Greenland Is Getting Darker 174
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Greenland's white snow is getting darker. Scientists have generally attributed that darkening to larger, slightly less white snow grains caused by warmer temperatures. But researchers have found a new source of darkening taking hold: impurities in the snow. The new darkening effect could easily add 2 centimeters to the projections of 20 cm sea level rise by 2100—and perhaps more if impurity levels grow with time."
Greenland Is Getting Darker (Score:5, Funny)
And Leon's Getting Larrrrrrrrrrrrger
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Well done!
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Guys, guys, the correct terminology is "Greenland is becoming more diverse" buncha racists here, there should be a mandated sensitivity training for you people. :(
"...if impurity levels grow with time." (Score:2, Informative)
Of course they will grow. As snow melts the impurities at the top get added to the impurities deeper in the snow.
The only thing that can reduce it is if the melt water floats/washes the impurities way.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: ...if impurity levels grow with time. (Score:4, Insightful)
Cannot figure out if you're being serious or not ..
Am fairly sure no-one is spreading sand across Greenland, in the same way they do on the streets of Winnipeg Canada [sic].
Re: ...if impurity levels grow with time. (Score:5, Interesting)
Particulates from coal-burning, wildfires, dust storms, volcanoes, Etc all contribute to the darkening of the snow. This is true thruout the northern temperate and arctic areas, not just Greenland.
Re: ...if impurity levels grow with time. (Score:5, Insightful)
No wonder people doubt climate change when scientists say things like this..
I'm just guessing here based on nothing but a few decades of involvement in the scientific community, but I'd say it's pretty likely that a) the scientists in question have thought of your objection already and b) they have quantified the relative contributions from increased grain size vs increased dark pollutants.
What would be incredibly stupid is assuming that people who study this stuff professionally can be out-thought by a random Internet commenter who has just encountered the question for the first time.
But just in case, let me ask you: what is the quantitative relationship between grain size and reflectivity of snow? Please respond with a graph or formula. You must have access to this information to judge the relative importance of grain size vs pollutant cover, and it would be a positive contribution to this discussion to share it.
China anyone? (Score:5, Informative)
And yes, the pollution really carries that far. 10-15% of the western America's pollution is from China.
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Considering that most of the pollution in China is due to them making products for the "west", I dare say that at best, 10-15% of the pollution in China is not our fault in the end...
Re:China anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:China anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and as long as WE keep buying their cheap crap, WE actually reward this behaviour.
Remember, that thing called free market? Where the buyer decides what products flourish and what products perish based on his decision what he buys and what he doesn't? It's the only little bit of free market left that we have, and, well, it seems that we want China to pump out black smoke as long as it means we get to buy cheap crap.
Re:China anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
OTOH, here in America, IFF they go out (most stay in the office), it is coach, and then a motel 6.
Is it any wonder why those buyers are choosing Chinese?
Re:China anyone? (Score:4)
It's very understandable why they prefer Chinese.
But WE should make a difference. Yes, that often means we have to do without some goodie or some gadget, but I can live without the latest phone that falls apart in 2-3 years.
Can they survive without our money?
In the end, it is in our hands. Of course, since we're few and far between, nothing will change. But I, for one, will have the good feeling that I made the right choice by NOT buying Chinese.
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I know it's virtually impossible to buy anything that has even remotely anything to do with technology that's actually "Chinese-free". "Chinese-reduced" would already be a start.
But it doesn't end at technology and it also doesn't end at China. The food that you buy, the clothing that you wear, even the place you go for your vacation. It gets harder and harder to actually "buy good stuff", both concerning quality and "morality". And yes, that usually means spending more money. So? It's just money, not reall
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BUT, the right way to solve this is to put a single level VAT (just between wholeseller and retailer; along with any delivery trucks ) in which goods are taxed based on where the parts are from.
We, umm, call those things tariffs.
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But you are not talking about a tax equally applied to all items. You are talking about a tax, and I quote, "in which goods are taxed based on where the parts are from." That's taxes being paid by an imported item that aren't paid by domestic items. That's a tariff.
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Empty ridicule. The last defense of the man who has run out of arguments.
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No, they are not. A tariff is a tax applied ONLY TO AN IMPORTED ITEM.
You said, and I quote: "...based on where the parts are from."
Chinese parts are (wait for it...) imported, just like Chinese whole items/goods are. They are also taxed equally unless a treaty or trade agreement dictates otherwise, but that's an internal legislative affair.
A tax applied to ALL ITEMS, is simply a tax and TOTALLY LEGAL PER ALL TREATIES.
In other words, you're applying a universal tariff on all items inbound from China. You do know that a tariff is simply a tax "based on where the parts are from", right?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what it is you;re trying to express, but if
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Basically, we want to reward those nations/states that have dropped their CO2/$GDP, and tax heavily those nations/states that have high CO2/$ GDP.
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No, they are not. A tariff is a tax applied ONLY TO AN IMPORTED ITEM. A tax applied to ALL ITEMS, is simply a tax and TOTALLY LEGAL PER ALL TREATIES.
Only if the tax is applied universally. You originally said the goods would be "taxed based on where the parts are from". That's a tariff and likely would run afoul of trade treaties.
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Re:China anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
BUT, that is not the real problem. The problem is that you far lefties scream that you want America to lower our emissions, while you give nations like China and South Africa a pass on building massive new coal plants. These are plants that will NOT come down for the next 50 years. And most of China's emissions are NOT from old plants. The old ones were small plants. China will be killing those and building new much bigger ones to replace them. And in addition, to replacing the current ones, you will note that China opens 1-2 new ones EACH WEEK. CHina has plans to continue that until 2018, and I am sure that they will not slow that down because of idiots like you that give them a pass.
Why does China do all this? So as to win a cold war against the west. They basically pollute heavily so that their electricity is cheaper. Hell, they have laws that say that western companies that employ chinese will pay a minimum, while their companies have laws that say that they pay a maximum (which is less than the western company).
And before you scream that America has done the largest pollution 'historically', let me point out that the bogus studies only look at emissions from 1904 onwards. Worse, they simply allow the other govs, such as china, to declare how much coal that they burned. Yet, the majority of coal that was burned was NOT in the last 100 years, but more than 1/2 of it was from BEFORE 1900, of which nearly all of that was in Europe through asia.
There is no doubt that the far right is wrong, know that they are wrong, and simply want to move the problem over to others (similar to china).
BUT, you far lefties are just as wrong in that you are seeking to give China a pass without realizing that they are now the most destructive nation going and it will continue for the next 50 years.
Grow up and learn to fucking think.
Re:China anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Your sig coupled with how much more you know about what I think than me myself makes it kinda comical, you know?
I honestly cannot remember me saying anything about the US lowering its emissions. Actually, if I was the US, I'd DEMAND global emission standards since that would mean China has to struggle to get its emissions at least close to where the US already is, boosting the US economy. But I guess I expect too much from politicians who are bought and sold by the same companies that profit from China NOT having to put up with rigid ecological standards.
The pollution I blame on the US (and Europe, don't feel left out on the Asian peninsula!) is that WE let them get away with it. We buy their cheap, pollution producing crap. We buy it. And as long as we buy it, they will produce it. It is our pollution, whether you like it or not. It's not pollution we create here, allright, but still that pollution is done "in our name", for the sake of us getting cheap crap to buy.
And if you stopped foaming from your mouth for just a moment and read my comment above again, you might notice that this leftist idiot here said exactly that from the start.
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The pollution I blame on the US (and Europe, don't feel left out on the Asian peninsula!) is that WE let them get away with it. We buy their cheap, pollution producing crap. We buy it. And as long as we buy it, they will produce it. It is our pollution, whether you like it or not.
Don't forget that we also sell them the coal. [thinkprogress.org]
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Not even close. China does the majority of their own coal.
I didn't say we sold them all of the coal they use. The point is, that we sell them all of the coal we produce, then it doesn't much matter who's burning it, climate-wise.
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Hey, at least China is buying something Made in the U.S.A.!
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Look, China puts out over 33% of the emissions today AND RISING. And America is at 15% and dropping.
This is deceiving. It implies that all countries should have equal emissions, regardless of the size of their population. While it's true that China's emissions are increasing (which is bad) and the United States' emissions are decreasing (which is good), as of 2010 the United States still puts out 3x the amount of CO2 as China on a per-capita basis (source [worldbank.org]).
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First off, you use ancient data for your calculations. The fact is, that data on 2012 is fully available, but you purposely choose 2010. Why? Because USA is now below 15, while China using false estimates, is now more than EU. In addition, within another 3-4 years, even the estimates on China will have higher per capita than America.
Secondly, Per capitia is one of the WORST approaches to normalization. Why? Compare China today to China 15 years ago. They were at the same e
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I'm incredulous of that claim, not because it seems improbable, but because "pollution" is a multi-variable entity and reducing pollution as a whole to a simple percentage is the kind of claim I'd expect from someone with an agenda, and them picking a simplified metric that maximizes(or minimizes) that percentage.
Where did you hear that number, and how did they establish it?
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Ah, sulfate pollution. So we're getting acid rain from China. Thanks. Not the same as 15% "of pollution" but a problem, nonetheless.
Re:China anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
And yes, 10-15% of their pollution (CO2, etc) IS FROM CHINA. I have friends that are doing air pollution work (they developed a number of the sensors) and have determined that more than 5% of the pollution in Colorado is from China.
In addition, these ppl have been to China and did actual measurements without the gov. interferring, BUT, were not allowed to report it to the world (only to them). What they found will be astounding to the world when OCO2 finally launches and starts making measurements. At that time, ppl will find out that China is already close to 50% of CO2 emissions (yes, it is going to rise that much).
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Where do you think the "pause" in global warming comes from? /sarc
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Also there are plenty of sources of pollution in China that are not coal fired power stations or similar where exhaust goes up a nice easy to control stack. It's been twenty years since I've been near a blast furnace and don't have a clue what happens with the exhaust, plus there are a lot of vehicles in China now.
Even th
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Most of my information came from some friends that took real measurements there, without guards (nearly all scientists that go there have guards with them; discrete, but they are still there to make sure of what instruments they have). They were not allowed to publish.
BUT, as I said above, when OCO2 comes out, the world is in for a shock. Hopefully at that time, the far left will realize what idiots they are. Somehow, I doubt it.
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The far anything are idiots by definition since reality is considered less important than ideology (eg. the ideology of denying the that the century+ old established science of studying climate is valid - or even those that deny geology has worth).
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Wildfires also are a factor in black carbon production and the number of wildfires in the far north has been increasing lately.
So... (Score:1)
... when do we rename it Dark Greenland?
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Maybe we should call it Brownland in a bit. Or, eventually, Blackland.
Thinking about it, if that global warming keeps going, maybe Iceland should start pondering a new name, too...
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Depends. What's the tallest mountains on Iceland? I don't doubt the "water" part, it's the "land mass" part that may become problematic.
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I can't decide if you're serious, since your comment appears idiotic, but may be just a case of abysmal ignorance.
Suffice it to say that when sea level rise reaches the 1,000 cm range, Iceland may start noticing....
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I stopped caring a while ago. What's left is cynicism and quipping.
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I don't understand why the coastal cities wouldn't notice.
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Spruce Greenland, Hunter Greenland, Hooker's Greenland, Asparagusland (if it browns a bit as well), Army Greenland (once we're past Asparagus), Brunswick Greenland, #013220land...
I suspect (Score:5, Insightful)
The chronically uninformed and uninformable* will find some way to deny this is happening.
* - people who feel that their ignorance outweighs the knowledge of any scientist and so nobody with an IQ over 125 has anything to tell them.
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Everybody who disagrees with me is an asshole. Even an idiot like you should know that.
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...IQ over 125 has anything to tell them.
IQ doesnt impress me - accident of birth like big tits. Just because someone scores well on a test that was designed to find deficiencies and was NEVER inteded as a measuring stick doesn't mean they are automatically correct.
What impresses me is years of study and data. And the cliimate scientists impress me.
Says the dude with a low IQ.
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IQ doesnt impress me - accident of birth like big tits.
Even if it does not impress you. it should not convince you that the holder of that IQ has nothing to say.
As for the other accident of birth you referred to, some owners of those are extremely smart too.
Snowflakes start with impurities (Score:2)
I'll just file this... (Score:2)
...under "Even MORE of the sky is falling!"
News at 11.
Mmmmh.... (Score:3)
Will they have to rename the country Dark-Greenland?
Melting snow freezes at night (Score:2)
Melting snow freezes at night making a shiny reflective surface. Have they factored this into their estimates?
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yes. That why it darkening is an issue and shows we will warm even faster.
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If you read the article you should have noticed that melting and refreezing makes larger ice grains which have a lower albedo than snow.
Old news (Score:3)
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It fits exactly with climate change an pollution.
AGW is just the increase in absorbed IR energy at the lower atmosphere due to an excess of green house gases, primarily CO2.
Climate change is the impact of the energy increase on the climate.
The increase glacier melt is on top of climate change, not in spite of it, or counter to it.
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The primary cause of glaciers shrinking is particulates in the atmosphere. This has been reported many times [scientificamerican.com], but it doesn't fit with the whole Global Warming [scientificamerican.com] sound bite so it's generally ignored.
It's not the primary cause. It is a contributing cause, and is perfectly consistent with global warming. Global warming is a combination of factors that lead to warmer global temperatures. Increased GHGs are just one factor.
Darkgreenland? (Score:2)
Re:Getting extremely sick of this. (Score:5, Funny)
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That's because you're a creationist
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Which of the Koch brothers are you?
Re:Getting extremely sick of this. (Score:4, Funny)
Groucho
Re:Getting extremely sick of this. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's as if the earth never has experienced higher temperatures before and survived.
I don't think any scientist, or thoughtful person for that matter, questions whether the Earth will survive. Of course it will. Their real question is whether the changes will cause a great die off in humans and animals. Some animals will undoubtedly thrive in the new environment but humans, probably not so much.
Re:Getting extremely sick of this. (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet if we don't control our CO2 emissions the end result will be an increased strain on our civilization which is likely to cause more wars anyway. For instance one factor in the Syrian conflict is the drought that Syria has been going through for the last 3 years. The chances are good that global warming is part of the Syrian drought. The effects of global warming won't always be directly visible as a cause of things like this but it's likely to be a factor and it's likely to get worse as global warming marches on.
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And yet if we don't control our CO2 emissions the end result will be an increased strain on our civilization which is likely to cause more wars anyway.
Pure rampant speculation without even any historical evidence to back it up.
For instance one factor in the Syrian conflict is the drought that Syria has been going through for the last 3 years. The chances are good that global warming is part of the Syrian drought.
Droughts have occurred since before mankind existed. More rampant speculation with NO evidence.
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Most wars are ultimately about resources. The changes caused by global warming are subtle enough that someone like you can easily argue they are natural occurrences in the short run but as time marches on they will become more and more obvious. Expansion of the Hadley Cells and more desertification in the descending legs (where Syria is located) is an expected result of global warming.
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Most wars are ultimately about resources. The changes caused by global warming are subtle enough that someone like you can easily argue they are natural occurrences in the short run but as time marches on they will become more and more obvious. Expansion of the Hadley Cells and more desertification in the descending legs (where Syria is located) is an expected result of global warming.
And most people killed by governments are killed BY THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT, not by war. There are plenty of reasons for war, and, frankly, many of the large ones were NOT about resources, but caused by nationalism or religious intolerance.
But, hey, keep on preaching the global warming alarmism. It's most likely to lead to either war, or some country deciding the need to eliminate a chunk of their own population. That's the path "you're not allowed to use fossil fuels or nuclear" will lead to, as it reduces
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Nationalism or religious intolerance is the excuse you hear but more often that's a cover for resource competition. It's a lot easier for demagogues to whip up the population when resources are short.
Energy is a fungible resource. It's not necessary to produce it with fossil fuels or nuclear power (and I'm not anti-nuke but it is one of the more expensive ways to produce power). Getting off fossil fuels may necessitate some changes to our lifestyle but I don't believe it has to be any worse than we have
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As an Ohioan, allow me to say, fuck you.
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would get an extremely prolonged growing season
Except for the part in the middle of the summer where the heat kills off all your corn, so you get two short growing seasons, and shorter fall/winter growing seasons. Enjoy your stunted corn and tomato-sized jack-o-lanterns.
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Mmmmmm stunted corn....
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And Florida would totally disappear! Anyone else feel like going out right now and lighting off a coal seam?
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I am 200m above sea level.
Are you?
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But less than 0.3m in the last 3K years.
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I am 200m above sea level.
Are you?
The Dead Sea, yes.
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Cool.
Problem is, the jury is still out on whether I may shoot the coast dwellers when they come crawling upwards.
Re:More climate lies (Score:4, Insightful)
No. You can only shoot the ones that voted for AGW deniers, or didn't vote at all.
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If you believe in global warming, you should start moving upwards already anyway... Who's left at sea level when the water comes clearly doesn't believe in GW.
Re:More climate lies (Score:5, Informative)
Try looking up albedo, then performing some calculations to figure out how changes in the albedo changes changes the local temperature. Finally use that change in temperature to figure out how much ice will melt. While your results won't be as good as those produced by experienced research scientists, the basics are well within the grasp of someone with a high school education. Indeed, it is a common exercise for first year students in the physical sciences.
Once you've done that, you'll be better equipped to assess whether or not this is a climate lie.
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> Try looking up albedo
Sorry that's too sciency. Don't you have anything at the hurr-durr level?
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Well China is number one in CO2 emissions [wikipedia.org] but per capita you're correct the US is higher per capita than China in CO2 emissions. Now, GHG is one variable in the multidimensional entity you reference but also look at PM10 concentrations [worldbank.org] which really can screw up your health and surprisingly, Mongolia is the worst at 284, China 82, the US 18. But there are worse offenders such as Saudi Arabia 108, Botswana 199 and I was surprised to see the UAE at 132. Living in those places will definitely shorten your lif
No, america is not the largest producer of CO2 (Score:2)
qatar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
china(nearly twice as much as the US)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
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Re:20cm of stupidiy (Score:4, Informative)
With all the money that has been spent on global warming/climate change with little to no results do they think the American public will keep pushing billions their way with no results
All that moneyspent on climate change? The fossil fuel industry receives more subsidies than renewables by a wide margin [wikipedia.org] (70% of US energy subsidies goes to fossil fuels).
Maybe if we didn't give the fossil fuel industry hundreds of billions of dollars every year it would be easier to meet emission targets?
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Oops, forgot to quote the figures
Fossil fuel subsidies reached $90 billion in the OECD and over $500 billion globally in 2011.[1] Renewable energy subsidies reached $88 billion in 2011.
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Re:20cm of stupidiy (Score:4, Interesting)
As I said in a follow-up comment as I forgot to quote it first time:
Fossil fuel subsidies reached $90 billion in the OECD and over $500 billion globally in 2011.[1] Renewable energy subsidies reached $88 billion in 2011.
Whatever the source of that money, we are currently spending over 5x more on fossil fuel than on renewables which makes the argument that we're spending a lot of money on renewables and not seeing much in return pretty moot.
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I think we can factor in the cost of the Iraq war as an Oil subsidy, and the cost of the Afghanistan war as a subsidy to a gas company. The day after the Production Sharing Agreements were signed in Iraq with the same deal the oil companies had before Saddam kicked them out was the day we agreed to "stand down when they stood up."
If we look at more of our wars of choice as methods of reducing the costs of resources, the subsidy to energy companies would be in the trillions. Nobody is invading nations to ste
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people who understand the the amount of captured energy is going up?
and where do you get the 1.1 mm from?
http://www.ipcc.ch/publication... [www.ipcc.ch]
"From 1950 to 2009, measurements show an average annual rise in sea level of 1.7 ± 0.3 mm per year, with satellite data showing a rise of 3.3 ± 0.4 mm per year from 1993 to 2009,[6] a faster rate of increase than previously estimated"
" With all the money that has been spent on global "
what do you mean all the money? hardly any has been spent dealing with the iss
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Keep in mind the article is talking about Greenland only. The 20cm figure doesn't include expected melt from Antarctica and other glacial sources or the expected rise from thermal expansion.
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Well, If someone can't admit there's a trend at all, they certainly can't admit it's accellerating, even at a very conservative rate that only leads to converting 11 cm. to 20 cm. in a hundred years. There's actually nothing likely about such a slow exponential growth. Positive feedback processes that tend to such low growth rates are usually inhibited by some transient factor, which eventually stops restraining them:
Mandatory Car Analogy: For example, a company trying to
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Yes, we will enjoy. Fossil fuel use has greatly extended human lifespan, dramatically improved health, and driven forward progress and civilization in the last 400 years There are millennia of supply of coal, and it can be made into any type of other fossil fuel. So we have to time switch over to alternatives. No such thing as unsustainable, engineering will adapt to whatever resource supply changes occur. Of course, resources don't magically disappear from our planet, despite whatever alarmist nonsens
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News for you, most helium from wells is just vented. Yes, helium slowly leaks into space, not relevant.
You are the pathetic one, as engineer I live in the world of reality, while you have some imagined false crisis about shortages of resources that cannot happen the way this planet works.
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I was just picturing jets spraying out heavy metals and nanochips and radioactive compounds, and then the HAARP broadcasts frying all those nanochips, and so on, and thinking "That's the stupidest conspiracy evah!"