In Progress: Fastest Sea Rise In At Least 2800 Years (www.cbc.ca) 520
Layzej writes: A new study finds that sea levels on Earth are rising several times faster than they have in the past 2,800 years and are accelerating. Co-author Stefan Rahmstorf explains that the fact that the rise in the 20th century is so large is a logical physical consequence of man-made global warming. This is melting continental ice and thus adds extra water to the oceans. In addition, as the sea water warms up it expands. The data from the past can also be used for future projections, using a so-called semi-empirical model calibrated with the historically observed relationship between temperature and sea level. With the new data, this results in a projected increase in the 21st century of 24-131 cm, depending on our emissions and thus on the extent of global warming.
Non-believers (Score:4, Insightful)
All those people buying and living in coastal houses don't seem to believe in climate change I guess. The ocean is rising, yet prices remain sky high for anything near the coast...
Re:Non-believers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Non-believers (Score:5, Insightful)
The actuary tables don't lie. Insurance companies have accepted AGW for years now, no matter how much Big Oil and the Koch's try to deny it.
Re:Non-believers (Score:4)
If they are still issuing policies, then it is accepted as a risk. This matches TFA in that there are a number of scenarios, the "likelihood" of an event due to Climate Change has definitely increased, but not the extent that people are uninsurable.
In areas where it is a certainty (earthquakes in California, Floods in other parts of the country), the insurance companies step back and don't insure.
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Re:Non-believers (Score:5, Interesting)
You're thinking "Rising Oceans" are like a bathtub filling up. It's more like a statistical increase in flooding events. Exactly what insurance companies are leery of.
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In Tracy Kidder's book House, he interviews a carpenter who talks about stairs. The carpenter claims that if you were to play a slow motion film of people walking up stairs you'd see that the soles of their feet clear the top of each stair tread by a couple of millimeters. They take the first step and then instinctively lift each foot by no more than they absolutely have to clear each step. That's why it's critically important to get the height of the first step right; if it's just a little bit off the stai
Re:Non-believers (Score:4, Insightful)
In Tracy Kidder's book House, he interviews a carpenter who talks about stairs. The carpenter claims that if you were to play a slow motion film of people walking up stairs you'd see that the soles of their feet clear the top of each stair tread by a couple of millimeters. They take the first step and then instinctively lift each foot by no more than they absolutely have to clear each step. That's why it's critically important to get the height of the first step right; if it's just a little bit off the stairway will forever after be tripping people up, but they won't know why because the difference is imperceptible.
I heard this before, It's bullshit. There are plenty of examples of stairs which are grossly uneven and off by far more than a couple of millimeters and people don't have trouble climbing them. Classic examples are outdoor stairs which go up hills and mountains (like Mount Fuji in Japan).
There's something like that when it comes to buying land in a floodplain. The past performance of flood control structures is like that first step on the stairway; it sets peoples' expectations to future performance. But those structures introduce a discontinuity into a gradually increasing water level. The water may have come within an inch of the seawall top a half dozen times in the last year, but an inch is as good as a mile. But if the sea level rises an inch, well that doesn't sound like much but a lot of people will notice.
A floodplain is a river feature. A seawall is an ocean-based structure. You're thinking of a levee which is the corresponding river-based structure to a seawall.
And for a well built seawall, overlapping the wall is not all or nothing. The seawall still reduces flooding and the damaging effects of wave action on whatever is behind the wall even when the wall is overlapped.
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What is the insurance policy time frame, one year? They aren't worried about rising oceans.
Actually, they are. Insurance companies deal in figures, anf they have tables with things like 10 25 50 100 year floods and disasters like hurricanes and tornados, and actuarial tables with likelyhood of death for insured individuals that they call into play when determining costing of policies.
And they darned well are concerned about rising ocean levels. Given the nature of the areas near the ocean like flat land and not much rise, a small rise in sea level, especially coupled with a high tide, can make
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Anything can be insured. If you pay a premium that trumps the value of your home, I insure you a home built in the path of an oncoming tsunami.
private insurers jump ship, governments jump in. (Score:2)
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Exactly. My original comment wasn't naysaying, it was responding to the actuary tables.
When the actuaries say it isn't a good business, then we should be *very* worried. The government support of their communities balances their existence and economic activity against the cost of rebuilding - even though the rebuilding won't last.
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The
Re:Non-believers (Score:5, Insightful)
The actuary tables don't lie. Insurance companies have accepted AGW for years now, no matter how much Big Oil and the Koch's try to deny it.
Around 10 years ago, I sat in on a presentation by an insurance company exec who made an incredibly compelling case for the monetary cost of the global warming. Complete with facts and figures. Oddly enough, I haven't heard a lot of deniers cherry picking those numbers.
Re:Non-believers (Score:4, Insightful)
The actuary tables don't lie
Asking an insurance company if something might increase risk is like asking a tobacco company if cigarettes prevent cancer. Huge monetary incentive there.
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The actuary tables don't lie
Asking an insurance company if something might increase risk is like asking a tobacco company if cigarettes prevent cancer. Huge monetary incentive there.
There are a few major problems with this comparison. First, insurance is a competitive marketplace in most areas, so customers do "shop around." If one company has a reputation for offering rates 10-20% lower than every one else in an area, that sort of thing "gets around," and people switch. (If you own a home, you probably receive offers almost weekly in the mail for this sort of thing.)
Second, home insurance is a product that most people NEVER use for its intended purpose. That's why in many areas
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Of course they're not qualified! That's exactly why they ask experts, just as you have recommended.
And the results of those inquiries are reflected in their rates.
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The insurance companies collate data from many sources, including the scientific literature available. Their very existence hinges on them getting it right. This is not difficult to understand, regardless of how much you might want it to not be true.
Re:Non-believers (Score:5, Insightful)
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Insurance companies are never afraid. They have statistics and rely on them.
The creepiest form thereof are the life tables [wikipedia.org].
odd remark (Score:2)
From TFS:
Not saying the seas aren't warming from other factors, but it seems counter-intuitive to assume that adding glacial / ice meltwater would be a factor for sea temperature increase.
Perhaps I'm missing so
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Not saying the seas aren't warming from other factors, but it seems counter-intuitive to assume that adding glacial / ice meltwater would be a factor for sea temperature increase.
They are not saying that one is the result of the other. Rather the oceans are warming for the same reason that the ice is melting. https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/... [noaa.gov]
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Maybe it's this. Salt water remains liquid at lower temperatures than fresh water. So the melted ice water could still be warmer than the ocean it's pouring into.
Warming is all over [Re:odd remark] (Score:3)
From TFS:
You might think so. But seawater freezes at a lower temperature than freshwater ice, so, no, the seawater can be liquid while the ice is solid despite the fact that they are both at the same temperature.
and so the net effect would be to reduce the temperature of the water it hits.
Almost right. Added cold water would cool down warmer seawater. On the other hand, the warmer seawater will heat up the added cold water. Since they are at almost the same temperature to start with, the net effect cancels out, and what you get is simply the added volume of the added water.
Not saying the seas aren't warming from other factors, but it seems counter-intuitive to assume that adding glacial / ice meltwater would be a factor for sea temperature increase.
The thermal expa
Re:Warming is all over [Re:odd remark] (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Non-believers (Score:5, Insightful)
Having experienced Katrina I can assure you that insurance companies will simply ignore the law with relative impunity. Remember, it's a lot cheaper to simply buy yourself a few politicians, prosecutors, judges, and regulators than actually pay out massive claims during a major storm event.
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But it's the free market right?
No. They're angling for government swag. After all, if I can blame climate change for my poor business choices, then maybe I can get a piece of the several hundred billion dollars of public funds being spent over the next few years.
So it's really good to get someone who knows. Care to debunk the insurance companies numbers? I'm pretty certain it will be a breeze for you.
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More supported, or less, than your own?
I love discussing things with shallow. He can invalidate an entire scientific issue with one sentence.
Why do so many people who are just plain wrong speak with such great authority?
Re: Non-believers (Score:4, Insightful)
I love discussing things with shallow. He can invalidate an entire scientific issue with one sentence.
When something is so painfully wrong that it can be defeated with one sentence, then why use two?
A wise man once told me, any idea that can be dealt with in a nutshell, belongs in one.
As well, your circular arguments are not convincing anyone but yourself.
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I just find it amusing how it seems corporations will naturally move towards efficient & effective service to stay competitive, except when they're lying, money-hungry bastards that are only in it for themselves, and the sole criteria for which it will be today is whether their conclusions agree with your own.
The resolution to this apparent conundrum is that businesses are rather efficient and effective at pursuing their interests, but not at doing anything that isn't relevant (or made relevant, such as via customer or regulatory action) to those interests. For example, spending taxpayer money efficiently usually runs counter to the business's interests since it usually means less revenue for themselves
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No. They're angling for government swag.
Government bailouts only happen when the storm/flood/whatever is on TV. Once the problems become common enough, they will no longer be newsworthy, and the handouts will stop. People are always willing to help, until they realize their taxes are going up. Then they realize that apathy and victim blaming is much cheaper. This is known as Compassion Fatigue [wikipedia.org].
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Yes exactly. You're analogy is kind of like the American voter who consistently votes for candidates who don't believe in government and then complain when the government doesn't work. Yes, a lot like putting your head into the cog of a giant machine and having it crushed. Admittedly, one does hear the screams of anguish.
Too bad that as the heads explode, they fail to recognize that the guy they were counting on to turn the crushing machine off, was really busy speeding it up to benefit the guy who owns
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Corporations are not evil. They want to make money. Same with insurances. If the risk rises, so does the premium. Simple math.
Simple market economy also dictates that it's not a huge conspiracy, since if the risk wasn't real and just a ruse, you'd easily find an insurance company that could undercut the competition.
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Whether we're a minor or major factor in it is moot, what matters is what can we do to slow it?
Fuck, who cares who broke the vase, what matters is who cleans up the mess?
Re:Non-believers (Score:5, Insightful)
When the responses are on the order of "how do we know the vase is broken?" or "prove the vase wouldn't have broken on its own" ... there are people who are trying to say "there is no mess, and even if there was a mess you can't prove it was us".
You don't think those companies paying to fund stuff which says "nope, not happening" want to muddy the waters long enough to keep up profits for a while?
I mean, when Exxon scientists identified climate change decades ago, and when Exxon spent huge amounts of money denying climate change, you can bet your ass that the denial of this comes entirely from corporate interests who don't want the source of their profits impacted, and they don't really give a crap how it affects everyone else.
Corporations are, collectively, sociopaths. The longer they can convince you either there is no mess or that they nothing to do with it, the longer they can keep making huge sums of money.
The people denying it's happening have a vested interest in misdirection and deception for as long as they can. Nobody has any other reason to deny it's happening other than the money they're going to make.
This is the standard bullshit of the PR game ... keep publicly lying about it to confuse the issue, and pay to discredit the facts to support their own narrative. Complete and utter sociopaths with no regard for anything but themselves.
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Unless we can get past our personal ideologies and personal economic circumstances, whether you sit in the board rooms of Wall Street or live in a home extending out over the ocean in Lagos, Nigeria the outcome is going to be the same, very bad indeed for Homo sapiens everywhere, regardless, of creed, color, religion, nationality, political party, personal wealth, or age.
I disagree actually... it'll be fine for the top 10% of the people on the planet, it is those on the bottom 50% that'll be totally screwed. But it has always been this way.
Major climate change is clearly coming. Why might be beside the point now. Stopping it is likely no longer possible, adaptation is what we should be working towards. That, and far fewer people.
It would help a lot if we could get the world's population to back around 2 billion...
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I asked 2 years ago, but the offer still stands [slashdot.org].
Wonder whether as many would take it as did back then...
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The insurance companies who've been raising premiums in coastal areas sure do.
Insurance companies do not set the flood insurance rates. Flood insurances is subsidized and rates are set by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), in other words, the federal government.
The rates as set by the NFIP and are artificially low.
My house on a coastal island (hurricanes about every 8 years) was at 11 feet above sea level and 200 feet from the water. This was a house that was guaranteed to be destroyed, and the premiums were set a level that would cover the cost of the house in 400 years.
Th
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May I be the first to say...this story floats my boat.
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Not just coastal houses, but any low lying areas like all of South Florida.
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Re:Non-believers (Score:4, Insightful)
The interesting aspect of this is that so far buyers don't seem to recognize that what each successive buyer will be both accepting more risk, hence paying more and more for insurance, on a property that will be worth less when it comes time to sell. Coastal property is very much now like milk and other perishable items. It has a sell by date stamped on it. Its just that the dates are of relatively longer duration, on the order of a few generations.
Given human nature, this musical chairs nature of the coastal property business won't make itself evident to most for another 25-50 years or so. By then with higher temperatures and hence more energy and moisture in the air and consequently more violent and more frequent storms this risks will be apparent to most. However, given that the wealthy are the primary buyers of coastal real estate, form them it's more a question of disposable income. Also for them, it is likely that much if not nearly all of these costs will be passed on to taxpayers and consumers generally, as the buy politicians to shift the tax burden from the wealthy onto the poor and the dwindling middle class and they simply pass the costs on in the form of higher prices in the businesses that they own and control.
The biggest impact will be in cities like Miami and parts of New Jersey, and large stretches of the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf of Mexico, where the elevations are so uniformly low over considerable expanses. There all properties will be effected and both rich and poor will be forced to migrate elsewhere. The rich should be ok as they may already have property elsewhere or resources that they can use to purchase other properties even as their seaside properties become worthless. The poor on the other hand will be forced to face conditions similar to those now faced by indigents in Bangladesh, too poor to stay and too poor to move. This will probably be the big unexpected aspect of sea level rise, the political and economic instability that it creates by making so many to lose it all, with little political or economic recourse. Subsequent generations will suffer disproportionately on the individual level as families that might once have had property that could be passed onto subsequent generations in the form of inheritance will be left with greatly diminished inheritance.
What few recognize is that given free energy considerations and the consequent fact that once a carbon dioxide molecule is generated from fossil fuels, it stays essentially as a permanent fixture in the atmosphere for on average about 100 years. Given the fact that it thus accumulates, the process is exponential, but the consequences time-lagged so that we have yet to experience the effect of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere over the past 50 years, an amount far greater than the previous 50. If one extrapolates from previous geological periods and looks at rates of sea-level rise at various locations, one sees spurts of rising over very short time periods, several meter rises over a hundred year period in some cases (remember that 5+ inches/100 year is a global average). Consequently, there is far more "coastal property" than most people recognize.
Unfortunately for those on in the US living on the Western Atlantic, the effects of Greenland ice melt on sea level rise will be greatest there rather than immediately adjacent to Greenland because of the fact that the oceans are in motion and the differential between isostatic adjustment and water mass position forces the maximum peaks southward, but primarily over the Western rather than Eastern Atlantic Ocean. Consequently, those rising tides will be flooding Wall Street within the next few hundred years with near certainty. That's a lot of expensive real estate that will need to be liquidated (in more ways than one) in a relatively short period of time.
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Unfortunately for those on in the US living on the Western Atlantic, the effects of Greenland ice melt on sea level rise will be greatest there rather than immediately adjacent to Greenland ...
Oddly enough the effect of Greenland's melting ice will actually be a relative reduction in sea level around Greenland because of the reduction in gravitational attraction from the ice sheet.
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You say that, but it's like a 100 year lease. While 100 years might seem a lot, you'll notice when your $100,000 lease is only worth $80,000 in 20 years, instead of $150,000 like most property going up in value.
*Grabs Popcorn* (Score:2)
Not much else I can do really.
Except maybe eat as much sushi / seafood I can before it all goes tits up.
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I'd focus on eating land-based foods for now (like the popcorn)... as with sea levels rising there will be less arable land for agriculture, thus forcing us into either becoming vegetarians or primarily eating what comes from the sea which will suddenly have a far greater production area.
Mental note: Eat steak & baked potato tonight while I still can.
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Not that a warming climate would both render some land too hot for agriculture, and some newly arable...
Net loss? Any credible studies that claim that? This can be done by postulating warming and guessing at the impact.
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It is found that the total global arable land area is likely to decrease by 0.8–1.7% under scenario A1B and increase by 2.0–4.4% under scenario B1. Regions characterized by relatively high latitudes such as Russia, China and the US may expect an increase of total arable land by 37–67%, 22–36% and 4–17%, respectively, while tropical and sub-tropical regions may suffer different levels of lost arable land. For ex
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Well unless you consider that a warmer climate will increase the total arable land for agriculture... A net positive? How much of the earth's surface is currently not used for agriculture because it is too cold? Also, most areas near the ocean aren't used for agriculture anyway... Farms are usually well inland.
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The assumption of net loss arises from the problem that "arable" land is about more than climate; it's got to be good land. Land that has grown extensive plant life for a long time has a different soil chemistry than taiga and tundra. Just giving it more heat is not going to turn it into a garden.
Broadly, destruction is easier than construction. The land becoming too dry to farm is lost; the land that is becoming more farmable will take hundreds or thousands of years for its soil chemistry to change as mo
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Well unless you consider that a warmer climate will increase the total arable land for agriculture... A net positive? How much of the earth's surface is currently not used for agriculture because it is too cold? Also, most areas near the ocean aren't used for agriculture anyway... Farms are usually well inland.
Let us take teh nationalistic approach.
You down with the idea that your country might become unable to support itself?
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You don't need to worry about potatoes. You can grows those anywhere - even on Mars! I know its true since I saw a documentary about it last year.
I Have Some Beach Front Property In Arizona (Score:2)
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I will sell you.... .oh wait.
How many millions of years before it reaches Arizona at 8 cm a century.
yeah (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.skepticalscience.co... [skepticalscience.com]
Part of the science CPC buried in Canada (Score:3, Interesting)
this research was actually completed during the Harper Regime in Canada, but was intentionally silenced until now.
It is as bad as people have been telling you.
Oh, and if you're a billionaire, you could snap up all the coal firms in the world right now for $150 million and just sit on the coal, because we need to keep all fossil fuels in the ground, unless you want your waterfront home to be underwater.
Cheap, really.
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Maybe we could ask Tim Cook and/or Apple to buy them out as part of their environmental program.
and 4000 years ago (Score:4, Insightful)
it was rising faster than it is now. It was those middle eastern goat herders and their SUVs!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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In North America, the ice covered essentially all of Canada and extended roughly to the Missouri and Ohio Rivers, and eastward to Manhattan. In addition to the large Cordilleran Ice Sheet in Canada and Montana, alpine glaciers advanced and (in some locations) ice caps covered much of the Rocky Mountains further south
Sea levels were *far* lower then, due to all the ice. So this is just what it looks like when all that utterly ridiculous amount of ice starts to melt. So that was the reason then. What's the reason today?
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it was rising faster than it is now.
I think you mean 14 thousand years ago, not four thousand. The graph you posted shows the sea level rise 4 thousand years ago was about 3 centimeters per century-- a same rate that is pretty much constant for several thousand years. The link in the summary ( http://www.realclimate.org/ind... [realclimate.org] ) says since 1993 the rate has been 30 centimeters per century.
Put your money where your pie-hole is (Score:2)
Skeptics should buy up flat beach-front properties if they truly think it's a hoax.
If it is a hoax, the land value will go back up when the hoax is exposed and they'll be jillionaires. If it's not a hoax, the fools get what they deserve.
Re:Put your money where your pie-hole is (Score:5, Interesting)
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Maybe not everywhere, but there are clear examples of locations where beach front property no longer warrants the premium it once had, especially on storm-facing frontages.
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Skeptics should buy up flat beach-front properties if they truly think it's a hoax.
If it is a hoax, the land value will go back up when the hoax is exposed and they'll be jillionaires. If it's not a hoax, the fools get what they deserve.
At 8 cm per century, sea level rise will NEVER directly affect anyone living today that owns a beach-front home.
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At 8 cm per century, sea level rise will NEVER directly affect anyone living today that owns a beach-front home.
Seas rose about 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) from 1900 to 2000. The current rate is about 34 centimeters per century. It will be much higher by the end of the century. It's the second derivative that you need to be concerned about. Especially for places like Miami that are already flooding at high tide.
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I believe it's because the inequality (growing 1%). Beach front property is a luxury item and a status symbol. Like a Jaguar, it doesn't have to last 20 years to serve that goal.
I suspect the property values would be much higher if not for GW; it's just been masked by other issues.
Science Denial on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's funny is that this is *Slashdot* -- where I actually come here for the comments, usually because Slashdot is inhabited by geeks, techs, programmers, scientists; i.e; People that should know a thing or two. Usually the discourse here is insightful and thought-provoking...
And then comes a global warming post, and all the science deniers come out of the woodwork. You see posts as dumb as "It's snowing right now out my window -- global warming is a myth!"
This is directed to all the deniers -- what are you people *doing* here on Slashdot? Do you actually work in the technology field and yet deny actual science?
We *KNOW* there's too much CO2 in the atmosphere and we KNOW that it traps heat, so, what precisely are you denying?
Or has Fox News tainted your perception of the world so thoroughly that when something comes up that clashes with your ideology you stick your fingers in your ears and scream "LALALALAL I can't HEAR you!" when presented with FACTS?
Seriously, I don't understand why someone who denies science is on Slashdot -- why not also talk about how Black Holes are a myth, why we can't go beyond a 4Ghz CPU speed because God says so, and solving complex math is forbidden by the Bible? Maybe you'd prefer Slashdot articles on Ghosts, Chemtrails, UFOs and Bigfoot?
Re:Science Denial on Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I have been advocating phasing out coal in favor of nuclear for over 40 years. The vast majority of people who claim to be oh so very very concerned about CO2, on the other hand, have been among those obstructing nuclear for over 40 years. Warming is their chickens coming home to roost. Unfortunately, those chickens are crapping all over those of us who do not deny arithmetic, too.
"I am not so much pro-nuclear as I am pro-arithmetic." -- Stuart Brand
Re:Science Denial on Slashdot... (Score:5, Informative)
It is when you're talking to a science denier.
How would you treat an anti-vaxxer or someone who denies evolution?
So what if it is logarithmic. That doesn't mean trapped heat magically doesn't do anything at all. We are observing substantial changes in the ocean, not just sea level rise, but in the actual chemical composition as absorbed CO2 messes up pH levels. And we are also observing higher ocean temperatures, and lower atmospheric temperatures.
As to planetary history, what the fuck difference does that make? Humans didn't exist in the Jurassic, and human civilization only developed in the last 10,000 years, not in the last 100 million years. Significant changes in climate will have, and are already having significant changes on rain belts.
Trying to dismiss AGW by appealing to the fallacious view that it only counts when it is big increases is to betray intense ignorance of an entire discipline. What you're arguing is the equivalent of a Creationist saying "yeah well, we can only observe microevolution!"
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We tried. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, because they have deeply held political and/or ideological beliefs that are directly contradicted by the evidence that we present, and so the evidence gets rejected.
Also, in the age of the Internet, finding and validating such evidence generally isn't hard, especially for something that is so widely known to begin with. So the default assumption shifts from ignorance to malice. I'm not going to take time explaining a flat-earther why they're wrong, when evidence to
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I didn't try to explain you why you're wrong on this subject. I explained to you why no-one is interested in explaining to you why you're wrong on this subject any more.
Of course, no-one really owes you an explanation, anyway. I didn't even owe that one; I just did it out of the kindness of my heart.
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First off, labeling anyone that disagrees with you as a "science denier" is neither insightful nor thought provoking so you might remove the plank from your eye before criticizing the specks in others.
What would you call someone who denies thermodynamics? Or relativity? Or evolution? I'm not talking about skeptics or being skeptical. I'm talking about flat out 100% "I don't care how much evidence you have" denial?
A skeptic is someone who reviews the research and asks insightful relevant questions about that research. Every professional scientist is skeptical by nature. That's why they're scientists. They see something and say, "I wonder how that works?" and proceed to study, observe, model, so on and so
Fair deal (Score:2, Insightful)
The past century also saw unprecedented increases in general health, wealth, and longevity, amount of calories per person, and per dollar.
More than a fair trade. What went before was no friend of humanity, and any significant effort to trash what brought us these unprecedented benefits should be very carefully thought out.
The difference between, say, North and South Korea shows government's effect can be magnitudes worse than rising seas over 300 years (where we can less predict tech in 100 years than 1900
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Two have said what you said. It is retreaded 1970s Chicken Little warnings. A religious warning,"But what if we go to hell?!?!?"
In an economically free society, advancement keeps ahead of any downsides. This is the counterintuitive result of Julian Simon's theory that made successful predictions, destroying the 1970s precursor predictions of your statements.
Actual measurements show you are, and will be, wrong. The measurements: actual well being, like calories per person. The context, N vs. S Korea i.e
Surf's up (Score:4, Funny)
This is awesome news. A bigger ocean means more room for fish and assorted sea creatures.
Blame the fucking fish (Score:3)
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Maybe they're referring to Noah's flood?
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They could only examine data for the last 3000 years, and the last 200 years of that were inconclusive. It seems that this means the data is less exact the further back in time you look, which is not surprising. And while the sea level has risen and fallen in the past, it was over a much longer time scale.
What is alarming knowledgeable people now is that the rate the sea level is increasing indicates that this phenomenon is influenced by man, and that it is going to cause severe problems in some number of
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"rate the sea level is increasing indicates that this phenomenon is influenced by man"
Lost me there. What's the correlation?
Correlation between rising temps and rising sea? (Score:2)
Probably didn't rise faster 3000 years ago (Score:2)
So it was rising faster 3000 years ago?
it’s not that seas rose faster before that – they probably didn’t – but merely that the ability to say as much with the same level of confidence declines. - https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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The universe doesn't give a flying fuck about climate scientists either. Or whether you "save" the planet, for that matter.
That is quite true. You driven off any cliffs lately because you don't believe theere is a cliff there?
Re:The situation is indeed dire (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much this. And, moreover, the universe doesn't give a crap about our continued existence, and won't take any special steps to save us.
The problem is we're an exceedingly short-sighted species, and the near term profits of corporations are pretty much driving this process, and they'd rather have big executive bonuses now than give a fuck if there's a habitable planet down the road.
I figure the only people actively denying climate change stand to make money from the status quo. Pretending it's not happening pretty much has no rational basis in anything else, because it doesn't otherwise benefit anybody.
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The main difference between humans and other animals is that humans have a much greater power to fuck things up for good... which they of course wield.
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You do realise the universe doesn't give a flying fuck about what you think about Climate scientists.
People who don't understand science, but do understand politics, disagree. Today, we can take a vote on the laws of physices and repeal them if they aren't convenient.
The effects of CO2 in the atmosphere have been know for over a century, and the physics makes it clear the higher the concentrations, the more energy will be trapped in the lower atmosphere. If you have an explanation as to where that energy is going that doesn't involve heating then be my guest and provide it. Otherwise, quit being a fucking retard.
They never will. Take pity on the deniers. All they have left is cherry picking old and now updated data that is now the equal of declaring a typo the refutation of AGW. Their boat is getting very small indeed, as they approach the credibility level of flat earthers. I've asked for the science that proves the breakdown of the energy storing
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Except it isn't a small amount of energy at all.
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To that I ask "small in relation to what?"
Compared to the total solar irradiance it has to be small or we'd be dead already. Although, it probably is large in comparison to our electrical power generation capacity.
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Re:The situation is indeed dire (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, about that...
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-s... [phys.org]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk]
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
http://www.newyorker.com/magaz... [newyorker.com]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
There's no penetrating you guys' defense shields.
Cautious prediction == "nothing to worry about, no reason to even put it in the news".
Un-cautious but still quite possible prediction == "alarmism, ignore".
They'd been making the cautious predictions for 25 years when Gore's presentation caught on. The cautious predictions of the 1980's and 1990's have all been exceeded by this point.
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the minute amount of extra energy won't really matter though, that's the point. The sea won't rise two feet in one day, and those "poor natives" on islands essentially at sea level were going to be under water anyway in 400 years if not the next 75. alarmist nonsense like the impossible scenarios Al Gore presented just hurt the cause of doing anything meaningful about pollution
Tell us - how much is that "minute amount of extra energy"? Whatever handy unit of measurements, and don't spare us the big words.
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Global warming? THANKS OBAMA!
Obama President? Global warming!
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Uh, if they drowned, then that'd be ironclad proof that it ISN'T nonsense.
Gotta love that denialist LOLgic.
Re: (Score:3)
You will notice a large increase over the period. Satellites measure the troposphere though. That isn't really what sea level responds to. Take a look at ocean heat content over the period: https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/... [noaa.gov] .