climate change, what's up with that?


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Wrath wrote:

I ride a push bike to work, five days a week.

My car runs on e10 fuel, which 10% ethanol. This burns cleaner than most fuels and emits less CO2.

My car gets 10km per litre, driving in the city. It gets closer to 12km when driving on more open roads.

In essence, I'm causing less carbon foot print than an EV which currently requires mains power to charge. Mains power derived from coal burning in Queensland, where I live.

I run solar panels on my roof.
I recycle everything possible.
I have sky lights to minimise light use.
I run ceiling fans more than air con. I wouldn't even use these if my house got natural breeze, but it doesn't.
I have a large capacity rain water tank, the pump of which runs off solar rather than mains ( if there's been enough sunlight).

I am in fact, doing everything within my fiscal means to reduce my carbon foot print.

I think you need to broaden your ideas Quark.

Perhaps, but except your reply I'm getting crickets here on the EV thing.

How many times have you traveled using jet airliners? Massive carbon footprint there for what you get. And if you're traveling for vacation... well, we're back to "meh, humans" again. :)

Also, recycling "everything" may not reduce the carbon footprint. Like charging an EV in a place that gets electricity from coal, recycling some stuff creates more waste than simply sending it to a modern landfill or trash burner.


Quark Blast wrote:

Segway counts if you use it in a way that directly reduces your use of a gas powered vehicle.

The Gator counts if it's actually an EV and you use it in a way that directly reduces your use of a gas powered vehicle.

This thread is populated by people who (nominally) care about Climate Change yet seemingly none of us own an EV.

Humans, gotta love 'em.

I can't afford it. The cost increase for my electricity is literally higher than the local cost of gas. Solar isn't an option because much of the city is also heavily wooded, including my area. I would have to cut down all of the trees in my yard, and neighbors would have to cut down some in their's. This would also increase my electricity usage of a summer.

And wind turbines are locally illegal.

End of the day, going with an EV would probably result in the same total carbon footprint for me as staying with a gas vehicle.

I am campaigning against the wind ban, but so far no luck.

The Exchange

Yeah, never travelled overseas nor interstate by airline. I've been on a small prob plane for travel from central Queensland back to Brisbane three times.

I'm not doing too badly here Quark.

But you are right in one way. Individuals will only do as much as they can comfortably afford. That's why research keeps happening, to make alternates cheap enough to afford on mass.

It'll happen.

Can I say that my high school science teacher was aware of the greenhouse effect back in 1988. He taught me back then about the temp changes that would screw us over.

Scientists have known since the 70s.

Mass public are only hearing about this now because we are actually seeing manifestations of it that can longer be denied nor hushed up by big companies.

We were beyond the point of prevention more than ten years ago, and all the scientists knew it. No one listened. There was no money in it.

What we are doing now is aiming to minimise the impact by slowing it, and eventually, with luck, reversing it a bit.

I'm not actually sure of any ones age on here, but I suspect some of have lived your entire lives in an effectively doomed ecosystem. '89 was near on 30 years ago. And my teacher knew then we were screwed.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
Perhaps, but except your reply I'm getting crickets here on the EV thing.

I've got a hybrid. My third.

My next car will be an EV, a self-driving vehicle, or a self-driving EV... depending on how long it takes the current hybrid to die.


Wrath wrote:

Yeah, never travelled overseas nor interstate by airline. I've been on a small prob plane for travel from central Queensland back to Brisbane three times.

I'm not doing too badly here Quark.

But you are right in one way. Individuals will only do as much as they can comfortably afford. That's why research keeps happening, to make alternates cheap enough to afford on mass.

It'll happen.

Can I say that my high school science teacher was aware of the greenhouse effect back in 1988. He taught me back then about the temp changes that would screw us over.

Scientists have known since the 70s.

Mass public are only hearing about this now because we are actually seeing manifestations of it that can longer be denied nor hushed up by big companies.

We were beyond the point of prevention more than ten years ago, and all the scientists knew it. No one listened. There was no money in it.

What we are doing now is aiming to minimise the impact by slowing it, and eventually, with luck, reversing it a bit.

I'm not actually sure of any ones age on here, but I suspect some of have lived your entire lives in an effectively doomed ecosystem. '89 was near on 30 years ago. And my teacher knew then we were screwed.

Well good. Also glad you didn't take my last post too personal. I got told (off line) I was a little harsh.

Putting that same point another way:

Do the Chinese want to live like us?
Yes.

Do the Indians want to live like us?
Yes.

Do the southeast Asians want to live like us?
Yes.

Do the Africans want to live like us?
Yes.

Do south and central Americans want to live like us?
Yes.

Okay then. Even if we all go "green" with our electrical production, the carbon footprint of 7 billion+ green-living peoples will be loading our atmosphere with more CO2 than we are today.

In short, doing what "we can comfortably afford" isn't going to cut it.

But it looks like you already know that. And it's not like the other pieces of the puzzle are going to get better either. For example, anyone here going veg to save the planet? Or even just cutting Palm Oil out of your diet?

Yeah, well, neither will the Chinese, the Indians, etc. etc. ... 7 billion+ other "no"s... meh, humans.

To CB:
Hybrids are good but if you are on your 3rd may I ask if you really need to drive that much?


Quark Blast wrote:
But it looks like you already know that. And it's not like the other pieces of the puzzle are going to get better either. For example, anyone here going veg to save the planet? Or even just cutting Palm Oil out of your diet?

Going veg won't make the cows, pigs, and other animals like that magically disappear. If anything, it'll mean they live longer. That, in turn, will increase the individual lifelong carbon footprint of each animal.

There's also the question of where we'll get the fertilizer for the extra crops we'll need to grow. Sticking with current methods means CO2 levels will grow anyway just due to needing to produce more fertilizers. And going natural means we're going to need a lot more cows.

Going veg is probably the worst thing you can do for the environment when you look at total impact. The current method is still a bad impact, but at current we don't have any alternatives that either are not worse or don't amount to intentionally starving part of the population to death.

Pretty much, the only way to reduce the impact of our food raising practices to the point it's sane is to reduce the world's population. About five billion people dying should do the trick.

A major problem I have with most "go green" solutions is how much misinformation there is about what is and what is not green. There's a lot of biodegradable materials that definitely are not green.


So, everybody wants to live like the U.S...

Following that train of thought, if the U.S. goes green and renewable, then everybody will want to go green and renewable. The U.S. can continue to be a trend setter.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
Hybrids are good but if you are on your 3rd may I ask if you really need to drive that much?

I don't drive much... ~325 miles per week.

I got the original Prius when it first came out and drove it until it died. Next car got totaled (while parked). Have had the third for a few years now... considered going EV instead, but they were new and either poor range or super expensive.


Scythia wrote:
So, everybody wants to live like the U.S...

Yes, in all the ways that count when looking at the anthropogenic CO2 load on our atmosphere.

CB
That makes you right around average, assuming you are male and live in the USA
Average Male = 16,550
Average Female = 10,142
Average Total = 13,476


CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
Hybrids are good but if you are on your 3rd may I ask if you really need to drive that much?

I don't drive much... ~325 miles per week.

I got the original Prius when it first came out and drove it until it died. Next car got totaled (while parked). Have had the third for a few years now... considered going EV instead, but they were new and either poor range or super expensive.

I don't think people realize that Hybrids have been out long enough for them to die of old age at the same time as every other car their age. Hell, by this point it wouldn't be hard to kill 2 to mileage.


Caineach wrote:
CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
Hybrids are good but if you are on your 3rd may I ask if you really need to drive that much?

I don't drive much... ~325 miles per week.

I got the original Prius when it first came out and drove it until it died. Next car got totaled (while parked). Have had the third for a few years now... considered going EV instead, but they were new and either poor range or super expensive.

I don't think people realize that Hybrids have been out long enough for them to die of old age at the same time as every other car their age. Hell, by this point it wouldn't be hard to kill 2 to mileage.

Yep, my folks bought one of the very first. The 2001 Honda Insight. My dad had a 50 mile each way trip to work everyday. That one got 100,000 miles in a hurry (less than 5 years.) They downgraded its service status to "2nd" car and bought a light truck. In 2013 they retired both and since they are both retired just bought a Mitsubishi Outlander and 2 motorcycles.

Point is, my folks' hybrid was 5 vechicles ago.


I heard a rumor from some some untrustworthy sources that because the Antarctic isn't melting as fast as it is in the Arctic, that Global Warming isn't being caused by humans, rather the tilt/angle of the earth combined with some emissions.

Anyone else think that's crap or is that just me?


Thomas Seitz wrote:

I heard a rumor from some some untrustworthy sources that because the Antarctic isn't melting as fast as it is in the Arctic, that Global Warming isn't being caused by humans, rather the tilt/angle of the earth combined with some emissions.

Anyone else think that's crap or is that just me?

It is crap. The Arctic and Antarctica are different in almost every way. About the only similarity is that there's ice.

It would be like using cold weather on Mars to say global warming isn't happening.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Thanks Caineach and BigDTBone.

You guys are right that I did not realize the Prius was first out in 1997 (2000 for the USA)! Looks like there were other earlier ones in California of various makes/models but were each only selling in the 100's final total after 2-3 years. Not a good start.

Still, my larger point was this:

Let's say everyone is as diligent as CB is in regards to his carbon footprint. As I said up thread everyone wants to be like us - they want modern convenience, even when that convenience isn't convenient. People! I know! <eyeroll> But until they get what they later realize they don't want, they'll be hankering for it something powerful.

When you multiple CB's diligently "small" CO2 load on the atmosphere by the the 7.5 billion that are out there, what do you get?

While I can't give you an exact number, I'll bet my favorite set of dice that the CO2 load would exceed the current level by an order of magnitude or more.

Assuming AGW causes even half the bad things scientists say it will, there is no good way forward this side of nuclear fusion. We as a species will take what we want, call our greed "Not much, just what I got come'n... it's only fair", and burn our house down while sleeping in it all at the same time.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Crusinos,

I thought as much. I just thought I'd ask. I smelled crap but wasn't sure of the flavor.

Liberty's Edge

QB, why is a clean energy technology which isn't technically or financially viable (i.e. fusion) a better 'way forward' then two (i.e. wind and solar) which ARE?

Thomas Seitz, as it happens Arctic and Antarctic sea ice have BOTH been at record minimums since October. That being said, Crusinos is right about the conditions and factors influencing each being completely different... indeed pretty much inverse. The Arctic is an ocean with ice a few meters thick surrounded by land... the Antarctic is a land mass with ice a few MILES thick surrounded by ocean. It's like comparing apples and the 'polar opposite' of apples.


Saying the Antarctic is a land mass is a bit of an oversimplification. Part of the ice is in the ocean as well. And, at it largest extent we know of, half of that ice cap was in the water. But, I think that was before global warming set in.

But, yes. They are pretty much almost exact opposites.


CBDunkerson wrote:

QB, why is a clean energy technology which isn't technically or financially viable (i.e. fusion) a better 'way forward' then two (i.e. wind and solar) which ARE?

Thomas Seitz, as it happens Arctic and Antarctic sea ice have BOTH been at record minimums since October. That being said, Crusinos is right about the conditions and factors influencing each being completely different... indeed pretty much inverse. The Arctic is an ocean with ice a few meters thick surrounded by land... the Antarctic is a land mass with ice a few MILES thick surrounded by ocean. It's like comparing apples and the 'polar opposite' of apples.

I see what you did there.


Jeff,

I must have missed it.

Also thanks CB and Crusinos!


Polar opposites. The Arctic and Antarctic are at opposite geographical poles ;)


Oh! Boo!!! Now I get it. :PPPP


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I say that we Freeze Crusinos out of the discussion.


Quark Blast wrote:

Thanks Caineach and BigDTBone.

You guys are right that I did not realize the Prius was first out in 1997 (2000 for the USA)! Looks like there were other earlier ones in California of various makes/models but were each only selling in the 100's final total after 2-3 years. Not a good start.

Still, my larger point was this:

Let's say everyone is as diligent as CB is in regards to his carbon footprint. As I said up thread everyone wants to be like us - they want modern convenience, even when that convenience isn't convenient. People! I know! <eyeroll> But until they get what they later realize they don't want, they'll be hankering for it something powerful.

When you multiple CB's diligently "small" CO2 load on the atmosphere by the the 7.5 billion that are out there, what do you get?

While I can't give you an exact number, I'll bet my favorite set of dice that the CO2 load would exceed the current level by an order of magnitude or more.

Assuming AGW causes even half the bad things scientists say it will, there is no good way forward this side of nuclear fusion. We as a species will take what we want, call our greed "Not much, just what I got come'n... it's only fair", and burn our house down while sleeping in it all at the same time.

Other countries have the ability to intelligently plan to get to our standards. The US stumbled through stage 1 with massive development and existing investments that make stage 2 harder to do. Developing countries will skip most of stage 1 and go straight to stage 2. They get to reap the benefits of our being the head of the pack. Kinda like how Boston's roads are an eldritch abomination while new cities make sense. As for China, they have decided the US wasn't making up smog, having discovered it for themselves, and now they want to do something about it.


CBDunkerson wrote:
QB, why is a clean energy technology which isn't technically or financially viable (i.e. fusion) a better 'way forward' then two (i.e. wind and solar) which ARE?

Because wind and solar are insufficient to get us a measurably better future. Particularly wind.

Solar doesn't build roads or fly airplanes or move ships across the ocean.

The top selling cars are not EVs. Not even close.

Even you, who seems to be actively doing more than anyone on this thread (except Wrath) to shrink his carbon footprint, aren't doing enough to get us to this better future. If everyone (all 7.5 billion of us and counting) follows your example, we are totally ######! come the year 2100.

And in point of clarity: Nuclear fusion, if actually technically and financially possible/scalable, is a way forward. I make no guess as to how likely it is we can harness nuclear fusion.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
CBDunkerson wrote:
QB, why is a clean energy technology which isn't technically or financially viable (i.e. fusion) a better 'way forward' then two (i.e. wind and solar) which ARE?
Because wind and solar are insufficient to get us a measurably better future. Particularly wind.

This simply isn't true. Available wind and solar energy are EACH greater than our energy needs. Solar vastly so.

Energy source comparison

Even if we assumed NO growth in energy demand we could burn through all the coal, oil, natural gas, and plutonium on the planet combined in just a hundred years. Wind alone could theoretically meet four times our current energy demand indefinitely. However, solar is far and away the most logical path forward. Harnessing even 1% of global solar energy would provide enough energy for ten times the current population (which we will never get close to on this planet) to consume ten times as much energy as 'wealthy' citizens do currently (which would allow technologies we can't even conceive of currently).

Quote:
Solar doesn't build roads or fly airplanes or move ships across the ocean.

Roads are primarily built by hand... and you are wrong about solar powered ships and airplanes. Both exist.

Quote:
The top selling cars are not EVs. Not even close.

This is true... but nobody suggested otherwise.

Quote:
And in point of clarity: Nuclear fusion, if actually technically and financially possible/scalable, is a way forward. I make no guess as to how likely it is we can harness nuclear fusion.

Oh, ok. In that case: Magical fairy dust, if actually technically and financially possible, is a way forward. I make no guess as to how likely it is we can harness magical fairy dust.


CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
CBDunkerson wrote:
QB, why is a clean energy technology which isn't technically or financially viable (i.e. fusion) a better 'way forward' then two (i.e. wind and solar) which ARE?
Because wind and solar are insufficient to get us a measurably better future. Particularly wind.

This simply isn't true. Available wind and solar energy are EACH greater than our energy needs. Solar vastly so.

Energy source comparison

Fairy dust on the wind. I like it :)

CBDunkerson wrote:
Even if we assumed NO growth in energy demand we could burn through all the coal, oil, natural gas, and plutonium on the planet combined in just a hundred years. Wind alone could theoretically meet four times our current energy demand indefinitely. However, solar is far and away the most logical path forward. Harnessing even 1% of global solar energy would provide enough energy for ten times the current population (which we will never get close to on this planet) to consume ten times as much energy as 'wealthy' citizens do currently (which would allow technologies we can't even conceive of currently).

It's the word "theoretically" that gives me pause. Because you include human beings in your equation.

When I talk theory, like I do with nuclear fusion, I'm only talking about the math and physics. Not what people will/could/should do.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
Solar doesn't build roads or fly airplanes or move ships across the ocean.
Roads are primarily built by hand... and you are wrong about solar powered ships and airplanes. Both exist.

Roads are built primarily of rock and oil.

Solar powered ships and planes used for, respectively, international shipping and vacation/business travel are right up there with nuclear fusion. But unlike fusion, they will be only theoretical well past the year 2100.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
The top selling cars are not EVs. Not even close.
This is true... but nobody suggested otherwise.

Yes, and my point is that CO2 load alone, from all those non-EVs which everyone wants (well, most do want and will acquire), is so great that the presence of EVs shrink to insignificance.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
And in point of clarity: Nuclear fusion, if actually technically and financially possible/scalable, is a way forward. I make no guess as to how likely it is we can harness nuclear fusion.
Oh, ok. In that case: Magical fairy dust, if actually technically and financially possible, is a way forward. I make no guess as to how likely it is we can harness magical fairy dust.

You're consistent, I'll give you that.

You consistently misunderstand my point.

I don't have much hope for nuclear fusion either but unlike cold fusion and the EM drive, it could possibly be utilized for power generation. If that can be done then we, as a species, have a way forward.

Otherwise we, as a species, are totally screwed.

I note you left the following portion of my previous post untouched.

Quark Blast wrote:
Even you, who seems to be actively doing more than anyone on this thread (except Wrath) to shrink his carbon footprint, aren't doing enough to get us to this better future. If everyone (all 7.5 billion of us and counting) follows your example, we are totally ######! come the year 2100

Glaciers and Ice Caps are doomed. What that means for our species I'm not so certain but it will largely be not good if our past is any predictor of our future.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
Roads are built primarily of rock and oil.

You say that like it's a bad thing. If we stop burning so much oil the cost of it for other applications will go down.

Quote:
Solar powered ships and planes used for, respectively, international shipping and vacation/business travel are right up there with nuclear fusion. But unlike fusion, they will be only theoretical well past the year 2100.

Based on that, I'd say that you are unreasonably optimistic about fusion and unduly pessimistic on air and sea travel.

Note: Putting solar panels on ships and airplanes will likely never be sufficient to fully power large vehicles. However, putting batteries in ships and airplanes to store electricity generated by solar power will be.

The best electric cars now have about half the range of gasoline powered cars. The energy densities of shipping and aviation fuel are higher than those of gasoline, but by less than 20%. Ergo, once we get to parity on automobile range (before 2030 I expect) ships and airplanes won't be TOO far behind... though it will mean building a whole new class of electric engines.

Given the (relatively) smaller number of vehicles involved it is also possible that we could see remote microwave recharging before we see lightweight batteries capable of matching current air/sea ranges.

Quote:

I don't have much hope for nuclear fusion either but unlike cold fusion and the EM drive, it could possibly be utilized for power generation. If that can be done then we, as a species, have a way forward.

Otherwise we, as a species, are totally screwed.

Again, why do you write off solar power? Ships and airplanes?

Even if you were right about solar/battery never being able to power them... all air and sea travel combined accounts for less than 5% of human CO2 emissions. Natural CO2 sinks currently absorb 10x that amount every year (i.e. 50% of our total emissions). Basically, if we solve the other 95% (primarily electricity generation and ground transportation) we could continue right on burning stuff for air and sea transport indefinitely because on their own they aren't enough to continue raising atmospheric CO2 levels.

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Glaciers and Ice Caps are doomed.

Do you have any idea of the size of the ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica?

If we burned every ounce of fossil fuels on the planet maybe we could melt out the ice caps... but it would take centuries for Greenland and millennia for Antarctica. At which point the predictions become meaningless... because we have no idea what our technology will be like that far in the future. Attempting to plan for the next century is wise. Attempting to plan beyond that is fantasy.

Glaciers, on the other hand, yeah... most of those are already gone. We will probably stop before they are all wiped out, but going to be much less common until we figure out a way to significantly reduce atmospheric CO2 levels... or wait tens of thousands of years for nature to do it.


Headed to a relevant talk soon.

Quote:
One of the barriers to reducing the cost of wind-generated energy is the current method of manufacturing steel wind turbine towers. Such towers are currently manufactured at centralized plants and then transported in sections to the installation site. The necessity of transporting these sections limits the base diameter of the tower, which limits the maximum height of the tower, which then limits the economic return of wind-generated energy. A new manufacturing technology, based on an adaptation of spiral welding methods for steel pipelines, may enable on-site and automated fabrication of taller, more economical tubular steel towers. Optimally proportioned towers made with this technology will have diameters and diameter-to-thickness ratios that are large and uncommon to all other structural applications of tubular steel. The flexural strength of tubular cross-sections with high diameter-to-thickness ratios is often controlled by local buckling and is highly sensitive to geometric and material imperfections. Because of this sensitivity, bending tests of tubes with these proportions are especially important to design, however, there is a sparsity of relevant experiments in the open literature. This presentation will provide experimental and analytical results from a research project designed to understand the flexural strength of wind turbine towers manufactured with this new technology.


CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
Roads are built primarily of rock and oil.
You say that like it's a bad thing. If we stop burning so much oil the cost of it for other applications will go down.

Umm... no. The cost will go up. Economies of scale and all that. If we aren't moving shiploads of oil around the globe constantly for transportation fuel, then moving it around to make a few items of convenience (like asphalt roads) will become much more costly.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
Solar powered ships and planes used for, respectively, international shipping and vacation/business travel are right up there with nuclear fusion. But unlike fusion, they will be only theoretical well past the year 2100.

Based on that, I'd say that you are unreasonably optimistic about fusion and unduly pessimistic on air and sea travel.

Note: Putting solar panels on ships and airplanes will likely never be sufficient to fully power large vehicles. However, putting batteries in ships and airplanes to store electricity generated by solar power will be.

The best electric cars now have about half the range of gasoline powered cars. The energy densities of shipping and aviation fuel are higher than those of gasoline, but by less than 20%. Ergo, once we get to parity on automobile range (before 2030 I expect) ships and airplanes won't be TOO far behind... though it will mean building a whole new class of electric engines.

Given the (relatively) smaller number of vehicles involved it is also possible that we could see remote microwave recharging before we see lightweight batteries capable of matching current air/sea ranges.

All that in place globally by 2030 huh? Cause that's what kind of timing you'll need to have these technologies make a useful difference.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:

I don't have much hope for nuclear fusion either but unlike cold fusion and the EM drive, it could possibly be utilized for power generation. If that can be done then we, as a species, have a way forward.

Otherwise we, as a species, are totally screwed.

Again, why do you write off solar power? Ships and airplanes?

Even if you were right about solar/battery never being able to power them... all air and sea travel combined accounts for less than 5% of human CO2 emissions. Natural CO2 sinks currently absorb 10x that amount every year (i.e. 50% of our total emissions). Basically, if we solve the other 95% (primarily electricity generation and ground transportation) we could continue right on burning stuff for air and sea transport indefinitely because on their own they aren't enough to continue raising atmospheric CO2 levels.

I write them off because batteries are heavy and planes need to carry passengers and cargo. Ships need to sail night and day and through all weather and also need to carry cargo (and sometimes passengers), not lug around enough batteries to keep themselves moving.

These "green" ideas are rather pointless to talk about. What needs to be done should have been done 20 years ago. It all has one root cause - us. All of us.

As I pointed out up thread, you do more than anyone else posting here (except Wrath) and what you do is not nearly enough.

You need to cut back your lifestyle on the order of 80% in energy reduction. Are you going to do that? Yeah, neither am I. Nor anyone else reading this thread.

Then you multiply our recalcitrance by 7.5 billion and you see the scale of the problem. You see why I hope for nuclear fusion, even though it is at present only a theoretical source of power.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
Glaciers and Ice Caps are doomed.

Do you have any idea of the size of the ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica?

If we burned every ounce of fossil fuels on the planet maybe we could melt out the ice caps... but it would take centuries for Greenland and millennia for Antarctica. At which point the predictions become meaningless... because we have no idea what our technology will be like that far in the future. Attempting to plan for the next century is wise. Attempting to plan beyond that is fantasy.

Glaciers, on the other hand, yeah... most of those are already gone. We will probably stop before they are all wiped out, but going to be much less common until we figure out a way to significantly reduce atmospheric CO2 levels... or wait tens of thousands of years for nature to do it.

Do you know that there will be no summer ice in the Arctic by 2030 or so? Similarly the shelf ice in Antarctica will melt back. And the shelf ice holds back a great portion of the ice cap there. With the shelf ice gone the glaciers will flow more freely into the ocean. You don't have to melt all that ice with a warm atmosphere. You just need to get it moving with a little increase in basal meltwater and no "plugs" at the outlets in the form of ice shelfs.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:
All that in place globally by 2030 huh? Cause that's what kind of timing you'll need to have these technologies make a useful difference.

Are you suggesting that the human race and/or all life on Earth will be wiped out if we don't have such in place by 2030? Because, if not, then the difference they make will certainly be "useful" to someone.

Quote:
I write them off because batteries are heavy and planes need to carry passengers and cargo.

Which, as already noted, is irrelevant. Even if you were right about planes and ships never being able to run on battery power... it doesn't matter. They only represent 5% of our CO2 emissions. We could continue burning fossil fuels for those two applications for centuries and atmospheric CO2 levels would not increase... IF we took care of the other 95% of emissions.

You have not offered any argument whatsoever as to why solar (and/or wind) power cannot do that.

Quote:
You need to cut back your lifestyle on the order of 80% in energy reduction.

Again, I see no evidence for this. Solar power is more than capable of allowing every human on the planet 500% of my energy consumption.

Quote:
Do you know that there will be no summer ice in the Arctic by 2030 or so?

Assuming you mean sea ice, I doubt it will last that long. The land ice on Greenland and a few of the other islands will be around much longer though.

Is it too late to save summer sea ice in the Arctic? Yes.
Is it too late to save the human race? No.

There's a massive difference between those two things. Until the latter comes to pass we CAN and SHOULD take feasible actions to limit global warming. Deploying solar power is a feasible action. Waiting for nuclear fusion to save us is wishful thinking.


CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
All that in place globally by 2030 huh? Cause that's what kind of timing you'll need to have these technologies make a useful difference.
Are you suggesting that the human race and/or all life on Earth will be wiped out if we don't have such in place by 2030? Because, if not, then the difference they make will certainly be "useful" to someone.

The direct answer to your question is: No.

By 2050 we will see "peak CO2 emissions" by the human race.

If we wait until 2030 to get significantly green, and by "significantly" I mean 80%+ of our energy use from truly green sources (not e.g. from biofuels), then it won't really matter what we do.

Why?

Because consequences will start raining down and we will be forced to cope. Mother Nature is a ##### and there is no getting around her edicts.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
I write them off because batteries are heavy and planes need to carry passengers and cargo.

Which, as already noted, is irrelevant. Even if you were right about planes and ships never being able to run on battery power... it doesn't matter. They only represent 5% of our CO2 emissions. We could continue burning fossil fuels for those two applications for centuries and atmospheric CO2 levels would not increase... IF we took care of the other 95% of emissions.

You have not offered any argument whatsoever as to why solar (and/or wind) power cannot do that.

The global economy is intertwined. Those ships (and planes) don't move stuff around in isolation from everything else we as a species do.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
You need to cut back your lifestyle on the order of 80% in energy reduction.
Again, I see no evidence for this. Solar power is more than capable of allowing every human on the planet 500% of my energy consumption.

Solar power is capable like nuclear fusion is. Until it gets built it's only an idea. As far as AGW is concerned, if it's not built and working in place by 2030, then it might as well be finished in 2080 or 2120.

CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
Do you know that there will be no summer ice in the Arctic by 2030 or so?

Assuming you mean sea ice, I doubt it will last that long. The land ice on Greenland and a few of the other islands will be around much longer though.

Is it too late to save summer sea ice in the Arctic? Yes.
Is it too late to save the human race? No.

The ice sheets, particularly Antarctica but also not insignificantly Greenland, are critically dependent on basal water flow and the sea ice that surrounds them for their stability/continued existence.

My argument is not about global warming melting the ice directly.

CBDunkerson wrote:
There's a massive difference between those two things. Until the latter comes to pass we CAN and SHOULD take feasible actions to limit global warming. Deploying solar power is a feasible action. Waiting for nuclear fusion to save us is wishful thinking.

But my point is even you, who are doing more than anyone else who's willing to post here, aren't doing everything "feasible". Not even close.

Multiply your very modest efforts by 7.5 billion people and you can see why I demure at your hopeful declarations.


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QB's argument is that because people suck, we can't fix AGW, therefore it probably isn't real anyways. As with a lot of his arguments, it's centered around unprovable givens, ignores actual evidence to the contrary, and mostly a waste of time.


Irontruth wrote:
QB's argument is that because people suck, we can't fix AGW, therefore it probably isn't real anyways. As with a lot of his arguments, it's centered around unprovable givens, ignores actual evidence to the contrary, and mostly a waste of time.

Thank you for affirming my existence :)

I think my point is better stated as:

People are going to do what's easy for them.
What's easy for people won't really be enough to curb "Peak CO2"*.
Multiply all our insignificant but measurable contributions to the global CO2 budget by 7.5 billion and you get a crap ton of consequences.
Then we pass Peak CO2 and things get better... eventually.

* Peak CO2 will happen around 2050. If we as a species were less selfish and more forward thinking we could have had Peak CO2 sometime before 2030 and that would have made a difference.


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This thread has become endless repititions of trying to convince one person who has taken up the methodology of moving goalposts based on unrealistic expectations.

I'm at the point of hiding this thread and washing my hands of it.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:

If we wait until 2030 to get significantly green, and by "significantly" I mean 80%+ of our energy use from truly green sources (not e.g. from biofuels), then it won't really matter what we do.

Why?

Because consequences will start raining down and we will be forced to cope. Mother Nature is a ##### and there is no getting around her edicts.

While the consequences have already started raining down, I get what you are saying... if we continue as is through 2030 things will get markedly worse than what we are seeing now. To the point that the human tendency towards short term planning would finally kick in and prompt significant action.

Fortunately, I don't think we're going to have to wait for that. Another human tendency has already been activated and is changing the dynamic... good old fashioned greed.

Solar power costs less than coal power for most of the planet now. That is driving massive investment in solar energy and the death of the coal industry. We're cleaning up our act, not because it is the smart thing to do long term, but because people can make money off it.


CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:

If we wait until 2030 to get significantly green, and by "significantly" I mean 80%+ of our energy use from truly green sources (not e.g. from biofuels), then it won't really matter what we do.

Why?

Because consequences will start raining down and we will be forced to cope. Mother Nature is a ##### and there is no getting around her edicts.

While the consequences have already started raining down, I get what you are saying... if we continue as is through 2030 things will get markedly worse than what we are seeing now. To the point that the human tendency towards short term planning would finally kick in and prompt significant action.

Fortunately, I don't think we're going to have to wait for that. Another human tendency has already been activated and is changing the dynamic... good old fashioned greed.

Solar power costs less than coal power for most of the planet now. That is driving massive investment in solar energy and the death of the coal industry. We're cleaning up our act, not because it is the smart thing to do long term, but because people can make money off it.

I won't argue against the trend you describe with your POV. I argue that "greed" won't get us where we need to go fast enough.

I'm pretty sure we just elected the wrong man to the presidency of the USA - there's a 4-year delay right there. Plus the years it takes to unwind the wrong policies we fear are coming. And that assumes he won't get reelected.

I'm also pretty sure that by 2030 things will be trending the right direction about as steeply as they can be (Mother Nature and all that). And that trend to the good will be about 50 years too late.

As for coal, I expect that China's use will be a slow decline and that India will more than make up for the steep decline seen in the western world.

Also, FWIW, the fuel that is killing coal is natural gas. Not solar. Not wind.

Up thread I pointed out how left-leaning tech companies have not embraced solar. All those campuses/data centers and no solar - even in desert climates! The only explanation I got for that was a post indicating that Google did a study circa 2011 and gave up on solar.

I think solar is great but I also think, when I'm feeling especially charitable, that it is about 10% of the solution at best.

Maybe in 100 years we really can have solar roadways, etc. But between now and then there is going to be many a global struggle over issues like clean water, and clean air, and minimal daily calories. Is that code for WWIII? No. The struggles can be panglobal without them also being direct conflicts between nation states or ideologies. Local concurrent struggles over these issues in other words.

People don't like my attitude and some of them have been pretty harsh (or just passive-aggressive), but none of them claim to be even trying to do their part. Again excepting you and Wrath.

How sad is that?

Now multiply that sadness you feel by 7.5 billion. That's the magnitude of the problem at hand.

Shadow Lodge Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8

Google is one of the worlds biggest corporate buyers of wind/solar, and is on track to hit 100% renewable energy for their offices & data centers next year.

Not having solar panels on the roof doesn't mean they're not using solar.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Quark Blast wrote:
I'm pretty sure we just elected the wrong man to the presidency of the USA - there's a 4-year delay right there. Plus the years it takes to unwind the wrong policies we fear are coming. And that assumes he won't get reelected.

With fossil fuel industry climate change deniers in charge of the EPA and (likely) state department they would certainly try. I just don't think there is much they can actually do at this point other than make the US an international pariah on the issue.

Solar costs less. Nothing they can do will change that.

Quote:
As for coal, I expect that China's use will be a slow decline and that India will more than make up for the steep decline seen in the western world.

Three years ago the naysayer line was that China was decades away from having ANY reduction... and India on its own cannot offset the entire western world. Not that it would make any sense at all for India to continue investing in coal power while the rest of the world switches to cheaper alternatives.

Quote:
Also, FWIW, the fuel that is killing coal is natural gas. Not solar. Not wind.

Natural gas replacing coal has been primarily a US story, and it is over now. New electricity generation from renewable sources now exceeds that from natural gas in the US. Natural gas will certainly hold out the longest as a fossil fuel source of electricity generation, but as a percentage of total generation it has already peaked.

The University of Texas did a study to find the cheapest source of electricity generation in each US county;

UT Map

Lots of orange natural gas... but even more green wind power. Also quite a bit of purple and grey solar power... and coal is no longer the cheapest option anywhere on the map. They also found that residential solar power is the only option which is cost competitive everywhere.

Quote:
I think solar is great but I also think, when I'm feeling especially charitable, that it is about 10% of the solution at best.

There is no logical reason for such a limit. Many locations have already exceeded it. Some are closing in on 100% solar.

US solar generation is up ~50% over last year, and expected to do the same next year... continuing the trend of doubling every few years. That will put us over 2% of total generation next year... 4% by 2020. I expect we'll be over your 10% solar figure nationally by 2025... as should the world as a whole.

Quote:
Maybe in 100 years we really can have solar roadways

You're off by about 100 years. The first public road with integrated solar began construction in October;

A kilometer-sized testing site began construction last month in the French village of Tourouvre in Normandy. The 2,800 square meters of solar panels are expected to generate 280 kilowatts at peak, with the installation generating enough to power all the public lighting in a town of 5,000 for a year, according to the company.


On a different note...This December the average thus far has been FAR colder than the average of the past few years, and colder than average for the area in records for our region.

I think, If this keeps up, for our area, the average is actually colder this year overall (it's a guess because the official stuff and calculations are not done currently and won't be done till later).

This is actually something interesting to note, because if a report comes out that says it was warmer in every section of the globe for 2016, one can know that data has been manipulated to say something the data didn't reflect.

On the otherhand, while temperatures may have been higher as a whole on most of the globe, an accurate mapping should point out some areas which actually were colder (that doesn't mean the average global temperature went down, but just that a few areas will show that they were colder than the average of the past decade comparatively to what other areas have shown).

This could make it very interesting in seeing which reports are politically done, and which are scientifically done. Scientific reports will (and have in the past) shown that even when the average global temperature is rising, this is not uniform across the globe every year, but that there are differentiations, even as the global average rises.

A political one will simply manipulate data to reflect that everywhere has the temperature rising and will always show someplace as being hotter for the past year than any in the year prior. It discounts variability, even if the overall average rises.

Should be interesting to see what the different global reports show for our area in the coming reports next year.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

GreyWolfLord,
An example of these 'political reports', please. Because the fact that some parts get colder is not news to anyone who understands what global warming actually is. Because I haven't seen any reports that suggest that everywhere in the world got warmer.


On another note, it looks like the solar investment will have at least make a profit for me this year...no telling what next year holds yet.

If lucky, it will explode and I'll be a billionaire by this time next year (I know, extremely WISHFUL thinking on my part).


Paul Watson wrote:

GreyWolfLord,

An example of these 'political reports', please. Because the fact that some parts get colder is not news to anyone who understands what global warming actually is. Because I haven't seen any reports that suggest that everywhere in the world got warmer.

I have, and in fact, earlier in this thread was complaining about some of them...particularly that they were completely misreporting and misrepresenting what we had reported.

It's irksome when you record data and send it in and then some individual which I could call a particularly nasty name decides that in their particular report, they are going to change the data.

Considering where I get to go to get some of that data, and where some of it comes from...it actually makes me pretty mad when I see it.

We'll see if they correct that report (they haven't yet, that particular one which irks me to no end and which I basically need to ignore) is giving off false information to many of the media that accept it at face value.

Other reports on the otherhand, are reporting it accurately. It's like a small little section where you see temperatures as more around average or colder than normal (our region and some others near ours), surrounded by a lot of areas which are hotter than normal.

Anyways, I need to get off that line of thought because it's just going to end up getting me enraged thinking about it. It REALLY makes me mad when I think about some groups changing data for political or other reasons...better NOT to discuss it at length right now.

I've reported the year overall for our region now...so there's that. On a whole, it looks like this year is colder on average for my region. Can't speak for other areas, I've heard it was hotter in many other locations though...but that's not fact right there, just what I've heard thus far through the grapevine.

That said, solar power seems to be doing nicely right now, if I'm lucky it will do even better in the upcoming year.


So somehow I missed this - Project Sunroof

And, no it's not for your car.

Based on input from CBDunlkerson I also ran across this - Calc Your NRG

And this - Exec Sum PDF

See especially section 4 in that PDF where they discuss, and link to studies of, "Utility Annual and New Transmission Costs". Sure you can build wind and solar but to make a global impact you need to connect that to a distribution system.

Going forward I might soften my stance on solar in general but for individual homes I think it often makes little sense. What do you do when you need to re-roof? Using the Google calculator (my first link above) a typical ROI for investing in home solar is closing in on 20 years. How much further out is that pushed if I need to reroof once in that 20 years? How much does it cost to uninstall and reinstall the solar so a new roof can be laid down? How common is it for solar installation to cause new leaks in an otherwise sound roof?

And still no one has even tried to counter my observation that Google, Facebook, etc all have these massive flat roofed buildings with no solar panels on them. Why?

As for solar roadways,

Quote:
For now, the cost of the materials makes only demonstration projects sensible. A square meter of the solar road currently costs 2,000 ($2,126) and 2,500 euros. That includes monitoring, data collection and installation costs. Wattway says it can make the price competitive with traditional solar farms by 2020.

Sure they say it will be competitive by 2020 but I call that marketing hype. How much will this increase the cost of building/maintaining utilities that are under a solar road? What happens when someone drives on it with a tracked vehicle like a backhoe? I'm sure the honest people working in marketing have accounted for all those "hidden" costs and aren't covering them up at all.


Quark Blast wrote:
CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
Do you know that there will be no summer ice in the Arctic by 2030 or so?

Assuming you mean sea ice, I doubt it will last that long. The land ice on Greenland and a few of the other islands will be around much longer though.

Is it too late to save summer sea ice in the Arctic? Yes.
Is it too late to save the human race? No.

The ice sheets, particularly Antarctica but also not insignificantly Greenland, are critically dependent on basal water flow and the sea ice that surrounds them for their stability/continued existence.

My argument is not about global warming melting the ice directly.

This is what I was talking about.

People who think the Antarctic ice cannot be significantly destroyed by 2030 don't understand glaciology.*

* Not that I do but my Spidey Sense says they're right and apparently the field work is backing them up.

Liberty's Edge

Quark Blast wrote:

This is what I was talking about.

People who think the Antarctic ice cannot be significantly destroyed by 2030 don't understand glaciology.*

* Not that I do but my Spidey Sense says they're right and apparently the field work is backing them up.

Unbelievable.

Nothing in that article even remotely suggests that 'Antarctic ice will be significantly destroyed by 2030'.

That is just ridiculous nonsense.

Please stop equating respectable scientific work on ice sheet melt dynamics with your fairy-tales about significant portions of the Antarctic ice being gone within decades. Cite a source which actually states your claim rather than falsely attributing it to people who have said nothing of the kind.

Scientists predicting "rapid ice sheet collapse" in mere centuries are generally considered alarmist. Your belief that it will happen in the next few decades doesn't even exist in the scientific literature.


CBDunkerson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:

This is what I was talking about.

People who think the Antarctic ice cannot be significantly destroyed by 2030 don't understand glaciology.*

* Not that I do but my Spidey Sense says they're right and apparently the field work is backing them up.

Unbelievable.

Nothing in that article even remotely suggests that 'Antarctic ice will be significantly destroyed by 2030'.

That is just ridiculous nonsense.

Please stop equating respectable scientific work on ice sheet melt dynamics with your fairy-tales about significant portions of the Antarctic ice being gone within decades. Cite a source which actually states your claim rather than falsely attributing it to people who have said nothing of the kind.

Scientists predicting "rapid ice sheet collapse" in mere centuries are generally considered alarmist. Your belief that it will happen in the next few decades doesn't even exist in the scientific literature.

Now I know you're trolling me. With the Internet at your fingertips and you cannot see...

This...
phys.org wrote:

They report their discovery in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"It's generally accepted that it's no longer a question of whether the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt, it's a question of when," said study leader Ian Howat, associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State. "This kind of rifting behavior provides another mechanism for rapid retreat of these glaciers, adding to the probability that we may see significant collapse of West Antarctica in our lifetimes."

"Rifts usually form at the margins of an ice shelf, where the ice is thin and subject to shearing that rips it apart," he explained. "However, this latest event in the Pine Island Glacier was due to a rift that originated from the center of the ice shelf and propagated out to the margins. This implies that something weakened the center of the ice shelf, with the most likely explanation being a crevasse melted out at the bedrock level by a warming ocean."

Studies have suggested that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is particularly unstable, and could collapse within the next 100 years. The collapse would lead to a sea-level rise of nearly 10 feet, which would engulf major U.S. cities such as New York and Miami and displace 150 million people living on coasts worldwide.

This...
Gizmodo wrote:

At this point, NASA says, collapse of the entire Amundsen sea sector appears to be “unstoppable.”

Troublingly, as waters around West Antarctica heat up, those weaknesses could be exploited more and more often. “If the ice sheet was going to retreat very slowly on long timescales, we’d just expect to see the usual calving,” Howat said. “This event gives us a new mechanism for ice sheets falling apart quickly. It fits into that picture of a rapid retreat.”
This...
LiveScience wrote:

According to NASA Ice, an Earth sciences program at NASA, this rift is relatively new — it showed growth on satellite imagery just this year. The U.K.-based Antarctic research group the MIDAS Project first observed the rift in 2014 and has been tracking it ever since.

Larsen C is Antarctica's fourth-largest ice shelf, and it holds back the land-based glaciers just behind it: Once the ice shelf goes, those slow-flowing glaciers have one less barrier in their journey toward the sea. In 2002, the nearby ice shelf Larsen B partially collapsed after showing similar rifting, NASA's Earth Observatory reported earlier this year, when it showed the collapse alongside a satellite image of the growing Larsen C crevasse.

According to the MIDAS Project, the eventual calving of the Delaware-size sheet of ice would remove between 9 percent and 12 percent of Larsen C's surface area and may lead to the crumbling of the entire ice shelf.

This...
phys.org wrote:

Antarctica is heading into austral summer, a period of rapid sea ice melt in the Southern Ocean. But this year the sea ice loss has been particularly swift and the Antarctic sea ice extent is currently at the lowest level for this time of year ever recorded in the satellite record, which began in 1979.

The IceBridge scientists measured the Larsen C fracture to be about 70 miles long, more than 300 feet wide and about a third of a mile deep. The crack completely cuts through the ice shelf but it does not go all the way across it - once it does, it will produce an iceberg roughly the size of the state of Delaware.

"It's a large rift on an ice shelf whose future we are curious about. Inevitably, when you see it in satellite imagery or from a plane, you wonder what is going to happen when it breaks off," MacGregor said. "However, large icebergs calve from ice shelves regularly and they normally do not lead to ice-shelf collapse. The growth of this rift likely indicates that the portion of the ice shelf downstream of the rift is no longer holding back any grounded ice."

The above from referencing this link and interviews with the authors and similar work by other scientists.

Twila Moon, University of Bristol, UK wrote:
We’re approaching a point where we have enough detailed information at different locations that we can start to answer important questions about what makes glaciers tick.

You say I'm wrong but the qualified scientists are telling me that, even though we still have much to learn about glacial/ice sheet modeling, things are far worse than standard accepted models from only a few years ago predicted.

Yeah, I think there is reason to believe that there will be significant destruction of the Antarctic Ice Sheet in our lifetime.

Cite me something that takes into account the latest research but comes to a different conclusion. Can't be done. I've looked. But you're welcome to try.

Liberty's Edge

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Let's look at a rough break down of global ice;

81% - East Antarctic Ice Sheet
10% - Greenland Ice Sheet
8% - West Antarctic Ice Sheet
<1% - All other ice on the planet (e.g. glaciers, ice shelves, sea ice)

So... how do your 3rd and 4th quotations, about ice shelves, (in the less than 1% 'other' category above) support your claim that, "People who think the Antarctic ice cannot be significantly destroyed by 2030 don't understand glaciology."?

They clearly don't. The ice shelves could melt away completely and we'd be nowhere near 'significant destruction' of the Antarctic ice.

Your 1st & 2nd quotations talk about the ice sheets and thus are at least potentially relevant... but the second states no time frame and the first directly contradicts your position. It says that "the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is particularly unstable, and could collapse within the next 100 years."

So you are citing an estimate that less than 10% of Antarctic ice could collapse within 100 years as 'proof' of your claim that 'Antarctic ice can be significantly destroyed' within 14 years.

If we assume a constant loss rate (it would actually be accelerating and thus assuming a constant rate over-states results in your favor) your first quotation would suggest that ~1.4% of Antarctic ice could melt by 2030. I do not consider a loss of only 1.4% to equal "significantly destroyed".

Also note that 100 years for collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is at the absolute lower limit of the remotely plausible range... IF several untested theories about rapid ice sheet collapse turn out to be correct. Most estimates instead have the West Antarctic ice sheet sticking around for hundreds years even under worst case warming scenarios. The much larger East Antarctic ice sheet isn't going anywhere for thousands of years.

In short, your 'evidence' only confirms that your prior claim that Antarctic ice may be "signficantly destroyed by 2030" was ridiculous.


CBDunkerson wrote:


In short, your 'evidence' only confirms that your prior claim that Antarctic ice may be "signficantly destroyed by 2030" was ridiculous.

We may however be reaching a tipping point with Greenland. a fair amount of Greenland's ice is becoming "black ice", dirty ice which is far more receptive to solar heating. We'll probably see signficant loss in the Greenland ice cover which will be enough to push sea level up a couple of feet. Enough to seriously impact coastal cities.

Liberty's Edge

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
We may however be reaching a tipping point with Greenland. a fair amount of Greenland's ice is becoming "black ice", dirty ice which is far more receptive to solar heating. We'll probably see signficant loss in the Greenland ice cover which will be enough to push sea level up a couple of feet. Enough to seriously impact coastal cities.

Absolutely.

Greenland and West Antarctica are both melting way ahead of what estimates showed just twenty years ago. Sea level rise estimates are consequently being revised upwards and this is all a very serious problem.

Just not, "no summer ice in the Arctic by 2030" and "Antarctic ice ... significantly destroyed by 2030".

Greenland and West Antarctica will be covered in ice past the lifespan of most, or more likely all, people alive today... yet still contribute significantly to sea level rise over that same time period.


CBDunkerson wrote:
Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:
We may however be reaching a tipping point with Greenland. a fair amount of Greenland's ice is becoming "black ice", dirty ice which is far more receptive to solar heating. We'll probably see signficant loss in the Greenland ice cover which will be enough to push sea level up a couple of feet. Enough to seriously impact coastal cities.

Absolutely.

Greenland and West Antarctica are both melting way ahead of what estimates showed just twenty years ago. Sea level rise estimates are consequently being revised upwards and this is all a very serious problem.

Just not, "no summer ice in the Arctic by 2030" and "Antarctic ice ... significantly destroyed by 2030".

Greenland and West Antarctica will be covered in ice past the lifespan of most, or more likely all, people alive today... yet still contribute significantly to sea level rise over that same time period.

My claim was "significant destruction" and here you are using the same word (bolded above by moi) in the same general context. Do you have a different definition of that word than I do?

The year 2030 is likely to see us well on our way to a 1 meter global sea level rise from Greenland and Antarctic ice melting. Also likely to see ice free summers in the Arctic ocean such that trans-Arctic shipping is a thing.

Those ice shelves are holding back the land based glaciers and ice fields. They act as a plug. Remove the plug and by 2030 things become "significant".

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