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Is Global Warming becoming unstoppable?

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basilio said:
Some more "interesting" historical perspectives from the pointy heads. Fascinating story actually. Worth the read IMO.

Ice core from secret US Army base reveals dramatic historical Greenland ice-sheet melting​

ABC Science
/
By environment reporter Nick Kilvert
Posted Fri 21 Jul 2023 at 5:00amFriday 21 Jul 2023 at 5:00am
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The findings indicate that the Greenland ice sheet melted during a period of warming similar to today's climate.(Supplied: Paul Bierman/University of Vermont)
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Back in the early 1960s, the US Army conducted a secret Cold War operation beneath Greenland's frozen tundra.

Key points:​

  • The US Army planned to hide nuclear weapons in ice tunnels in north-west Greenland in the 1960s
  • An ice core taken during the operation was rediscovered in 2018
  • Analysis of the core shows north-west Greenland was ice free around 400,000 years ago when temperatures were similar to today

Now a chance rediscovery from that operation could rewrite the history of the north-west Greenland ice sheet, and our understanding of its stability.

Published in Science today, the findings indicate a region of north-west Greenland was completely ice free 400,000 years ago when temperatures in the region were similar to global average temperatures today.

That has huge implications for our understanding of how the Greenland ice sheet will respond to climate change, said study co-author Paul Bierman, a geologist from the University of Vermont.

"We have fossils buried under almost a mile of ice.
"This is the evidence that Greenland can vanish. It's not a model. It's not a hypothetical. We know that the ice sheet vanished and it vanished under much less extreme conditions than we're forcing the climate to right now."

www.abc.net.au

'Big-time bad news': what a secret Cold War project could tell us about the fate of Greenland's ice sheet

An ice core discovered at a secret US Army base may rewrite the history of Greenland ice sheet melting, pointing to rapid ice loss and sea level rise after relatively small historical warming.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au
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That would increase sea levels by 270mm approximately.
 
Knobby22 said:
That would increase sea levels by 270mm approximately.
Click to expand...

I don't believe that is accurate Knobby. This is the analysis from that article. Best minimum sea level rise is 1.5 met (1500mm) . And it just keeps going up from there.

Modelling by the researchers showed ice-free conditions at Camp Century contributed a minimum of 1.4 metres to sea level rise.

"We can say now that a temperature very similar to where we are with the planet today was capable of reducing the size of the Greenland ice sheet by at least the equivalent of a metre and a half of sea level, but maybe as much as five metres of sea level," Professor Bierman said.

That's the contribution from Greenland only and doesn't include other ice sheets like Antarctica.
 
There has been a step change in our climate in 2023. Check the off the record heatwaves and ridiculous melting of Antartic ice. Climate scientists are now reviewing their models.

‘No one wants to be right about this’: climate scientists’ horror and exasperation as global predictions play out​

Climate experts

As the northern hemisphere burns, experts feel deep sadness – and resentment – while dreading what lies ahead this Australian summer

Tue 25 Jul 2023 01.00 AEST

Guardian Australia asked seven leading climate scientists to describe how they felt as much of the northern hemisphere is engulfed by blistering heatwaves, and a number of global land and ocean climate records are broken.

www.theguardian.com

‘No one wants to be right about this’: climate scientists’ horror and exasperation as global predictions play out

As the northern hemisphere burns, experts feel deep sadness – and resentment – while dreading what lies ahead this Australian summer
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Yep Waynes on ignore.

What particularly irks me is his quasi scientific dribble which :

1) Is a complete denial of the very extensive research climate scientists have done around the world for 30 years explaining how human caused CO2 emissions are driving increasing temperatures in our current situation. (That doesn't ignore other factors. They are just not relevant at this time)
2) Totally ignores the lived reality of extreme climate events as evidenced by the heat wave, fires and extreme weather events happening across the Northern Hemisphere. These have been accelearted by the global average 1Degree C increase in temperatures in recent history.
3) Equally ignores the consequences of global heating on Arctic and Antarctic ice caps. In his fantasy world we can increase temperatures to levels seen millions of years but the ice packs will miraculously stay intact. This is despite the scientists that are proving month in and month out that the these massive ice packs are being undermined and will break up and will raise sea levels by metres. There goes most of our sea side cities.

In a sane universe we wouldn't be trying to second guess a situation where the overwhelmingly scientific community highlights a serious risk of undermining our current ecosystem through rapid heating. We would have taken the precautionary principle of saying "This possibility is too dangerous to be allowed to continue. Let's address the problem." This was the process taken when scientists saw what was happening to the ozone layer in the 80's as result of human activity. It also mirrors taking lead out of petrol, banning tobacco products and probably a number of other situations.
 
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basilio said:
Yep Waynes on ignore.

What particularly irks me is his quasi scientific dribble which :

1) Is a complete denial of the very extensive research climate scientists have done around the world for 30 years explaining how human caused CO2 emissions are driving increasing temperatures in our current situation. (That doesn't ignore other factors. They are just not relevant at this time)
2) Totally ignores the lived reality of extreme climate events as evidenced by the heat wave, fires and extreme weather events happening across the Northern Hemisphere. These have been accelearted by the global average 1Degree C increase in temperatures in recent history.
3) Equally ignores the consequences of global heating on Arctic and Antarctic ice caps. In his fantasy world we can increase temperatures to levels seen millions of years but the ice packs will miraculously stay intact. This is despite the scientists that are proving month in and month out that the these massive ice packs are being undermined and will break up and will raise sea levels by metres. There goes most of our sea side cities.

In a sane universe we wouldn't be trying to second guess a situation where the overwhelmingly scientific community highlights a serious risk of undermining our current ecosystem through rapid heating. We would have taken the precautionary principle of saying "This possibility is too dangerous to be allowed to continue. Let's address the problem." This was the process taken when scientists saw what was happening to the ozone layer in the 80's as result of human activity. It also mirrors taking lead out of petrol, banning tobacco products and probably a number of other situations.
Click to expand...
i have learnt a lot about human nature from ASF.
You can't change people's minds with facts if they have a long held entrenched position. The best that can happen is they might modify their position. most people aren't able to keep an open mind.

I was thinking about this a couple of nights ago.
In the past, when some change needs to occur, as in all history, the previous guard usually try to hold it up.
It happens in everything, even science.

What used to happen in the past though is that they would get too old, die or be replaced over a twenty year period.

Due to advances in medical science they are all still there!!
The USA has an 80+ president. will be fighting the next election against another 80 year old and the USA and Australian Senates are full of really old people. Rupert Murdoch is still pulling strings at 92! Unprecedented!

Don't lose heart.
"Sometimes the wheel turns slowly -but it turns"

(i looked it up, the USA Senate has 16 senators 75 years old or older with 2 being 89 years old! Bernie Sanders is 81 to give an idea.
If I suddenly became a Senator, at 58, I would be one of the younger ones!!)
 
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Knobby22 said:
i have learnt a lot about human nature from ASF.
You can't change people's minds with facts if they have a long held entrenched position. )
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I always find such statements amusing, not because it's not true, it is. However the person making these comments invariably imagines themselves not subject to such biases.
 
wayneL said:
I always find such statements amusing, not because it's not true, it is. However the person making these comments invariably imagines themselves not subject to such biases.
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We are all biased in different ways.
I agree. Monkey brains.
 
Where we going with global heating in terms of the current extreme temperatures? How do we recalibrate our response ? This article pulls together the extreme events happening around the globe and explores some responses.

We are watching the brutal reality of what climate scientists told us would happen. How will we respond? ​

Adam Morton
Adam_Morton.png

Amid the despair and doomism is a real climate emergency. We must act accordingly

www.theguardian.com

We are watching the brutal reality of what climate scientists told us would happen. How will we respond? | Adam Morton

Amid the despair and doomism is a real climate emergency. We must act accordingly
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
basilio said:
How do we recalibrate our response ?
Click to expand...
First and foremost we'd need a response that actually aims to fix the problem rather than one that's directly comparable to the child who "looks" for the lost item in all the places they're confident it won't be found.

What we have at the moment is quite frankly a circus and a bizarre one at that, largely due to decisions being made by people who are simply lacking technical competence.

There's a long list of examples but they all have the common attributes of sounding plausible as a "30 second sound bite" but being completely ineffective in practice. Can anyone explain why:

Dual hose portable air-conditioners are banned but single hose are just fine? o_O

A particular government effectively compelled a huge investment into new gas appliances and gas infrastructure before announcing a plan to ban new gas connections?

Dark roofs in Australia's warmer cities are so common in new builds that the entire suburb appears darker on a satellite view compared to older, established suburbs? Meanwhile councils object to matters of building design or site layout several orders of magnitude less important?

And so on. One could be excused for thinking high schools no longer taught physics or that project management had regressed to a time prior to the invention of chalk and blackboards.

Putting aside arguments about the science of climate change and just assuming that there's an intent to address the problem in the way it's claimed to exist, then we'd need to start doing things that actually would fix the problem. Instead of doing things that are nothing more than busywork - looks like someone's doing something but it's actually making the problem worse not better.

That's being blunt but I see this stuff routinely and it's painful to watch. I won't claim expertise on the climate science but I do know a fair bit about how to sort this energy stuff out and suffice to say there's just so much nonsense it just isn't funny. If we're going to sort it then quite simply science itself and the practical application of science needs to be at the top of the pile, whereas at present they're mostly ignored in favour of "looks good" approaches. :2twocents
 
If the hypothesis is correct, then it's absolutely unstoppable and the World is going to boil.

Because of this:

Screenshot 2023-08-01 at 4.38.04 pm.png
 
If we want to have any sort of chance to reduce the magnitude of what is happening to our climate as a consequence of huge human caused GG we certainly have to put our skates on.
Indeed it might even be called a "Climate Emergency" situation where multiple massive changes are required across all aspects of our society.

www.scientificamerican.com

We Are Living in a Climate Emergency, and We're Going to Say So

It’s time to use a term that more than 13,000 scientists agree is needed
www.scientificamerican.com www.scientificamerican.com
 
Listening to Alan Kohler on Nightline.
His economic knowledge is impressive.
Some intelligent comments on interest rates. For another thread maybe.

On global warming, he said its effects are now obvious and mentioned the massive record breaking flood in China that just happened as well as the record heatwaves in Europe

He quoted some economic experts that cutting emissions is no longer enough and we have to actively remove carbon from the atmosphere which with our limited technology is basically to grow trees.

To him it is obvious that as a world we aren't doing enough. Going to get pretty bad.
 
Knobby22 said:
Listening to Alan Kohler on Nightline.
His economic knowledge is impressive.
Some intelligent comments on interest rates. For another thread maybe.

On global warming, he said its effects are now obvious and mentioned the massive record breaking flood in China that just happened as well as the record heatwaves in Europe

He quoted some economic experts that cutting emissions is no longer enough and we have to actively remove carbon from the atmosphere which with our limited technology is basically to grow trees.

To him it is obvious that as a world we aren't doing enough. Going to get pretty bad.
Click to expand...
Kohler is a knob. As a practitioner of the dismal science, he should be cognizant of the Chaos Theory of complex systems, well used to getting things spectacularly wrong.

Mind you, that is the economist's stock in trade, innit? Getting everything spectacularly wrong? :laugh:
 
wayneL said:
Kohler is a knob. As a practitioner of the dismal science, he should be cognizant of the Chaos Theory of complex systems, well used to getting things spectacularly wrong.

Mind you, that is the economist's stock in trade, innit? Getting everything spectacularly wrong? :laugh:
Click to expand...
A very successful guy. But call him what you will.

I wish you could have heard him. I don't give him justice.

Chaos theory is real and would say we have forgotten something and it will get a lot worse than predicted. Antarctica is an early example.

Kohler is a lot more on the ball than the economists who are prone to group think. He isn't one.

As he says the world, and China was specifically mentioned, is too late now. Reducing emissions is not enough anymore. Additional actions will be necessary. Tha t won't happen either in the short term.

We are going to see some awesome stuff happening Wayne.
 

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