Greenland’s ice sheet is releasing huge amounts of mercury into rivers(newscientist.com)
newscientist.com
Greenland’s ice sheet is releasing huge amounts of mercury into rivers
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2278370-greenlands-ice-sheet-is-releasing-huge-amounts-of-mercury-into-rivers/
85 comments
A big tangent but I remember a podcast with Sir David King, UK chief scientific advisor
- So, Sir David, what's worries you most?
- The Greenland Ice Sheet. If it melts human civilisation is finished.
- oh. And err is it melting?
- Yes, and accelerating.
- Oh.
- So, Sir David, what's worries you most?
- The Greenland Ice Sheet. If it melts human civilisation is finished.
- oh. And err is it melting?
- Yes, and accelerating.
- Oh.
I couldn't find the original source, but here's a link that mentions the comment. Anybody have the original source?
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.5.020563/fu...
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.5.020563/fu...
Could you elaborate as what about the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet was concerning to Sir David King? Is it the mercury that is released or the rising sea levels it will cause or something else?
IIRC, when sheet melts, it will release a huge amount of fresh water into the salty Atlantic gulf stream and shut it down. The convection from top warm water sinking into the depth because of a salt concentration gradient will stop functioning.
Besides it's climate impact and heat transfer mechanism it will likely disturb the other ocean currents that are import for a stable climate as well.
Besides it's climate impact and heat transfer mechanism it will likely disturb the other ocean currents that are import for a stable climate as well.
Predicted results are huge acceleration of global warming as albedo is decreased and water absorption of GHG is decreased due toreduced mixing. Plus some rather big local climate changes earlier than that.
Easily getting us to the edge of what is livable even with advanced technology.
Easily getting us to the edge of what is livable even with advanced technology.
7 meter rise. If that happens, we're toast.
Yes, an Antarctic melt would be worse, but it's far less likely.
Yes, an Antarctic melt would be worse, but it's far less likely.
Humans have experienced 120m sea level rise since the last ice age. We can only hope this last 7m wont finish us off.
> Humans have experienced 120m sea level rise since the last ice age.
Human civilization didn’t, because human civilization didn’t exist at the last glacial maximum, and almost all of that rise was before human civilization existed. Low density nomadic hunter-gatherer existence is less disrupted by sea level change than settled agriculture and industry.
Human civilization didn’t, because human civilization didn’t exist at the last glacial maximum, and almost all of that rise was before human civilization existed. Low density nomadic hunter-gatherer existence is less disrupted by sea level change than settled agriculture and industry.
It's not about the survival of Humanity, but rather about global trade disruptions, mass-migrations, and massive property damage on a scale we've never seen. Humanity will be fine, but if it goes really bad then it will cause a lot of suffering and it may take centuries to recover.
And the third order effects will be further destabilization leading to more wars, which may go nuclear, and will all feed back into more environmental degradation.
So, if i were to write a algorithm, that determines the new shoreline - and buys property there, i could profit from this when?
It doesn't work like that. We don't get a new shoreline miles away.
What we get is every single existing ocean port city (which is a lot of the largest cities) being threatened by more frequent flooding. They're all right at sea level, because that's where you build port cities. Not all of these cities really depend on being ports any more, but that's how they became major population and business centers.
They don't just pick up and move something like that. There's no place you can say, "Oh, they're going to move New York over to X, so I'll buy land there now". Even if they did for some reason decide that it was so bad they had to abandon New York (or Charleston or San Francisco or lots of others), there's no one place that it goes. The whole human geography of it changes.
What we get is every single existing ocean port city (which is a lot of the largest cities) being threatened by more frequent flooding. They're all right at sea level, because that's where you build port cities. Not all of these cities really depend on being ports any more, but that's how they became major population and business centers.
They don't just pick up and move something like that. There's no place you can say, "Oh, they're going to move New York over to X, so I'll buy land there now". Even if they did for some reason decide that it was so bad they had to abandon New York (or Charleston or San Francisco or lots of others), there's no one place that it goes. The whole human geography of it changes.
Just to add some international perspective to that: were talking multiple capitals, and entire countries being rendered uninhabitable. If ALL of the ice on Greenland melts (which luckily isn't likely here an now, but we're talking scenarios, right?) then over a billion people will end up being displaced.
Property rights tend to require a functional society to effectively utilize.
Now. There are already hedge funds purchasing land based on this idea.
Like the guy from Belaruse buying up Vermont? https://www.thedailybeast.com/belarusian-currency-trader-pau...
While that's true, we didn't have as many major centers with permanent buildings set up. I'm looking for data, but I imagine that places like New York would be underwater, would they not?
Places like NY would likely spend couple billions to invest on dykes and then sell it as new water front property...
Which would get more and more expensive to maintain every year, and if maintenance stops, that would be really, really bad news.
Sea level rise is measured at 3.5mm/yr[1] as of 2016 so at current rate it will take 2000 years to hit 7m. NYC may be underwater but it would in all likelihood be as irrelevant to the future as Tyre or Carthage is today.
[1]https://ocean.si.edu/through-time/ancient-seas/sea-level-ris...
[1]https://ocean.si.edu/through-time/ancient-seas/sea-level-ris...
The concern is the acceleration of the sea level rise
"Whether it takes another 200 or 2000 years largely depends on how quickly the ice sheets melt. Even if global warming were to stop today, sea level would continue to rise."
-- from the same article (2 sentences later)
"Whether it takes another 200 or 2000 years largely depends on how quickly the ice sheets melt. Even if global warming were to stop today, sea level would continue to rise."
-- from the same article (2 sentences later)
Given the semi-permanent nature of changes at this point we should likely start talking in rates of change.
7 meter rise over 2 centuries can likely be managed in a reasonable manner via land taxation, resettlement, wall, and levy construction. 7 meter rise in 5 years would likely collapse most of the western world as major population centers find themselves unlivably under water.
7 meter rise over 2 centuries can likely be managed in a reasonable manner via land taxation, resettlement, wall, and levy construction. 7 meter rise in 5 years would likely collapse most of the western world as major population centers find themselves unlivably under water.
Did he explain why?
Estimates of total Greenland contributions to sea-level rise by 2100 range from a low of 2.1cm to a high of 5cm.
I'm going to choose to worry about other things.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/new-climate-models-suggest-faste...
Those of you downvoting me to banish your anxiety should find a healthier outlet for your issues.
I'm going to choose to worry about other things.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/new-climate-models-suggest-faste...
Those of you downvoting me to banish your anxiety should find a healthier outlet for your issues.
Thank you for sourcing your data!
That carbonbrief article links to the underlying paper at : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20011-8
The paper reports on an update of previous studies, and the results are reported mainly as changes from the previous material to reflect the impact that changes in the modelling decisions.
I can't tell where the 2.1 cm to 5 cm numbers come from (searching the paper for "2.1" is interesting).
Here is a table from the paper reported as total sea level impact estimates and 1 stddev range, rather than deltas : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20011-8/tables/1
It reports the expected 2100 see level rise from Greenland ice melt of 6 different scenarios, in two methodologies. The low, low stddev at 3.7 cm, and the high, high stddev at 25.6 cm.
And of course sea level may also be rising from other sources, that just isn't covered in the paper you mention.
You get to pick your personal items to worry about based on your individual assumptions and interests, but if your opinion is based in part on that specific paper you might want to reread it.
That carbonbrief article links to the underlying paper at : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20011-8
The paper reports on an update of previous studies, and the results are reported mainly as changes from the previous material to reflect the impact that changes in the modelling decisions.
I can't tell where the 2.1 cm to 5 cm numbers come from (searching the paper for "2.1" is interesting).
Here is a table from the paper reported as total sea level impact estimates and 1 stddev range, rather than deltas : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20011-8/tables/1
It reports the expected 2100 see level rise from Greenland ice melt of 6 different scenarios, in two methodologies. The low, low stddev at 3.7 cm, and the high, high stddev at 25.6 cm.
And of course sea level may also be rising from other sources, that just isn't covered in the paper you mention.
You get to pick your personal items to worry about based on your individual assumptions and interests, but if your opinion is based in part on that specific paper you might want to reread it.
I'm not sure where you got those. IPCC 2019 report estimated the Greenland contributions in the 10-30cm range, and the link you gave is mostly about newer models suggesting a bit higher than 2019 IPCC, so suggest at the higher end (or above) of that range.
The only related thing I could find in your linked report was to estimate contributions up by 2.6cm/2.8 cm/5cm (different scenarios) from CMIP5 to CMIP6, not in total. Maybe I missed something?
The only related thing I could find in your linked report was to estimate contributions up by 2.6cm/2.8 cm/5cm (different scenarios) from CMIP5 to CMIP6, not in total. Maybe I missed something?
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Yes, but up to 7 m over the next 200,000 years. You might want to short boardwalk futures.
This specifically mentions indigenous people, but unfortunately I don't think many people actually care about them (besides surface level). But how does this affect the average person's food supply? Don't we get a lot of fish/seafood from the arctic? Tuna and crab for example? Seems like it would affect fisheries in the north east of northern America and as well as northern Europe. That seems like a big deal for a lot of people. Does anyone have any more information on this? I imagine a lot of people depend on these regions for food.
Greenland just looks bigger in the maps
Oddly enough, Greenland and Saudi Arabia are almost the same size.
I knew that all maps are distorted but holy cow.
There are unimaginable mineral resources under the Greenland ice sheet, stuff that literate humans have never seen and which is therefore not describe in any history. There should be enormous boulders of pure copper, rich deposits of gold, silver, and lead, and of course mercury. Greenland without its ice sheet will be like a museum of pre-human geology.
This is akin to the "unimaginable" resources in asteroids.
By and large, we really don't need more resources to mine, but to use what we have more efficiently.
I'm sure there are a few edge cases, but the attitude that we should look for more and more to exploit is what leads to deforestation, the biggest loss of species diversity since the last ice age, global warming and a serious toll on the health of today's people.
By and large, we really don't need more resources to mine, but to use what we have more efficiently.
I'm sure there are a few edge cases, but the attitude that we should look for more and more to exploit is what leads to deforestation, the biggest loss of species diversity since the last ice age, global warming and a serious toll on the health of today's people.
I really hope at some point in the future we will have the tech to arbitrarily convert a pile of one element into a pile of another element. Without that, colonizing other planets is going to be hard.
This sounds really interesting and would love to learn more about this. Do you know of any resources, articles, books, etc. that talk about this?
Whatever global warming does to the planet I'm fairly sure we haven't anticipated the worst side effects.
I’m a little disappointed it got renamed as “climate change” because that phrase doesn’t have the same level of urgency to it although it is technically more accurate.
I imagine it's partly because because skeptics would have a field day any time it snowed a lot or was less warm than normal and say "so much for global warming!". It might sound obvious and silly to us, but a simple folksy sort of observational logic defeating the so called experts can be quite persuasive and validating :(
Decades ago, I was saying the same thing in the opposite direction when backers of global warming were saying, "look how hot it is." I'm talking the 80's when I said it was a terrible argument, because all it takes is a cold day to refute it...and here we are.
I seem to get downvoted every time I mention this, as apparently people want to forget global warming was ever bolstered by, "look how hot it is" and they would prefer to just now ridicule people for the same errors their side was guilty of for literally decades.
So yes, the event is real. Ridiculing opponents for making the same argument with the same temporary data points isn't winning anything.
I seem to get downvoted every time I mention this, as apparently people want to forget global warming was ever bolstered by, "look how hot it is" and they would prefer to just now ridicule people for the same errors their side was guilty of for literally decades.
So yes, the event is real. Ridiculing opponents for making the same argument with the same temporary data points isn't winning anything.
It really is not the same though. "Every year we not only see hotter maximum spot temperatures, but new hottest average month records, glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate and there is strong evidence linking that to human activity" is not the same as "Winter has arrived yet again, take that, science nerds!".
I think most people don't care because they can't change anything. What exactly do you want a penny pinching working class family to do? Cut back consumption? Easy for people who have loads more money to say. Not so easy for people who break laws just to survive economically, socially, and culturally. Nobody wants to be a schizoid living in a dungeon alone but saving the planet. Coupled with excessive spending habits of morons who can't balance a single transaction in a register make for jealousy or FOMO in many groups of people who suddenly become aware they're gonna die and all they did was live day to day instead of enjoying it.
It is true that an individual can live as carbon-neutral and eco-friendly as possible without making nary a dent on global warming. However it is also true that all of these individuals have the power to elect people who can to do something. One very simple example I can think of that happened in recent history was Trump pulling the US out of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change mitigation. If the public at large were educated on the subject, there would be widespread outrage and a lot of pressure NOT to do this - but his base leaned heavily climate-change-sceptic so it was A-OK (bonus: it really triggered the libs which would go down well even with Trump fans who are undecided on climate change). Now, would that agreement alone fix everything and arrest climate change? Probably not, but getting the world to agree on something was one step in the right direction.
It used to be called "pollution". Reframing the topic as global warming or climate change was a dedicated effort to soften the language and introduce room for doubt. I mean, everyone agrees that pollution sounds bad and is bad and we should stop doing it. But by calling it climate change, suddenly there's now an avenue to challenge its legitimacy, and shift attention onto the ideological debates. Meanwhile, as everyone is distracted, industry gets a free pass to continue polluting with zero consequences.
That's an interesting angle, it's funny because I thought it was the other way round - that it was changed to be more persuasive. I guess "climate change" also opens it up to the argument that even skeptics are in agreement that climate changes naturally, so they can brush aside evidence with "hey we don't disagree but it's a natural process and there's some doubt over whether humans are responsible" :-/
"Pollution" used to refer to spillage of a different sort: https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=pollution
The modern sense of "environmental contamination" in common parlance dates largely to the early 1960s:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=pollution&year...
The modern sense of "environmental contamination" in common parlance dates largely to the early 1960s:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=pollution&year...
Love this.
I have never failed to convince anyone in my midwest sphere of influence (midwest, know far right and far left folks) that ‘pollution’ needs to be dealt with.
You can replace ‘climate change’ in an essay with pollution and dramatically simplify changing peoples mind.
I have never failed to convince anyone in my midwest sphere of influence (midwest, know far right and far left folks) that ‘pollution’ needs to be dealt with.
You can replace ‘climate change’ in an essay with pollution and dramatically simplify changing peoples mind.
<rolls eyes>
The problem was re-framed because western industry mostly stopped belching obvious pollution and that framing of the problem did not resonate with western voters who could see that the rivers and sky were cleaner than they'd ever been. It used to be that smog was a feature of weekly weather in urban areas and if your dog jumped in a river 50mi downstream of a textile factory you'd know what color they were making the day before. By the 90s that kind of stuff was cleaned up a ton.
Not everything you don't like is the result of the evil other guys.
The problem was re-framed because western industry mostly stopped belching obvious pollution and that framing of the problem did not resonate with western voters who could see that the rivers and sky were cleaner than they'd ever been. It used to be that smog was a feature of weekly weather in urban areas and if your dog jumped in a river 50mi downstream of a textile factory you'd know what color they were making the day before. By the 90s that kind of stuff was cleaned up a ton.
Not everything you don't like is the result of the evil other guys.
they're not the same thing at all. Green house gases include CO2 and water vapor for example. GHGs are not pollutants at all, and pollutants don't cause global warming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_v._Environmental... -- the EPA can regulate CO2 because it is a pollutant, according to the Supreme Court.
Eh, it's not the same thing as pollution. Pollution to me invokes the process where you invent something unnatural and dump it into the environment, such as tetrachloroethylene. Whereas putting CO2 in the atmosphere is a completely normal natural process, and the amount we've added has "only" about doubled the usual concentration. It's categorically different because unlike TCE, which will kill you on the spot if you drink it, the downsides of CO2 are not instantly obvious.
The problem is that the average voter will not understand that distinction. They will be persuaded to vote against environmental protections because of the doubt cast on "climate change". My original point was about the framing of the debate in the public sphere. In an effort to be pedantically correct, we've handed the opposition the upper hand by allowing them to reframe the debate away from the scary word of pollution.
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Pollution is not just about the what, but also about how much. One cup of water is good for you, but if you drink 10 liters of water on the spot you might die. and that's not even close to doubling the amount of water in your body.
In perhaps colourful terms - Crap in a river and it's polluted for those downstream. This, for me, captures the essence of the issue - It's not pollution until you are the one downstream.
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My choice name is "Global Pollution Epidemic"
I think it really captures what the the problem is, rather then making it some concept that seems abstract and immovable to the average person. Lots of people deny climate change, almost no one denies that humans pollute a lot.
I think it really captures what the the problem is, rather then making it some concept that seems abstract and immovable to the average person. Lots of people deny climate change, almost no one denies that humans pollute a lot.
People don't see effects of any pollution that isn't particulates or perhaps deadly spew into potable water. So it is as dead on arrival as global warming.
"But the air is clean here!"
Climate change sounds too neutral. It should've been called climate destruction or such, but the name was picked by Big Oil.
Climate change sounds too neutral. It should've been called climate destruction or such, but the name was picked by Big Oil.
Seeing the (end) effects doesn't matter. Everyone sees pollution directly, whether the simple knowledge that the sea of cars on the freeway in front of them is burning gas, or just seeing litter all over the place. "Pollution" is a tangible thing everyone experiences.
Telling people there is a pollutions epidemic, that is something they can immediately relate too. It doesn't matter that the smoke stack they drive past every day is just water vapor, they hear "pollution epidemic", they see what they interpret as pollution, their brain tells them "yeah, this is real".
Remember this phrasing isn't for educated or knowledgeable people, it's for common folk who don't put much thought into anything.
Telling people there is a pollutions epidemic, that is something they can immediately relate too. It doesn't matter that the smoke stack they drive past every day is just water vapor, they hear "pollution epidemic", they see what they interpret as pollution, their brain tells them "yeah, this is real".
Remember this phrasing isn't for educated or knowledgeable people, it's for common folk who don't put much thought into anything.
I'm strongly in favor of prioritizing technical accuracy over perceived urgency. when people realize the sky isn't falling quite as fast as implied by the terminology, they grow cynical.
I always thought that global warming was a poor name. I remember adult s when I was young in the 90s dismissing it saying warmer summers would be great.
There are scientific papers from the 1950s which refer to CO2 induced climate change -- using the phrase "climate change."
Yeah, that was precisely the point.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:...
Just so that you have the ability to fully ruin your day
Just so that you have the ability to fully ruin your day
We've banned that site and changed the URL above to the article it ripped off and didn't link to, which is like 95th percentile blogspam shamelessness. In this case they even lifted the title as well. That clears 99.
Submitted URL was https://thehackposts.com/news/greenlands-ice-sheet-is-releas....
By the way, for anyone interested, an easy way to bust these is simply to pick a likely-unique string from the article you suspect of being a ripoff and google it with quotes around it. If there's a more original source, it will probably come up:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22It+is+a+region+that+conta...
Sometimes I have to do this a few times before hitting the jackpot, but in my experience: if content looks copied, it probably is.
Submitted URL was https://thehackposts.com/news/greenlands-ice-sheet-is-releas....
By the way, for anyone interested, an easy way to bust these is simply to pick a likely-unique string from the article you suspect of being a ripoff and google it with quotes around it. If there's a more original source, it will probably come up:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22It+is+a+region+that+conta...
Sometimes I have to do this a few times before hitting the jackpot, but in my experience: if content looks copied, it probably is.
"simply to pick a likely-unique string from the article you suspect of being a ripoff and google it with quotes around it"
There's also a subtype that deliberately circumvents this trick. There is a type of ad fraudster that rips off of, e.g. native German-speaking writers, runs their work through machine translation, and publishes the English output as original.
I encountered several examples on some technical subs on Reddit (not yet on HN). It took a disproportionate amount of effort to unmask even one -- the method that ended up succeeding was to guess which technical terms could be idempotent under translation, and (&&) some together until the result set is small enough. (It's harder to reverse translate, because unless you're an expert translator, you probably don't know what the source language was).
I've only seen a handful of these, but because of how difficult it is to detect, I'd speculate there could be a sizeable population in the wild. The writing is technically correct and non-suspicious, because it's written by a human expert in another language. It strongly resists reverse Google searches. And it resists social unmasking, because social groups who speak different languages tend to have distance between them.
It's a clever evil.
There's also a subtype that deliberately circumvents this trick. There is a type of ad fraudster that rips off of, e.g. native German-speaking writers, runs their work through machine translation, and publishes the English output as original.
I encountered several examples on some technical subs on Reddit (not yet on HN). It took a disproportionate amount of effort to unmask even one -- the method that ended up succeeding was to guess which technical terms could be idempotent under translation, and (&&) some together until the result set is small enough. (It's harder to reverse translate, because unless you're an expert translator, you probably don't know what the source language was).
I've only seen a handful of these, but because of how difficult it is to detect, I'd speculate there could be a sizeable population in the wild. The writing is technically correct and non-suspicious, because it's written by a human expert in another language. It strongly resists reverse Google searches. And it resists social unmasking, because social groups who speak different languages tend to have distance between them.
It's a clever evil.
Excellent point. Links would be interesting if you happen to have any.
I very briefly skimmed Reddit for examples. This one is /r/physics' 4th-most-upvoted post from this week, and hasn't been detected yet. It algorithmically substitutes random words for their synonyms (poorly); not the machine language translation I promised, but it's performing the same goal of resisting phrase matching.
This one was the cleanest of several examples I found*. I think the technique is widespread and broadly successful, based on my anecdotal experience. It's easy to find a diversity of examples in smaller-sized Reddit subs, the ones with less paranoid moderation and spam AI settings.
The machine translation examples are far harder to detect (to me); I'll update you if I discover one again in the future. The ones I found several years back appear to no longer exist.
[0] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/telescopes-unite-in-unpreceden...
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/njbrec/data_from_1...
* (Because I could reliably identify the original document, and because the edit of a direct quotation from a named individual is an air-tight example of fraud).
“We knew that the first direct image of a black hole would be groundbreaking,” said Kazuhiro Hada of the
“We knew that the first uninterrupted image of a black hole would be revolutionary,” says Kazuhiro Hada of the
This one was the cleanest of several examples I found*. I think the technique is widespread and broadly successful, based on my anecdotal experience. It's easy to find a diversity of examples in smaller-sized Reddit subs, the ones with less paranoid moderation and spam AI settings.
The machine translation examples are far harder to detect (to me); I'll update you if I discover one again in the future. The ones I found several years back appear to no longer exist.
[0] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/telescopes-unite-in-unpreceden...
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/njbrec/data_from_1...
* (Because I could reliably identify the original document, and because the edit of a direct quotation from a named individual is an air-tight example of fraud).
Fascinating—thank you!
Someone should try running the OP through machine translation into some other language and then back into English. I wonder if that would produce the effect you're describing. I might try this later if I remember!
Edit: I tried running the first few paragraphs through Google translate into German and back into English. I'll post the two version as replies to this comment. I also did this via Dutch (which unsurprisingly came back closer to English), Italian, and Russian.
It seems clear that you are right. The translations are good enough for blogspam and can be used to evade detection. For example,
https://www.google.com/search?q=%E2%80%9C%5BMercury+concentr...
doesn't find the original. Other sentences I tried do get picked up by Google as references to the OP, but this can be circumvented. For example, this sentence from the English->German->English text gets picked up correctly:
https://www.google.com/search?q=The+discovery+is+worrying+si...
But the corresponding sentence from the English->Russian->English text does not:
https://www.google.com/search?q=This+finding+is+worrying+bec...
Someone should try running the OP through machine translation into some other language and then back into English. I wonder if that would produce the effect you're describing. I might try this later if I remember!
Edit: I tried running the first few paragraphs through Google translate into German and back into English. I'll post the two version as replies to this comment. I also did this via Dutch (which unsurprisingly came back closer to English), Italian, and Russian.
It seems clear that you are right. The translations are good enough for blogspam and can be used to evade detection. For example,
https://www.google.com/search?q=%E2%80%9C%5BMercury+concentr...
doesn't find the original. Other sentences I tried do get picked up by Google as references to the OP, but this can be circumvented. For example, this sentence from the English->German->English text gets picked up correctly:
https://www.google.com/search?q=The+discovery+is+worrying+si...
But the corresponding sentence from the English->Russian->English text does not:
https://www.google.com/search?q=This+finding+is+worrying+bec...
Original paragraphs:
An ice sheet in the southwestern region of Greenland is releasing huge amounts of mercury into nearby rivers. The discovery is worrying as the toxic metal can accumulate in the marine animals that are a key dietary component for local Indigenous communities.
Mercury is a naturally occurring metal found in some rocks. As glaciers slowly flow downhill, they grind up the underlying rocks, potentially releasing mercury into their meltwater.
To find out whether this is occurring in Greenland, Jon Hawkings at Florida State University and his colleagues analysed meltwater flowing from the southwestern margin of the Greenland ice sheet.
Hawkings and his team completed two expeditions to Greenland in 2015 and 2018, collecting water samples from three meltwater rivers that receive substantial amounts of water from the Greenland ice sheet – up to 800 cubic metres per second. The samples were filtered to remove any sediment and kept safe from contamination. Then the researchers analysed the mercury concentration in each one.
“[Mercury concentrations in this region] are at least 10 times higher than in an average river,” says Hawkings. This means the meltwater is as rich in mercury as some highly polluted rivers – except in this case the mercury hasn’t been introduced into the water directly by humans. “Although this mercury isn’t introduced by humans, the ice sheet is melting much faster as a result of climate change,” says Hawkings.
An ice sheet in the southwestern region of Greenland is releasing huge amounts of mercury into nearby rivers. The discovery is worrying as the toxic metal can accumulate in the marine animals that are a key dietary component for local Indigenous communities.
Mercury is a naturally occurring metal found in some rocks. As glaciers slowly flow downhill, they grind up the underlying rocks, potentially releasing mercury into their meltwater.
To find out whether this is occurring in Greenland, Jon Hawkings at Florida State University and his colleagues analysed meltwater flowing from the southwestern margin of the Greenland ice sheet.
Hawkings and his team completed two expeditions to Greenland in 2015 and 2018, collecting water samples from three meltwater rivers that receive substantial amounts of water from the Greenland ice sheet – up to 800 cubic metres per second. The samples were filtered to remove any sediment and kept safe from contamination. Then the researchers analysed the mercury concentration in each one.
“[Mercury concentrations in this region] are at least 10 times higher than in an average river,” says Hawkings. This means the meltwater is as rich in mercury as some highly polluted rivers – except in this case the mercury hasn’t been introduced into the water directly by humans. “Although this mercury isn’t introduced by humans, the ice sheet is melting much faster as a result of climate change,” says Hawkings.
The same paragraphs machine-translated to German and then back to English:
An ice sheet in the southwestern region of Greenland releases huge amounts Quantities of mercury in nearby rivers. The discovery is worrying since the poisonous metal can accumulate in marine animals, which are a key Nutritional component for local indigenous communities.
Mercury is a naturally occurring metal found in some rocks. How Glaciers slowly flow downhill, they grind the rock below, possibly releasing mercury into their meltwater.
To find out if this happens in Greenland, Jon Hawkings at Florida State University and his colleagues analyzed flowing meltwater from the southwestern edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Hawkings and his team completed two expeditions to Greenland in 2015 and 2018 water samples from three meltwater rivers that receive significant amounts of water from the Greenland ice sheet - up up to 800 cubic meters per second. The samples were filtered to remove them any sediment and protected from contamination. Then the researchers analyzed the mercury concentration in each.
“[Mercury concentrations in this region] are at least ten times higher than an average river, ”says Hawkings. That is, the meltwater is as rich in mercury as some heavily polluted rivers - except here if the mercury was not brought directly into the water People. “Although this mercury is not introduced by humans, the ice is The sheet metal melts much faster due to climate change, ”says Hawkings.
An ice sheet in the southwestern region of Greenland releases huge amounts Quantities of mercury in nearby rivers. The discovery is worrying since the poisonous metal can accumulate in marine animals, which are a key Nutritional component for local indigenous communities.
Mercury is a naturally occurring metal found in some rocks. How Glaciers slowly flow downhill, they grind the rock below, possibly releasing mercury into their meltwater.
To find out if this happens in Greenland, Jon Hawkings at Florida State University and his colleagues analyzed flowing meltwater from the southwestern edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Hawkings and his team completed two expeditions to Greenland in 2015 and 2018 water samples from three meltwater rivers that receive significant amounts of water from the Greenland ice sheet - up up to 800 cubic meters per second. The samples were filtered to remove them any sediment and protected from contamination. Then the researchers analyzed the mercury concentration in each.
“[Mercury concentrations in this region] are at least ten times higher than an average river, ”says Hawkings. That is, the meltwater is as rich in mercury as some heavily polluted rivers - except here if the mercury was not brought directly into the water People. “Although this mercury is not introduced by humans, the ice is The sheet metal melts much faster due to climate change, ”says Hawkings.
I suggest this version of the Greenland story, written by a chemist in fluent German:
https://www.spektrum.de/news/schwermetall-quecksilber-in-gro...
As far as I can tell, (1) there's absolutely nothing suspicious about the ML translation into English, and (2) there's no easy or reliable way to find the original article, given only the translation.
This bizarre query can find it (as the 3rd result). I don't think any "natural" query can.
https://www.google.com/search?q="42"+"2015"+"2018"+"Nature+G...
For convenience:
"Melting glaciers in southwest Greenland wash up to 42 tons of mercury per year into the surrounding rivers. That is around ten percent of the total mercury transported by rivers into the ocean worldwide, reports a team led by Jon R. Hawkings from Florida State University in Tallahassee. The poisonous heavy metal presumably comes from the rock at the bottom of the glacier, writes the working group in "Nature Geoscience". In 2015 and 2018, she examined three rivers that carry meltwater from the ice cap to the sea. The mercury concentrations there were at least ten times higher than in an average river - and comparable to waters that were heavily polluted by industry."
"In Greenland, however, humans are only indirectly involved. Measurements of meltwater from the top of the glacier show that the metal did not come from there. That would have indicated that it would have been deposited from the air and thus from technical sources. But the mercury probably comes from the rock under the glacier. Greenland's rock is gradually being crushed by the slowly creeping ice. This process also releases ore deposits, and thus metals such as mercury. However, people are not completely uninvolved. As a result of climate change, Greenland's ice is melting faster and faster, and more meltwater is getting under the glacier and leaching out the crushed ore."
"The finding shows that natural sources of heavy metal could also react sensitively to climate change, writes the Hawkings team. In addition, such sources are much more difficult to reduce than industrial emissions. Mercury is a particularly problematic environmental toxin because it is so toxic and primarily accumulates in the food chain in the form of methylmercury. The mercury from the glacier is particularly dangerous for indigenous communities, where fish and other marine animals make up a high proportion of the food. But in Germany too, fish contains considerable amounts of mercury compounds, primarily tuna, shark and eel. Small children and pregnant women should therefore avoid such fish."
https://www.spektrum.de/news/schwermetall-quecksilber-in-gro...
As far as I can tell, (1) there's absolutely nothing suspicious about the ML translation into English, and (2) there's no easy or reliable way to find the original article, given only the translation.
This bizarre query can find it (as the 3rd result). I don't think any "natural" query can.
https://www.google.com/search?q="42"+"2015"+"2018"+"Nature+G...
For convenience:
"Melting glaciers in southwest Greenland wash up to 42 tons of mercury per year into the surrounding rivers. That is around ten percent of the total mercury transported by rivers into the ocean worldwide, reports a team led by Jon R. Hawkings from Florida State University in Tallahassee. The poisonous heavy metal presumably comes from the rock at the bottom of the glacier, writes the working group in "Nature Geoscience". In 2015 and 2018, she examined three rivers that carry meltwater from the ice cap to the sea. The mercury concentrations there were at least ten times higher than in an average river - and comparable to waters that were heavily polluted by industry."
"In Greenland, however, humans are only indirectly involved. Measurements of meltwater from the top of the glacier show that the metal did not come from there. That would have indicated that it would have been deposited from the air and thus from technical sources. But the mercury probably comes from the rock under the glacier. Greenland's rock is gradually being crushed by the slowly creeping ice. This process also releases ore deposits, and thus metals such as mercury. However, people are not completely uninvolved. As a result of climate change, Greenland's ice is melting faster and faster, and more meltwater is getting under the glacier and leaching out the crushed ore."
"The finding shows that natural sources of heavy metal could also react sensitively to climate change, writes the Hawkings team. In addition, such sources are much more difficult to reduce than industrial emissions. Mercury is a particularly problematic environmental toxin because it is so toxic and primarily accumulates in the food chain in the form of methylmercury. The mercury from the glacier is particularly dangerous for indigenous communities, where fish and other marine animals make up a high proportion of the food. But in Germany too, fish contains considerable amounts of mercury compounds, primarily tuna, shark and eel. Small children and pregnant women should therefore avoid such fish."
Indeed, it seems untraceable with any normal search.
My bad - will be more careful next time.
Thanks for the change!
Wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20210524233617/https://thehackpo...
We've banned the originally submitted site as explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27293941.
> In 2016, a group of scientists evaluated the environmental impact and estimated that due to changing weather patterns over the next few decades, melt water could release the nuclear waste, 200,000 liters of diesel fuel, a nontrivial quantity of PCBs, and 24 million liters of untreated sewage into the environment as early as the year 2090. Transition in ice sheet surface mass balance at Camp Century from net accumulation to net ablation is plausible within the next 75 years under one climate model, and after another 44 to 88 years the buried wastes could be exposed between 2135 and 2179.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Century#Residual_environm...