Boaty McBoatface Makes Significant Climate Change Discovery on First Mission (cnn.com) 108
The British research submarine Boaty McBoatface has made an impressive debut in the scientific arena, discovering a significant link between Antarctic winds and rising sea temperatures on its maiden outing. From a report: The unmanned submarine, whose moniker won a landslide victory in a public poll to name a $300 million British polar research ship, undertook its inaugural mission in April 2017. The task saw McBoatface travel 180 kilometers (112 miles) through mountainous underwater valleys in Antarctica, measuring the temperature, saltiness and turbulence in the depths of the Southern Ocean.
Its findings, published in the journal PNAS on Monday, revealed how increasingly strong winds in the region are causing turbulence deep within the sea, and as a result mixing warm water from middle levels with colder water in the abyss. That process is causing the sea temperature to rise, which in turn is a significant contributor to rising sea levels, scientists behind the project said. Antarctic winds are growing in strength due to the thinning of the ozone layer and the build-up of greenhouse gases, but their impact on the ocean has never been factored in to climate models.
Its findings, published in the journal PNAS on Monday, revealed how increasingly strong winds in the region are causing turbulence deep within the sea, and as a result mixing warm water from middle levels with colder water in the abyss. That process is causing the sea temperature to rise, which in turn is a significant contributor to rising sea levels, scientists behind the project said. Antarctic winds are growing in strength due to the thinning of the ozone layer and the build-up of greenhouse gases, but their impact on the ocean has never been factored in to climate models.
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In a world of 6 billion people, I think we should be able to work on multiple problems at once.
However Climate Change is becoming increasingly more expensive to the world.
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Why is it more expensive? I thought renewable's like wind and energy were lower cost than fossil fuels?
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Why is it more expensive? I thought renewable's like wind and energy were lower cost than fossil fuels?
It doesn't even matter if change is good; there will always be resistance to change, if nothing else.
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The cost of climate change, is the flooding damage in areas that rarely get flooded, Wind Damage, heck in my little corner of the world, we have a road that needs to be fixed every year, because we are getting 10% more rain lately, which is causing the stream to cut into the road.
Re: Sea Level Is Rising 1/8 inch per year (Score:2, Insightful)
I live in the middle of the continent, in a house over 100 years old that is undamaged and less than a mile from where a 100 year flood disaster struck about a decade ago.
The people who have built on sketchy land need to just deal with their choices.
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People talk about a 100 year flood zone like that's never gunna happen.
People also have not even the slightest sense of scale for how long the planet has been here...
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So who do I sue when the completely non-sketchy land I bought becomes sketchy due to climate change? These next fifty years are going to be a class action lawyer's wet dream.
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Nobody.
Life isn't fair.
So you can choose to spend your time bitching about how unfair our ancestors left the world, or blame the government for not doing something sooner, or you can just try and do the best that you personally can with whatever you got.
Only one of these things has any chance of making a difference.
Wanting some kind of payback for what others may have already done, or worrying about what others might not do as an excuse for ones own inaction is not going to change anything, and
Re: Sea Level Is Rising 1/8 inch per year (Score:2)
At last, the payoff the public wanted (Score:5, Funny)
The whole reason why "Boaty McBoatface" stormed the polls is that as a result, we now get an endless series of sentences like these from the article:
The data from Boaty McBoatface gave us a completely new way of looking at the deep ocean
Delightful!
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We are often way to serious sometimes. there are a bunch of people who seem to get very annoyed when we try to take a light hearten approach to anything.
Taking a look at things with Humor gives us a different way to look at problems, as making fun of its quarks gives us time to look at such quarks and think about them in a different light.
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There's an expression in russian that basically means "the boat will sail as you name it" so... yeah, I don't even know.
Exactly way it's such a good name!! (Score:2)
There's an expression in russian that basically means "the boat will sail as you name it" so... yeah, I don't even know.
I do!! What is better than a boat name that actually has "boat" in the name twice? And references Scottish origins, able to handle the bitterest of cold and the largest amount of whisky? That is the ultimate boat name I tell you for a boat that is truly master of the seas!
How much more boat could it be? None more boat!
Re:At last, the payoff the public wanted (Score:5, Insightful)
That is overshadowed by the summaries "mountainous underwater valleys". I'm sure he was trying to create a "deafening silence" for the "burning cold" reality of the situation, but the "overpowering weakness" of his prose left us "edgy with boredom".
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Re: At last, the payoff the public wanted (Score:2)
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If silly names are the price to be paid to engage the public in wanting to hear more about science, that's more than a fair bargain, I think. It's not like the submarine cares that it is called Boaty McBoatface.
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Once the AI appears in Boaty McBoatface, it will realize it's named as a joke and proceed to annihilate the human race.
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The whole reason why "Boaty McBoatface" stormed the polls is that as a result, we now get an endless series of sentences like these from the article:
The data from Boaty McBoatface gave us a completely new way of looking at the deep ocean
Delightful!
The odd thing is that the research ship that was polled wasn't named Boaty McBoatface, it was actually called the RRS Sir David Attenborough, Boaty McBoatface is actually an autonomous submarine carried by the RRS Sir David Attenborough. So really it should be Subby McSubface.
Did McBoatface Drink the Water? (Score:4, Interesting)
Antarctica, measuring the temperature, saltiness and turbulence
Known as salinity in some scientific circles.
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Well, saltiness isn't wrong, it's just not usually used that way. If you're talking about a liquid, though, saltiness and salinity are the same thing. One is just more Latin than the other.
Re:Did McBoatface Drink the Water? (Score:4, Insightful)
I for one welcome our Boatface overlords (Score:1)
Did you know, aside from the forced slavery aspect, that illegally caught fish are actually more sustainable than legally caught fish (probably because the fish are lower on the food chain and less destructive)?
Not Enough Fear (Score:1, Redundant)
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He'll be alright. Twelve years from now, nobody will even remember his name. Because, we'll all be dead. Right?
Re:Not Enough Fear (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Not Enough Fear (Score:1)
I am not rich. I bought a house on high ground with 5 acres of land. It was $120k.
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That won't matter. Mobs aren't notoriously careful about justice, or valid arguments. And when people think they have little to lose, they're quite willing to join mobs.
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Starving people usually don't fall for that propaganda because their bellies are empty.
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The rich don't care, they just buy up the high ground or build bunkers in the side of a mountain. They won't lift a finger until rioters start storming their mansions and dragging them out through the streets to be lynched. Unlike the French revolution though, the powers that be have much more effective brainwashing tools at their disposal to deflect public ire away from themselves which is delaying the process, for now anyway.
...the Hamptons is not a defensible position.
-- Mark Blyth [youtube.com]
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But they're not. They're just LOOKING like they're trying to do something. Conferences. Marching. :Making someone else pay for something. Telling everyone they shouldn't fly from a meeting they flew to.
Actual outcome is not important to them. Image is.
Nuclear is carbon neutral. But it's EVIL!
Consuming less because being frugal is to be applauded is old people ideas, bah!
Using cars and manufactured items for a long time past their use lifespan is a reuse function in the reduce, reuse, recycle. But it's not f
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Sorry, you picked the wrong specialty. The people you should be asking about are city planners, ecologists, hydraulic engineers, etc.
Usually, though, those people are talking about plans like "damming the Hudson river and pumping out the water. Building dikes everywhere it's low, etc." And they aren't making cost estimates. That's someone else's job.
I have heard of plans to make the NYC subway more resistant to flooding, ensuring that the lower floors of skyscrapers are able to withstand being submerged
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I'm sure the alligators and rats will be just fine.
Subby McSubface (Score:4, Informative)
Darnit, it should be called "Subby McSubface". Boaty McBoatface was to be the name of the ship that carried the sub, but the committee got Stuffy McStuffface and canned the results of the vote, pinning it on a little sub drone instead.
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You can't call something "shipface", it sounds too close to
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You can't call something "shipface", it sounds too close to
Shippy McShipface sounds like you've been insulted by Sir Sean Connery.
Would support similar naming convention in the USA (Score:3)
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Doctor Smallglove and Der Putinfluffer are my two favorites.
Quality of previous models (Score:1)
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You can't model what you don't know about. Otherwise it's speculation, not simulation.
Boaty McBoatface? That's McLanguage. (Score:1)
Surprised McDonald's hasn't been all over them for trademark infringement.
Anyone who has ever used McAnything gets McSued pretty McFast.
God speed McBoatFace (Score:1)
I thought... (Score:2)
I thought the ozone layer had stopped thinning?