Ice-free summers in Arctic possible within next decade, scientists say(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Ice-free summers in Arctic possible within next decade, scientists say
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/05/ice-free-summers-in-arctic-possible-within-next-decade-scientists-say
81 comments
In Europe, we mostly didn't have a winter this year around the Alps. It snowed 3x as much in November (and thank god for that), but has been spring temperatures (up to +10C in the mountain valleys) most of january and february and almost no precipitation.
Last winter was already very meh and extremely subpar re snowpack. Not even going into the increasing speed of glaciers melting, its up to 10m per year.
Winters as we know are disappearing, summers are getting brutal heatwaves never seen even few years ago, not within 1 person lifetime but within one darn decade. To any climate change denier... I'd love to smash that idiocy out of your head if that would help, but unfortunately we all know it won't.
Last winter was already very meh and extremely subpar re snowpack. Not even going into the increasing speed of glaciers melting, its up to 10m per year.
Winters as we know are disappearing, summers are getting brutal heatwaves never seen even few years ago, not within 1 person lifetime but within one darn decade. To any climate change denier... I'd love to smash that idiocy out of your head if that would help, but unfortunately we all know it won't.
Well, we have had a great winter in Utah this year and last year, average temperatures and all time record amounts of snow. I am not a denier of human caused climate change but winters disappearing in a decade is not true, at least broadly.
El Nino causes a change in temperature distribution, rather than an overall change in global temperatures
Thanks for taking Ontario's Canadian winter this year
Thanks for taking Ontario's Canadian winter this year
Canada, very similar. We had days in January over 14C up by our cottage near Haliburton. Normally we see temps around -20C that time of year. I’ve never seen a warm winter like this. The snow mobile trails also never opened on the lake this year. Last year they opened for about 2 weeks, we all thought that was very short, until this year when they never opened.
> To any climate change denier... I'd love to smash that idiocy out of your head if that would help
Well, one must balance the downsides with the positives. Cheap energy from fossil fuels allowed humanity to flourish like never before, raising standards of living globally. And in the 50-year span from 1970 to 2019, deaths from climate-related reasons decreased to one-third[0], even as the global population more than doubled. That's one-third the absolute number, not per capita! All this mostly due to the increasing ability of the developing world to deal with extreme weather events, again thanks to cheap energy.
I posit it's entirely reasonable to disagree on what we should do about climate change.
[0]: https://library.wmo.int/records/item/57564-wmo-atlas-of-mort...
Well, one must balance the downsides with the positives. Cheap energy from fossil fuels allowed humanity to flourish like never before, raising standards of living globally. And in the 50-year span from 1970 to 2019, deaths from climate-related reasons decreased to one-third[0], even as the global population more than doubled. That's one-third the absolute number, not per capita! All this mostly due to the increasing ability of the developing world to deal with extreme weather events, again thanks to cheap energy.
I posit it's entirely reasonable to disagree on what we should do about climate change.
[0]: https://library.wmo.int/records/item/57564-wmo-atlas-of-mort...
Unfortunately, your analysis of humanity "flourishing" ignores the mass extinctions of many other species and habitats. Ultimately, we depend on our ecosystems to survive, so it remains to be seen how sustainable humanity's population level will be.
Ecosystem destruction from human activity is way, way bigger than just climate change.
You were downvoted, but I'm not sure why. To emphasize, your post as written is not denying human-induced climate change (at this point I think it's fair to call people that do this idiots, or at least impervious to evidence), it's just acknowledging that cheap energy has been responsible for a huge surge is standards of living (and lifespans) for humans.
> I posit it's entirely reasonable to disagree on what we should do about climate change.
I think maybe you could have argued that in the past, but not so much anymore. We know now that it is possible to fully decarbonize the vast majority of our energy sources without a significant decrease in living standards - we just need to ensure the infrastructure exists that incentivizes the transition as quickly as possible, and ensure that organizations/people with large vested interests in fossil fuel extraction aren't allowed to control the direction we, collectively, take.
> I posit it's entirely reasonable to disagree on what we should do about climate change.
I think maybe you could have argued that in the past, but not so much anymore. We know now that it is possible to fully decarbonize the vast majority of our energy sources without a significant decrease in living standards - we just need to ensure the infrastructure exists that incentivizes the transition as quickly as possible, and ensure that organizations/people with large vested interests in fossil fuel extraction aren't allowed to control the direction we, collectively, take.
There are two problems: one is that cheap energy wasn’t the only factor in things like population growth or quality of life improvements and it’s also not like most of the carbon emissions were directed towards that goal. Attributing everything to cheap energy is effectively using someone in, say, India getting access to antibiotics, water filtration, and fertilizer as an excuse to ignore just how much of the global carbon footprint went not to providing the global poor with the huge reductions in childhood mortality but rather to things like Americans eating beef multiple meals a day and driving inefficient vehicles everywhere. Whether or not that was their intention it reads like an attempt to whitewash our highly disparate contribution to global carbon levels.
The other problem is the future: it’s mostly the same places which saw those gains which are also critically at risk from flooding, drought/famine, dangerous heat levels, etc. so there’s very much a “the future is longer than the past” aspect to this conversation where, say, 3-6 good decades shouldn’t be accepted as an excuse for the much larger number of worse decades which have already started.
The other problem is the future: it’s mostly the same places which saw those gains which are also critically at risk from flooding, drought/famine, dangerous heat levels, etc. so there’s very much a “the future is longer than the past” aspect to this conversation where, say, 3-6 good decades shouldn’t be accepted as an excuse for the much larger number of worse decades which have already started.
It's denial of a different stripe.
Instead of saying "It's not happening." the GP is saying "It's happening but it's no big deal. good stuff came from it."
Which to be frank, is a complete waste of time not worth responding to. What they've said has been a meme for 30 years at this point.
https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed...
Instead of saying "It's not happening." the GP is saying "It's happening but it's no big deal. good stuff came from it."
Which to be frank, is a complete waste of time not worth responding to. What they've said has been a meme for 30 years at this point.
https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed...
For a brief moment on the geological timescale we managed to create a lot of wealth for billionaires. »That was worth it«, it will say on the tombstone inside the flame-moated residence of the last man standting, a billionaire.
Most of Iran/Pakistan will become unlivable outside during summer (maybe it will shock you most most world doesn't have AC even if its 50C outside). Same could easily go for whole Sahel. We can continue around the globe and name locations where a billion+ people live.
Please explain those cool positives you see to them. You won't have to, they will mostly not lay around and wait for collapse and death, instead they will stand up, turn towards also your home and march to a good and safe location (TM). I would do exactly the same in their place. Bear in mind that those folks will be absolutely desperate with nothing to lose.
This will be a catastrophe for all developed nations, and I don't see any way to avoid it now.
Please explain those cool positives you see to them. You won't have to, they will mostly not lay around and wait for collapse and death, instead they will stand up, turn towards also your home and march to a good and safe location (TM). I would do exactly the same in their place. Bear in mind that those folks will be absolutely desperate with nothing to lose.
This will be a catastrophe for all developed nations, and I don't see any way to avoid it now.
> (maybe it will shock you most most world doesn't have AC even if its 50C outside)
The solution is, again, more energy abundance so that most of the world can have AC. To paraphrase another HNer, I wish for the average Bangladeshi or Nigerian to have the living standards of the average Texan or Swiss; not the other way around, which would be what I foresee as the result of "degrowth" in the name of saving the climate.
There's virtually no point in the hand-wringing that the developed world engages in with electric cars and rooftop solar, when the developing world, where the majority of people are, are emitting more per capita CO2 emissions year after year. China alone netted over 40GW of coal power plants last year.
> Same could easily go for whole Sahel
The Sahel isn't home to all that many people, because it's not very friendly to civilization to begin with. Countries with territories in the Sahel have quite a lot of people, but that's entirely different.
> I don't see any way to avoid it now
More energy, preferably emission-free, but with emissions if we must. More nuclear power plants. More research into fusion.
The solution is, again, more energy abundance so that most of the world can have AC. To paraphrase another HNer, I wish for the average Bangladeshi or Nigerian to have the living standards of the average Texan or Swiss; not the other way around, which would be what I foresee as the result of "degrowth" in the name of saving the climate.
There's virtually no point in the hand-wringing that the developed world engages in with electric cars and rooftop solar, when the developing world, where the majority of people are, are emitting more per capita CO2 emissions year after year. China alone netted over 40GW of coal power plants last year.
> Same could easily go for whole Sahel
The Sahel isn't home to all that many people, because it's not very friendly to civilization to begin with. Countries with territories in the Sahel have quite a lot of people, but that's entirely different.
> I don't see any way to avoid it now
More energy, preferably emission-free, but with emissions if we must. More nuclear power plants. More research into fusion.
A now-removed post provided a link to the study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-023-00515-9
It was likely removed because it used harsh words to criticize the quality of The Guardian. Someone inquired why they are calling Guardian [redacted]. Since the top comment disappearing also hid my response, here it is, because I agree that the Guardian is [redacted]:
---
Especially on climate, it's known for alarmist articles. Search their site for other headlines on an ice-free arctic and I bet you'll find similar doom predictions going back a long time with dates that are now in the past.
A random example I found: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/12/global-w...
The headline suggests half of the world will become uninhabitable. The text then reveals that it will happen "if the average global temperature rises by 7C on pre-industrial levels" and claims that the IPCC says "average temperatures could rise by 6C this century". Which isn't technically lying because they say "could", but it's the upper end of the error bars of the worst-case scenario, and as such, it doesn't support the "will" in the headline.
---
Edit: and since I don't want this to be just my opinion, https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-guardian/ rates their "Factual Reporting" as "MIXED", same as Fox News or the German "BILD".
It was likely removed because it used harsh words to criticize the quality of The Guardian. Someone inquired why they are calling Guardian [redacted]. Since the top comment disappearing also hid my response, here it is, because I agree that the Guardian is [redacted]:
---
Especially on climate, it's known for alarmist articles. Search their site for other headlines on an ice-free arctic and I bet you'll find similar doom predictions going back a long time with dates that are now in the past.
A random example I found: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/12/global-w...
The headline suggests half of the world will become uninhabitable. The text then reveals that it will happen "if the average global temperature rises by 7C on pre-industrial levels" and claims that the IPCC says "average temperatures could rise by 6C this century". Which isn't technically lying because they say "could", but it's the upper end of the error bars of the worst-case scenario, and as such, it doesn't support the "will" in the headline.
---
Edit: and since I don't want this to be just my opinion, https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-guardian/ rates their "Factual Reporting" as "MIXED", same as Fox News or the German "BILD".
The link is https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/12/global-w... - will see if that breaks. An error by a headline drafter is bad, but I'm not sure it proves the point you want to make.
Thanks, fixed the link. I don't think it's an error, the alarmism is too consistent for that and as I said, the article text is misleading even when it isn't outright lying. This is just one random example I found, but it's a pattern I've noticed specifically with the Guardian's reporting on climate.
I believe the Guardian likes reporting what its readers want to hear, with facts often taking a backseat to that.
I believe the Guardian likes reporting what its readers want to hear, with facts often taking a backseat to that.
We have good reasons to be concerned when looking at the sudden rise in ocean temperatures seen since early 2023 that closely track the worst-case scenarios. Given the stakes, I prefer to be overly cautious (aka. alarmist).
On the topic of possible inaccurate climate models used in IPCC reports https://youtu.be/4S9sDyooxf4?si=qEIMzCg-oI4y8pbo
On the topic of possible inaccurate climate models used in IPCC reports https://youtu.be/4S9sDyooxf4?si=qEIMzCg-oI4y8pbo
> Especially on climate, it's known for alarmist articles. Search their site for other headlines on an ice-free arctic and I bet you'll find similar doom predictions going back a long time with dates that are now in the past.
> A random example I found: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/12/global-w...
Now if anyone gets a wrong impression here: I checked the linked article. It does not talk about an ice-free arctic. It doesn't even mention the word "arctic". It also does not make any predictions for a date that is now in the past.
It essentially explains that extreme temperature increases would make parts of the world uninhabitable due to the wet bulb temperature. Which is, well, not particularly controversial, as it is a fact that can be derived from very basic physics, and was as true in 2009 as it is today.
> A random example I found: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/12/global-w...
Now if anyone gets a wrong impression here: I checked the linked article. It does not talk about an ice-free arctic. It doesn't even mention the word "arctic". It also does not make any predictions for a date that is now in the past.
It essentially explains that extreme temperature increases would make parts of the world uninhabitable due to the wet bulb temperature. Which is, well, not particularly controversial, as it is a fact that can be derived from very basic physics, and was as true in 2009 as it is today.
‘Next year or the year after, the Arctic will be free of ice’ (2016)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/21/arctic-w...
Ice-free Arctic in two years heralds methane catastrophe – scientist (2013)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/j...
Arctic expert predicts final collapse of sea ice within four years (2012)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/17/arctic-c...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/21/arctic-w...
Ice-free Arctic in two years heralds methane catastrophe – scientist (2013)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/j...
Arctic expert predicts final collapse of sea ice within four years (2012)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/17/arctic-c...
I was just in Oslo and Tromsø a couple of weeks ago. It was raining in Oslo. In February. In Tromsø, it was decidedly above freezing for a good portion of the time we were there. I don't think it's supposed to be above-freezing well up into the Arctic Circle in the middle of winter.
Where I live now (Netherlands), people tell me that just 20 years ago, there was ice-skating on the lakes/canals right now. Now, it is sunny and almost sweater weather instead of coat weather.
Where I live now (Netherlands), people tell me that just 20 years ago, there was ice-skating on the lakes/canals right now. Now, it is sunny and almost sweater weather instead of coat weather.
You could ice skate on the canals in Amsterdam in 2018 late February early March (was there for a couple of days). The Earth is definitely warming, but ymmv with anecdotal evidence.
The question is not “do we ever have normal weather?” but rather “how often do we have abnormal weather, and how abnormal is it?”.
The weather in Norway has always been warmer than its latitude would imply (compared to ex. Anchorage) due to the Gulf stream.
Not to the point of rain in February. I grew up there, but the last decade-and-a-half the winters have gone completely to hell.
Are you saying it never used to rain in February? That seems wildly inaccurate, it rains in Alaska year round..
In 2003, it rained one day in Feb:
https://weatherspark.com/h/s/68697/2002/3/Historical-Weather...
https://weatherspark.com/h/s/68697/2002/3/Historical-Weather...
and in 1999 it rained many days
https://weatherspark.com/h/s/68697/1999/3/Historical-Weather...
https://weatherspark.com/h/s/68697/1999/3/Historical-Weather...
The point is, anecdotes aren’t science.
The weather is (hotter|colder) than my perceived normal for this time, therefore climate change is (real|a hoax)!
The weather is (hotter|colder) than my perceived normal for this time, therefore climate change is (real|a hoax)!
You're looking at the data for Oslo, in the far south, while I was talking about northern Norway.
Did it rain in Tromso while you were there?
for anyone who doesn’t want to read the garbage that is the Guardian here’s the link to the scientists – https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-023-00515-9
Why do you say Guardian is garbage?
It's bait. Are you sure you want to take it?
Especially on climate, it's known for alarmist articles. Search their site for other headlines on an ice-free arctic and I bet you'll find similar doom predictions going back a long time with dates that are now in the past.
A random example I found: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/12/global-w...
The headline suggests half of the world will become uninhabitable. The text then reveals that it will happen "if the average global temperature rises by 7C on pre-industrial levels" and claims that the IPCC says "average temperatures could rise by 6C this century". Which isn't technically lying because they say "could", but it's the upper end of the error bars of the worst-case scenario, and as such, it doesn't support the "will" in the headline.
A random example I found: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/12/global-w...
The headline suggests half of the world will become uninhabitable. The text then reveals that it will happen "if the average global temperature rises by 7C on pre-industrial levels" and claims that the IPCC says "average temperatures could rise by 6C this century". Which isn't technically lying because they say "could", but it's the upper end of the error bars of the worst-case scenario, and as such, it doesn't support the "will" in the headline.
I find its coverage of Israeli-Hamas war to be extremely biased and manipulative.
Here’s an article from 2019 https://david-collier.com/guardian-israel-bias-obsessive/
Here's a book from 2004 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disenchantment:_The_Guardian_a...
here’s their own attempt to say that it’s not bias https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/22/accusa...
A quote (judge by yourself if you agree with the editor):
> One example is a complaint from Yiftah Curiel, the press attache at London’s Israeli embassy. He believes that all too often the “headlines of news pieces on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will turn events on their head, portraying perpetrator as victim”.
> He complained about a headline on a story from the Associated Press. It was about one of four attacks on Israelis that left five Palestinians dead in one day.
> Curiel said: “We would like to request a correction of the headline ‘Three Palestinian teenagers shot dead on West Bank’. The headline obscures the relevant and pressing fact that the youths themselves had opened fire at Israeli soldiers, while the headline basically insinuates that they were executed by the soldiers.”
> (The headline to the original AP article stated: “Israel: 5 Palestinians killed while attacking Israelis”.)
> In a later email Curiel said: “In fact, the sub headline in this case makes it even worse, almost insinuating that the soldiers were lying about being attacked (“Israeli security forces allege they were under attack before the killings – though no soldiers were hurt”), as if the fact that they weren’t hurt somehow undermines the veracity of the attack”.
> I rejected the complaint because the headline is not inaccurate, nor in my view does it suggest that the three Palestinians were innocent victims. Three Palestinians are dead. But is it the whole story, no. Should headlines encapsulate the whole story? Traditionally they were required to capture the readers’ attention with the most significant part of the story: in this case the deaths. It was accepted that headlines were read in conjunction with the subheading and the article, which gave context.
I’ve been a loyal reader for years and since their reporting is so corrupt on one subject, now I feel like my worldview was partially shaped by their emotional coverage of many other subjects, which I now simply don’t trust.
Here’s an article from 2019 https://david-collier.com/guardian-israel-bias-obsessive/
Here's a book from 2004 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disenchantment:_The_Guardian_a...
here’s their own attempt to say that it’s not bias https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/22/accusa...
A quote (judge by yourself if you agree with the editor):
> One example is a complaint from Yiftah Curiel, the press attache at London’s Israeli embassy. He believes that all too often the “headlines of news pieces on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will turn events on their head, portraying perpetrator as victim”.
> He complained about a headline on a story from the Associated Press. It was about one of four attacks on Israelis that left five Palestinians dead in one day.
> Curiel said: “We would like to request a correction of the headline ‘Three Palestinian teenagers shot dead on West Bank’. The headline obscures the relevant and pressing fact that the youths themselves had opened fire at Israeli soldiers, while the headline basically insinuates that they were executed by the soldiers.”
> (The headline to the original AP article stated: “Israel: 5 Palestinians killed while attacking Israelis”.)
> In a later email Curiel said: “In fact, the sub headline in this case makes it even worse, almost insinuating that the soldiers were lying about being attacked (“Israeli security forces allege they were under attack before the killings – though no soldiers were hurt”), as if the fact that they weren’t hurt somehow undermines the veracity of the attack”.
> I rejected the complaint because the headline is not inaccurate, nor in my view does it suggest that the three Palestinians were innocent victims. Three Palestinians are dead. But is it the whole story, no. Should headlines encapsulate the whole story? Traditionally they were required to capture the readers’ attention with the most significant part of the story: in this case the deaths. It was accepted that headlines were read in conjunction with the subheading and the article, which gave context.
I’ve been a loyal reader for years and since their reporting is so corrupt on one subject, now I feel like my worldview was partially shaped by their emotional coverage of many other subjects, which I now simply don’t trust.
I also generally think that a science report is more interesting than media rephrasing that report to make it more sensationalist.
Wonder what the economics are if deep water ports around the arctic circle. Might be a modern gold rush of sorts to have that area of the ocean open for shipping year round and in a direct path over the pole.
I'm not saying it is, but it would be sad if the economics of ports was your first thought, and not the permanent obliteration of an entire ecosystem of continental scale.
I think by definition we'd be officially out of the ice age then? If I remember my climate class accurately, average temperature out of ice age is significantly higher...
We'd be out of the ice age if we had no ice caps. There's ice at the south pole too.
I don't know what the definition would think of a situation where we usually had ice caps, but sometimes didn't. I tend to assume that would still count as an ice age, but presumably right on the threshold.
I don't know what the definition would think of a situation where we usually had ice caps, but sometimes didn't. I tend to assume that would still count as an ice age, but presumably right on the threshold.
Just 1 ice pole puts us in an "Ice House", no longer "Ice Age".
We need to put the sulfur back in the cargo ship fuel ASAP. Since the ban ocean water and global air temps have shot up like a rocket, far beyond the normal swings in El Niño weather patterns .
This is a very popular take on here, IANAS but I’m not sure it’s that well supported.
For one, there’s a significant lag which means that we’re only seeing a fraction of the effect from the drop in emissions. To attribute the majority of this year’s warming would suggest an enormous effect size that’s not supported by our best models.
The majority of models suggest between 0.03 and 0.06 degrees of warming over the next 30 years, due to the drop in SO2 from marine shipping. At the very top end, models which anticipate a large amount of radiative forcing at the end of the confidence ranges still only anticipate around +0.18C by 2030.
Carbon Brief suggests other factors being more influential:
> [drop in marine shipping SO2] is unlikely to be sufficient to explain the spike in global sea surface temperature in recent weeks, which is around 0.2C above the prior record for this time of year.
> Rather, there are a number of other factors likely contributing to current record-warm ocean temperatures. These include the end of a moderate La Niña event at the start of the year and a developing El Niño, a shift which tends to result in higher global temperatures.
> Stratospheric water vapour from the 2022 eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano and an unusual absence of dust from the Sahara Desert over the tropical North Atlantic may also be helping drive the ocean heatwave.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shippin...
For one, there’s a significant lag which means that we’re only seeing a fraction of the effect from the drop in emissions. To attribute the majority of this year’s warming would suggest an enormous effect size that’s not supported by our best models.
The majority of models suggest between 0.03 and 0.06 degrees of warming over the next 30 years, due to the drop in SO2 from marine shipping. At the very top end, models which anticipate a large amount of radiative forcing at the end of the confidence ranges still only anticipate around +0.18C by 2030.
Carbon Brief suggests other factors being more influential:
> [drop in marine shipping SO2] is unlikely to be sufficient to explain the spike in global sea surface temperature in recent weeks, which is around 0.2C above the prior record for this time of year.
> Rather, there are a number of other factors likely contributing to current record-warm ocean temperatures. These include the end of a moderate La Niña event at the start of the year and a developing El Niño, a shift which tends to result in higher global temperatures.
> Stratospheric water vapour from the 2022 eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano and an unusual absence of dust from the Sahara Desert over the tropical North Atlantic may also be helping drive the ocean heatwave.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shippin...
Good post. Thanks!
That would require policy makers admitting they were wrong, and having to take some initiative on the subject of climate engineering. I don’t see either happening any time soon.
The sulfur was removed for very good reasons and it would be a mistake to revert back to the old "dirty" limits.
https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2...
https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Sulphur-2...
I haven’t heard this one… can you elaborate?
emitting large amounts of sulfur dioxide directly into the atmosphere at sea level is known to have a cooling effect on the atmosphere: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shippin...
But geoengineering is bad. Killing millions with a humid heatwave is a far safer option.
/s, and I dearly hope that doesn’t happen, but these days it feels like it’s just a matter of time.
/s, and I dearly hope that doesn’t happen, but these days it feels like it’s just a matter of time.
The title is nothing essential ly. Anything is possible within next decade. Even I observe that climate might change, It is a shame to listen to this type of people.
It was a good ride folks ...
wtcactus(1)
I’ve been hearing this for… 20 years.
We’ve known much longer than that, that it will happen. But since we keep pumping more and more green house gases into the atmosphere we are no longer talking about centuries or 50 year time spans, but now things are happening much faster.
"20 years ago they said these events were 30 years away, and now they're saying they're just 10 years away, can't these climate scientists ever get it right!"
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst?
>The calculation used for “ice free” means less than 1m sq km, in which case the Arctic would be mostly water.
A million square kilometers of ice is not “ice-free.” Stop misusing words.
A million square kilometers of ice is not “ice-free.” Stop misusing words.
That is a quote from the underlying publication. If you look at the total area of the arctic sea, it means that there are only minimal amounts of ice left on the ocean. As the ice doesn't have a homogeneous thickness, it is expected that the last amounts only would completely go away when the arctic stops freezing at all.
Right. Which is what “ice-free” means to anyone who speaks English. Using it to mean that there are still a million square kilometers of ice is a lie.
They think the lie is justifiable to get people scared. I disagree. Scientists lying will only make people distrust the science.
They think the lie is justifiable to get people scared. I disagree. Scientists lying will only make people distrust the science.
No, it is about doing proper science. Where you usually don't deal with absolutes, but values within an interval. Which they named in the publication.
That scientists want to "scare" is the narrative of the climate change deniers.
These last few years, the summer minimum has dropped below 4 million square km.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/...
1 million square km is pretty far from zero.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/...
1 million square km is pretty far from zero.
Ice coverage sits in another positive feedback loop, as more (dark/heat absorbing) water is exposed compared with white ice, things become hotter, locally and globally. And the Arctic is one of the regions where the average of temperatures increased more.