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The Hidden Meltdown of Greenland

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Perspicuo

Veteran Member
Joined
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Costa Rica
Basic Beliefs
Empiricist, ergo agnostic
NASA: The Hidden Meltdown of Greenland
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/28aug_greenland/

Aug. 28, 2015: More than 90 percent of our planet’s freshwater ice is bound in the massive ice sheets and glaciers of the Antarctic and Greenland. As temperatures around the world slowly climb, melt waters from these vast stores of ice add to rising sea levels. All by itself, Greenland could bump sea levels by 7 meters (23 feet) if its ice melted completely.

And … it’s melting.
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The imbedded video there is great, BTW. One of the clearest explanations of what's going on, I've ever seen.
 
If it happens, it won't be simply a saltwater port. It'll be a dystopian city at the edge of the sea, full of favelas with refugees from what used to be the coast. Hunger, massive unemployment and perhaps military troops to control it all.
 
Perspicuo said:
If it happens, it won't be simply a saltwater port. It'll be a dystopian city at the edge of the sea, full of favelas with refugees from what used to be the coast. Hunger, massive unemployment and perhaps military troops to control it all.
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Yeah, if it happens tomorrow.

If it happens gradually over the course of several decades, then it will be indistinguishable from other migrations of people over time. Cities rise, and cities fall. Whether people move out because the gold has all been dug from the local mine, or because the high street is below sea level makes little difference.

The problems of displaced people are due to them all moving at once. If sea level rise is tens of metres, lots of people will have to adjust - but if the rise occurs over the course of a hundred years, that's only a few centimetres a year so there will be plenty of time for the adjustment.

It will be expensive, and is best avoided; but for places like Canada, it won't lead to 'Mad Max' style dystopias.

The real problems will be where national borders prevent the people in low lying areas from relocating early, forcing the relocation into a very short timescale.

Allowing freedom of immigration from places like Bangladesh and the Pacific Islands would completely solve the vast majority of the problem.

As long as people are allowed to walk away, a threat that moves inland at a rate of less than a few feet per annum is not really much of a threat at all.
 
"Gradually" sounds so placid... What should happen will be several storm-flood events sort of sequentially (from the POV of a single city) and simultaneously (from the POV of a country the size of US or Canada).

That's a fuckload of people if you consider nearly 40 percent of Americans live close to the coast. Prepare for Katrina-level human disasters multiplied by N in a single year for several years, even decades while no one will be sure where the coastline will be in 4 or 5 years, so imagine the economic consequences of not knowing where to build ports, or affordable insurance for property in the most populous and economically important areas of the economically most important country in the world alone, not to mention India, China, UK, Western Europe (or rather, all around it)... etc.

You better believe it'll be one living hell. Plus any snowball effects we haven't thought about yet.
 
I live in a city that suffers severe flood events every few decades.

Each time, the flood itself is pretty devastating; but the city recovers - and the most flood prone areas are abandoned, and turned over to parkland and uses that are less likely to be destroyed by flood.

If the floods were more frequent - every five years, or even annual - then the problems would be LESS severe. The problem is that after two decades, people start to say "Well it's not going to happen again"; changes are made to the waterways, and the developers see all the vacant land near the river as 'prime development opportunities'.

After the 1974 floods, the state government built the Wivenhoe Dam, and this added strength to the 'it couldn't happen again' argument. But then we had a decade of severe drought; so when the dam filled up in 2010, nobody was brave enough to throw away a couple of years supply of water to ensure that the dam could act to mitigate a future flood event.

And at the start of 2011, the rains came again.

It will likely be five or ten years before people start telling the State Government that a brown paper bag full of dirty banknotes is theirs for the taking, if only they could mention that the new Wivenhoe management regulations mean that the riverfront land is once again safe for domestic dwellings.

The point being that if such floods were more frequent, they would be less damaging. And despite severe flooding in 1974, 2011 and 2013, the people of Brisbane are not living in a dystopian nightmare world where the living envy the dead (apart, perhaps, from Inala).

People and their cities cope far better than you give them credit for. They rebuild after disasters; and if a repeat is likely, and the effects are predictable, they move out of the way.
 
bilby said:
I live in a city that suffers severe flood events every few decades.

Each time, the flood itself is pretty devastating; but the city recovers - and the most flood prone areas are abandoned, and turned over to parkland and uses that are less likely to be destroyed by flood.

If the floods were more frequent - every five years, or even annual - then the problems would be LESS severe. The problem is that after two decades, people start to say "Well it's not going to happen again"; changes are made to the waterways, and the developers see all the vacant land near the river as 'prime development opportunities'.

After the 1974 floods, the state government built the Wivenhoe Dam, and this added strength to the 'it couldn't happen again' argument. But then we had a decade of severe drought; so when the dam filled up in 2010, nobody was brave enough to throw away a couple of years supply of water to ensure that the dam could act to mitigate a future flood event.

And at the start of 2011, the rains came again.

It will likely be five or ten years before people start telling the State Government that a brown paper bag full of dirty banknotes is theirs for the taking, if only they could mention that the new Wivenhoe management regulations mean that the riverfront land is once again safe for domestic dwellings.

The point being that if such floods were more frequent, they would be less damaging. And despite severe flooding in 1974, 2011 and 2013, the people of Brisbane are not living in a dystopian nightmare world where the living envy the dead (apart, perhaps, from Inala).

People and their cities cope far better than you give them credit for. They rebuild after disasters; and if a repeat is likely, and the effects are predictable, they move out of the way.
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Frequency is not the only thing that changes with incrased energy in the atmosphere. Intensity will vary more radically too. So saying increased frequency keeps the perceptual set higher and the environmental set less varied are wrong. While there may be more frequent storms the more violent ones may be not only greater, but, less often.
 
Why don't we just put a big lesbian around Antarctica and Greenland?
 
fromderinside said:
bilby said:
I live in a city that suffers severe flood events every few decades.

Each time, the flood itself is pretty devastating; but the city recovers - and the most flood prone areas are abandoned, and turned over to parkland and uses that are less likely to be destroyed by flood.

If the floods were more frequent - every five years, or even annual - then the problems would be LESS severe. The problem is that after two decades, people start to say "Well it's not going to happen again"; changes are made to the waterways, and the developers see all the vacant land near the river as 'prime development opportunities'.

After the 1974 floods, the state government built the Wivenhoe Dam, and this added strength to the 'it couldn't happen again' argument. But then we had a decade of severe drought; so when the dam filled up in 2010, nobody was brave enough to throw away a couple of years supply of water to ensure that the dam could act to mitigate a future flood event.

And at the start of 2011, the rains came again.

It will likely be five or ten years before people start telling the State Government that a brown paper bag full of dirty banknotes is theirs for the taking, if only they could mention that the new Wivenhoe management regulations mean that the riverfront land is once again safe for domestic dwellings.

The point being that if such floods were more frequent, they would be less damaging. And despite severe flooding in 1974, 2011 and 2013, the people of Brisbane are not living in a dystopian nightmare world where the living envy the dead (apart, perhaps, from Inala).

People and their cities cope far better than you give them credit for. They rebuild after disasters; and if a repeat is likely, and the effects are predictable, they move out of the way.
Click to expand...

Frequency is not the only thing that changes with incrased energy in the atmosphere. Intensity will vary more radically too. So saying increased frequency keeps the perceptual set higher and the environmental set less varied are wrong. While there may be more frequent storms the more violent ones may be not only greater, but, less often.
Click to expand...

We are not talking about storms; we are talking about floods. Flooding due to high rainfall is harder to deal with than flooding due to sea level rise, but many of the effects are similar - in particular, the fact that only low-lying ground is affected, so it is easy to determine which locations are at risk, and which are not.

If floods occur due to sea level rise, they will occur in predictable locations (ie low lying coastal areas), mostly at predictable times (high Spring tides), and with short intervals between them (weeks, days or hours, rather than years or decades).

This means that, while the problems they cause might be very expensive and annoying, they will not be apocalyptic - except for places where there is no higher ground to move to because the people who own the high ground won't allow it.

It won't be a picnic; but a few metres of sea level rises over a century won't lead to the dystopian scenario Perspicuo paints, because it will happen slowly enough for people to adapt, and move out of the way.
 
bilby said:
We are not talking about storms; we are talking about floods. Flooding due to high rainfall is harder to deal with than flooding due to sea level rise, but many of the effects are similar - in particular, the fact that only low-lying ground is affected, so it is easy to determine which locations are at risk, and which are not.

If floods occur due to sea level rise, they will occur in predictable locations (ie low lying coastal areas), mostly at predictable times (high Spring tides), and with short intervals between them (weeks, days or hours, rather than years or decades).

This means that, while the problems they cause might be very expensive and annoying, they will not be apocalyptic - except for places where there is no higher ground to move to because the people who own the high ground won't allow it.

It won't be a picnic; but a few metres of sea level rises over a century won't lead to the dystopian scenario Perspicuo paints, because it will happen slowly enough for people to adapt, and move out of the way.
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?

I'm trying to rationaize why higher sea levels doesn't mean more moisture and energy in the atmosphere.

Sure, what you say is predictable, but, it doesn't account for the energy and moisture increases accompanying such changes. Hurricanes or Typhoons, not only bring much water by air, but, increased tidal water cascading on the slowly rising sea levels also brought on by climate change. Effects like that which took place in north Jersey and NYC in 2013 should be anticipated. They thought they were ready. Unless preparations are made now to what we might call 500 year expectations there will be hell to pay when a category 4 or 5 storm piles on. I'm giving Perspicuo benefit of understanding the increased energy and moisture in the atmosphere when he comes on with the burning hair routine about sea levels and damage.
 
fromderinside said:
bilby said:
We are not talking about storms; we are talking about floods. Flooding due to high rainfall is harder to deal with than flooding due to sea level rise, but many of the effects are similar - in particular, the fact that only low-lying ground is affected, so it is easy to determine which locations are at risk, and which are not.

If floods occur due to sea level rise, they will occur in predictable locations (ie low lying coastal areas), mostly at predictable times (high Spring tides), and with short intervals between them (weeks, days or hours, rather than years or decades).

This means that, while the problems they cause might be very expensive and annoying, they will not be apocalyptic - except for places where there is no higher ground to move to because the people who own the high ground won't allow it.

It won't be a picnic; but a few metres of sea level rises over a century won't lead to the dystopian scenario Perspicuo paints, because it will happen slowly enough for people to adapt, and move out of the way.
Click to expand...


?

I'm trying to rationaize why higher sea levels doesn't mean more moisture and energy in the atmosphere.
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I can see that.

I just don't know why - given that nobody else is talking about that at all.

Sure, what you say is predictable, but, it doesn't account for the energy and moisture increases accompanying such changes. Hurricanes or Typhoons, not only bring much water by air, but, increased tidal water cascading on the slowly rising sea levels also brought on by climate change. Effects like that which took place in north Jersey and NYC in 2013 should be anticipated. They thought they were ready. Unless preparations are made now to what we might call 500 year expectations there will be hell to pay when a category 4 or 5 storm piles on. I'm giving Perspicuo benefit of understanding the increased energy and moisture in the atmosphere when he comes on with the burning hair routine about sea levels and damage.
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Storm surge effects are relevant for small rises in sea level; but for large rises, such as those under discussion here, they are of little relevance. A two or three metre storm surge today is a rare but devastating event. A seven metre sea level rise renders a two metre storm surge irrelevant - we would already have had to redraw the line as to what land is too low-lying, and if that line was drawn so as to ignore storm surge effects, then the situation would be no worse than the status quo.

We already have storms and storm surges; this won't change much as sea levels rise. What changes is the 'default' level of the highest tides. Above that is 'safe' except during severe storms - exactly as things stand today.

If anything, given that we can re-draw the line based on 21st Century knowledge of storm effects, things should be rather better than they are today, with lines drawn in the 18th Century or even earlier.
 
bilby said:
fromderinside said:
?

I'm trying to rationaize why higher sea levels doesn't mean more moisture and energy in the atmosphere.
Click to expand...
I can see that.

I just don't know why - given that nobody else is talking about that at all.

Sure, what you say is predictable, but, it doesn't account for the energy and moisture increases accompanying such changes. Hurricanes or Typhoons, not only bring much water by air, but, increased tidal water cascading on the slowly rising sea levels also brought on by climate change. Effects like that which took place in north Jersey and NYC in 2013 should be anticipated. They thought they were ready. Unless preparations are made now to what we might call 500 year expectations there will be hell to pay when a category 4 or 5 storm piles on. I'm giving Perspicuo benefit of understanding the increased energy and moisture in the atmosphere when he comes on with the burning hair routine about sea levels and damage.
Click to expand...

Storm surge effects are relevant for small rises in sea level; but for large rises, such as those under discussion here, they are of little relevance. A two or three metre storm surge today is a rare but devastating event. A seven metre sea level rise renders a two metre storm surge irrelevant - we would already have had to redraw the line as to what land is too low-lying, and if that line was drawn so as to ignore storm surge effects, then the situation would be no worse than the status quo.

We already have storms and storm surges; this won't change much as sea levels rise. What changes is the 'default' level of the highest tides. Above that is 'safe' except during severe storms - exactly as things stand today.

If anything, given that we can re-draw the line based on 21st Century knowledge of storm effects, things should be rather better than they are today, with lines drawn in the 18th Century or even earlier.
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Mostly wasted but correct.

My aim was to point out humans usually fail to take account of change when designing new long term protections systems (or any other long life system for that matter). NY is planning to accommodate surges based on last century data just as designers did for the one that failed in 2013. Planning will account for a predicted two or three foot sea level increase in new designs, but, they won't account for the added increase of one to three feet brought category 4 or 5 storms likely to hit them over the next century. Forward looking designers will take the category 3 model they now hove based on current moisture and atmospheric energy measurements. Just as the new NO systems will be satisfactory for expected larger storms they aren't satisfactory for added s strength of storms and increased base sea level.

Its the nature about human planning.

Build the best one can for what monies will be available is never a good thing.
 
Now this is fucked up

Why some scientists are worried about a surprisingly cold ‘blob’ in the North Atlantic Ocean
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...bout-a-cold-blob-in-the-north-atlantic-ocean/



Yet, if you look closely, there’s one part of the planet that is bucking the trend. In the North Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland and Iceland, the ocean surface has seen very cold temperatures for the past eight months.

What’s up with that?

First of all, it’s no error. I checked with Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, who confirmed what [...]
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Thus, the record seems to be a meaningful one — and there is a much larger surrounding area that, although not absolutely the coldest it has been on record, is also unusually cold.

At this point, it’s time to ask what the heck is going on here. And while there may not yet be any scientific consensus on the matter, at least some scientists suspect that the cooling seen in these maps is no fluke but, rather, part of a process that has been long feared by climate researchers — the slowing of Atlantic Ocean circulation.
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That's Greenland's meltdown making that blob of cold. That is fucked up shit. As if the fact that everything on the map colored red, pink and pale pink is above average wasn't fucked up already.

imrs.php
 
bigfield said:
Perspicuo said:
The planet is about to take a real big fart. And it's going to hurt like hell.
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If it's wet, it's not a fart.
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Kisses are like farts. They go from dry to wet. Dry ones are impersonal or smelly. Wet ones are passionate or shitty.

...all lined up in a row....

Extreme melting brings down the air temperature where melting is fastest relative to air around it. Nothing special here. Let's move on.
 
According to the sources I've recently heard, the frequency of storms like hurricanes/typhoons will actually go down. The bad news is that the ones we do get will be bigger and stronger than what we're used to seeing now, thus causing much more damage.
 
Shake said:
According to the sources I've recently heard, the frequency of storms like hurricanes/typhoons will actually go down. The bad news is that the ones we do get will be bigger and stronger than what we're used to seeing now, thus causing much more damage.
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One wonders why if magnitudes are to increase that it would be necessary for frequency decrease. As a corollary if temperatures are reduced around where melting is maximum, but, increased beyond that, kind of like the winds generators in highs and lows due to pressure differences which could just as well be temperature differences or volume differences - Ah 19th century science ain't it wunnerful - , then storm intensities to be increased demand more energy reducing energy of other storms is the idea? Weird.
 
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