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NASA Earth Science

NASA's Ten-Year Mission To Study All the Ways the Arctic Is Doomed 125

Posted by samzenpus from the how-bad-is-it? dept.
Lasrick writes: NASA is kicking off the Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment, a decade-long effort to figure out just how bad things in northern US and Canada really are. The large-scale study will combine on-the-ground field studies as well as data from remote sensors—such as satellites and two season of 'intensive airborne surveys'—to improve how scientists analyze and model the effects of climate change on the region.
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NASA's Ten-Year Mission To Study All the Ways the Arctic Is Doomed More

NASA's Ten-Year Mission To Study All the Ways the Arctic Is Doomed

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  • Bender says (Score:3)

    by Revek ( 133289 ) on Sunday September 06, 2015 @04:32PM (#50468527)

    DOOMED!!!!!

  • Congress will cut the funding specifically for this effort as soon as they can.

  • Change != DOOM!

    • I agree that change itself is neutral, and that species extinction is a natural process just like the creation of new species. The earth has a history of change in its ecosystems. However, as we currently spend our time on this planet, and our lives depend on the hospitability of those ecosystems towards humans, our view isn't neutral. Science and the general thinking process is and should be neutral yes. But the motivation for which we do science has to be biased. This isn't a secluded cave where we study

      • In that case we just have to adapt. It still doesn't have to be doom. But, with so much corruption permeating the system, it will probably be pretty doom-like. And there are plenty of people who wouldn't mind seeing 6 billion or more people die off, as long as it doesn't drive up the cost of cheap labor.

      • To say that "the Earth has a history of change in its ecosystems" is an enormous understatement. Before the current ice ice, people could have built houses from trees up there instead of blocks of ice. When the interglacial ends, everything will go back to frozen. THAT'S "Doomed".
    • They'll do their very best to cover up any good things they find. After all, they're not being paid to find out what's going to happen, they're being paid to find out what bad things will happen, and anything that isn't bad needs to be covered up.
  • Collecting data is the most fundamental part of science. I hope they get lots of good data.

    • Collecting data is the most fundamental part of science. I hope they get lots of good data.

      Yes, but it also needs to be the right data. Studying symptoms of a problem may not help you solve it.

    • If you have a 3-dimension region that is so full of information that that information cannot be encoded on a 2-d boundary of that region, then you have a black hole.

      And don't "adjust" it - or if they do, at least publish the un-adjusted data and the rationale for the adjustments.

    • *Especially* when you have already decided what the outcome is. That is the best way to collection data.

  • Not doomed. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Sunday September 06, 2015 @04:48PM (#50468597) Homepage

    It will be just fine, warmer but just fine. Honestly all you people have zero clue as to reality. the temperature on the earth can increase 500 degrees and the planet will be perfectly ok. Look at Venus, the planet it's self is still in it's orbit, and doing great. No chance of deorbiting and crashing into the sun, no chance of being flung into deep space. as a planet it is doing well.

    Earth will do just fine and probably better after all the pesky people have been boiled off.

  • The headline on the story is rather hyperbolic. There certainly will be massive changes in the Arctic in the future as the sea ice, land ice and permafrost continue to melt and sea level continues to rise. Ecosystems will collapse and it will take tens of thousands of years to replace them. It will certainly be costly as human activities are disrupted But the Arctic will still be there just very different than it is now.

  • How much warmer does it need to get, before it becomes interesting to buy land there?

  • Geologist's Core Samples (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BoRegardless ( 721219 ) on Sunday September 06, 2015 @04:59PM (#50468635)

    I would expect we already have core samples from the tundra and sea bottoms which cover the last 250,000 years.

    That means we have over two complete cycles of the 110,000 year natural glaciation periods.

    Given core samples we already have, I want to know whether the core samples show we have even warmer centuries coming, or not?

    • The answer varies for different values of "centuries coming".

    • Re:Geologist's Core Samples (Score:4, Interesting)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Sunday September 06, 2015 @08:15PM (#50469441) Journal
      Here is a graph of the data from the Vostok core samples [wikimedia.org]. The (numbers on the bottom are in thousands of years). Based on those core samples, what do you think? How would you say CO2 relates to temperature?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dryeo ( 100693 )

        There's not much info there but notice that every 125,000 years, which points to orbital changes driving warming, the dust goes up, then the temperature goes up fast, perhaps driven by methane, a very potent greenhouse gas, and then the methane turns into CO2 and the temps drop as CO2 isn't the strongest greenhouse gas.
        There are many ways to interpret that chart and without more info...
        The real question is what happens when something else such as burning large amounts of fossil fuels drives CO2 levels up an

        • There's not much info there but notice that every 125,000 years, which points to orbital changes driving warming, the dust goes up, then the temperature goes up fast, perhaps driven by methane, a very potent greenhouse gas, and then the methane turns into CO2 and the temps drop as CO2 isn't the strongest greenhouse gas.

          That's an interesting hypothesis. The dust does seem to have a vague lead on the temperature rise. To check out methane specifically, you can look at this graph [nasa.gov] (note that the time line is reversed).

          The real question is what happens when something else such as burning large amounts of fossil fuels drives CO2 levels up and it looks like we're doing the experiment

          Yes, too bad we don't have multiple earths to test on.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dryeo ( 100693 )

            The methane does seem to lead the temperature peaks. What drives the methane would then be the question. The dust could be a proxy for rainfall and rain (actually erosion) drives one of the major sequesters of CO2. There is a lot of limestone.
            The closest to another Earth we have is Venus, which if nothing else shows how much CO2 an Earth type planet can produce if there are no processes to sequester the CO2. On Earth I believe it is pretty equal between geological and biological processes sequestering carbo

      • The Vostok core is an ice core, not a core of the tundra or sea floor as the GP asked about.

        As far as CO2 and temperature it's simplistic to believe that CO2 always lags temperature. Increased CO2 may be a feedback to warming temperatures coming out of a glaciation but it's impossible to account for the temperatures that are reached without accounting for the additional CO2 in the atmosphere. The physics of CO2 as a greenhouse gas are pretty straightforward.

        • As far as CO2 and temperature it's simplistic to believe that CO2 always lags temperature.

          Of course. It's pretty clear that increasing CO2 will have at least some increase in temperature.

  • Headline screams bad science.

    http://www.gocomics.com/nonseq... [gocomics.com]

    • Here's an interesting study:

      researchers plan to give subsistence hunters camera equipped GPS units, and have them “mark and photograph environmental disturbances influencing their access to subsistence resources for one calendar year.”

      I'm really interested in seeing what kinds of things subsistence hunters find.

      • researchers plan to give subsistence hunters camera equipped GPS units, and have them âoemark and photograph environmental disturbances influencing their access to subsistence resources for one calendar year.â

        I'm really interested in seeing what kinds of things subsistence hunters find.

        Can you say "selfie"? Sure you can....

  • Wildlife is already dying (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Just look at this. From nat. geo.
    https://instagram.com/p/7TUcCqoVb-/

    Fucking sad.

    • Just look at this. From nat. geo. Polar bear deaths [instagram.com]

      Fucking sad.

      Fixed the link for ya. And well quoted point well taken but the implications of what is happening to the arctic are much further reaching than just the sudden extinction of the top predators!

      And that is the whole issue in a nut shell. What is even more concerning is as the sea ice changes so does the ecosystem that supports the arctic cod that requires sea ice habitat. This in turn supports the summer populations of sea birds, seals and the food web of the arctic. So it gets much worse than that in a hurry

  • It's a mess, irreversible and responsible for it is and can be made accountible for it: <void>
    Consequences will be endured by future generations.

    Since we are all going to heaven anyway, no problem, just fuck everybody else who comes after, they can't get us.

    What needs to be done should be crystal clear, but with the holy trinity of the T-family, this is going to be very difficult.

    TPP:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    TTIP
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    TISA:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Russia's problem (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Sunday September 06, 2015 @06:10PM (#50468937)

    They own the rights to the Arctic. Let them deal with it.

  • the canadian scientists cannot help (Score:4, Insightful)

    by crispytwo ( 1144275 ) on Sunday September 06, 2015 @06:24PM (#50469005)

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/technol... [www.cbc.ca]

    And even if they could help, they could not talk about it

    https://news.vice.com/article/... [vice.com]

    we're doomed

  • I know I probably should give a shit, but I really don't for the same reason I smoked cigarettes when I was younger. This "existential crisis" touches on an evolved emphasis on short term risk, and de-emphasis on long term risk. Also a blind spot in the scope of our evolutionary pressure points: "genetic lineage/tribe" = care about the long term(after my death). Everyone else? Tragedy of the commons.

    Why? I think because of competition for mates/prisoner's dilemma. We care about people who we are related to,

    • Maybe it's because people are really bad at caring (wrong word but the right one is escaping me at the moment) for the consequences in the future. You see it when a person needs to lose weight or stop smoking in order to prevent bad health in the future, being unable to put money aside for a rainy day, or even in those tests that they give kids where they can have one candy now but two if they wait 20 minutes. We seem to be programmed to want the immediate satisfaction of a smoke, buying something, or a c

  • Slashdot's inflammatory titles are a strategy to encourage impulsive and thoughtless behavior. I am against this, and in protest, I refuse to read or respond to these articles in any other way. This is my official boycott, expect to see this elsewhere until you get the message.

  • What about rides to the space station?
    Climate changelings rejoice!
    Why has the President re-tasked the nation?
    Climate changelings rejoice!
    The military thinks climate is bigger than war?
    Climate changelings rejoice!
    The Pope is on board as never before?
    Climate changelings rejoice!
    Celebrity endorsement roll in hard and fast?
    Climate changelings rejoice!
    While concern about climate always polls dead last?
    Climate changelings rejoice!
    Solar and wind failures win subsidy and extension?
    Climate changelings rejoice!
    But nu

  • The project should be aimed at understanding the Arctic and how it changes. It should not only look for possible problems, but also how the Arctic will adapt and cope with it. By setting the vulnerabilities as a topic this research is defined to be one-sided.
  • To try to prove man made global warming, which isn't possible. The earth warms & cools, the problem for these anti-people morons is they don't think LONG TERM. There was glacier melting back before the "industrial age", but since they've only been keeping records for around 100 years, they soon forget the EARTH is millions of years old. Oh that's right, as long as they can fudge the numbers to match their agenda, who cares. "July 2015 was the warmest every recorded". Yeah, something like 0.01 degrees

    • Actually, the planet is billions of years old, not millions.

      Earth has changed, and continues to change. It will be here in this orbit for a long time (it will take billions of years for the Sun to expand enough to destroy it, and that's not certain). The question is how fast the change is, and what the effects will be of unusually rapid changes. By LONG TERM, do you mean decades or tens of millions of years? Large climate changes over decades can be very disruptive and expensive. Changes over tens o

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