Antarctic ice sheet "past the point on no return"

I've summaries of the two papers and though interesting, I realized they both talk about 'the future.' I pretty sure it will take a meter of sea level rise before 'the frog' begins to cook.

Bob Wilson

 

OK past any tipping point on WAIS. It is not suprising, we had much higher sea levels in the last 2 interglacials.

1 meter is the outside edge of what is likely to happen in the next 100 years. I'm not sure what this has to do with a frog analogy though. There doesn't appear to be anything to do to stop rising sea levels.

I guess this is politico so the linked articles are pretty lame. Harry Reid blamed the Koch brothers? Rubio said man is not causing climate change? Really did we elect these scientifically illiterate people to do policy in this country?

 

We agree that a 1 meter sea rise is unlikely this century and that remains a problem, hence the 'frog analogy', of the boiling pot fame. But it is rooted in a bigger problem of generational memory.

The 1929 depression led to generational old changes in government that included legislation that kept 'investment' banking out of the 'savings' banking and minimum capitalization in speculative investments. A series of successful de-regulations in the 1980s led to the savings and loan crisis and more recently the mortgage market collapse. In effect, the lessons of the 1929s were revisited in those who were at least two or more generations, the grandchildren and great grandchildren, of those who first learned the lessons in 1929. So I have little faith in the ability of our species to preserve knowledge from one generation to the next except in those cases where it can be empirically demonstrated.

Electronics, medicine, engineering, and even experimental physics, things that can be repeated by individuals within their life span, are accepted as fact. But things with time frames longer than the lifespan of an individual, these are 'negotiable.' For example, evolution or even the source of fossil fuels. Sad to say the art of persuasion easily wins within the span of individual, human lives and can easily deny application of empirical laws to trend analysis.

The analogy of frog in a pot of water slowly warmed up versus dumped into hot water works. The frog lacking enough memory 'adjusts' to the slowly warming water until it is cooked. So it will take a shock, like a 1929 depression, to change what regrettable will only be a too short-term change in behavior. Worse, one incident can mask another.

I suspect the collapse of 'La Palma' and subsequent tsunami will have more effect than the likely climate change effects. So I see the opening of the Arctic shipping as an irrefutable symptom of global warming. But I fully understand why looking at Antarctic ice and ignoring the Arctic is so critical to 'the frogs' in the warming pan.

Bob Wilson

 

More than a meter rise in the next 100 years, has less than 1% chance if the scientists are correct, but they seem to be quite unsure, so lets go with more than a 2 meter rise is extremely unlikely outside 4 sigma. 4 sigma is awful for manufacturing but great when it comes to climate science. Now old Hansen is still arguing for 6 meter rise in the next hundred years, you know like in that inconvenient movie, but this latest data is against that. Now would it be good if Hansen is right, and the consensus wrong? Well, IMHO no, I don't define good as bending science to our will or more human suffering. Score one IMHO against the frog analogy, and more of that later.

We dealt with the S&L crisis in my graduate level economics class, and I don't remember depression lessons being a part of it at all. We did have rapid inflation in the 70s, with a Fed that tightened, causing S&Ls to lose deposits. They were loaning long and borrowing short, but the rules made it impossible for them to get deposits to pay off depositors leaving. Carter in 1980 signed a bad partial deregulation bill that allowed them to raise interest rates, but not much to raise loan rates, leaving S&Ls a way to hide that they were getting sicker without failing. Well this gave them cash, lots of it, at high interest rates, but it ate away at reserves. These S&Ls successfully made campaign contributions (corruption) and regulations under reagan allowed riskier investments and lower researves, making the problems worse, not better. There was control fraud, cooked books, without enough regulators to catch all the S&Ls cheating, and with accounting firms and senators in on the scam. Finally oil prices collapsed which were supporting some of those risky assets and the cooked books could not stand the losses. Now no one even attempted to correct the corruption of the Senate or the control fraud, which reapeared in the latest financial crisis. Here clinton changed the depression era law that restricted commercial banks from entering investment banking and we got fraudulent accounting on mortgage derivatives. When mortgages collapsed this time it was much worse, but it was problems with the senate, quasi federal agencies freddy and fanny, and the insurance and commercial banks that led the corruption. Still on the latest crisis with all the criminal fraud only one person has been prosecuted, and that senate committee, is still corrupt, although barney frank has retired.

One thing about the frog analagy that I don't like is it simply isn't true. Now like the corrupt practices in government during the last banking crisis where the senate and justice departments were instrumental in the corruption, politicians will use these false stories. The best we have it is this experiment was run by a couple of scientists in the late 1800s, and people believed them. Now it doesn't matter than what we know about frogs would make you go, huh, that analagy makes no sense, but we have people that have repeated the experiment, and guess what? If you slowly raise the temperature of the water, and the frog has a path to jump out, the frog will and survive. If you drop a frog in boiling water it will attempt to jump out, but is likely to die. Its kind of obvious, so we do not perform this experment. At a minimum if someone is trying to convince you to believe something scientific, and uses the frog analagy, ask them to run the experiment, and tell you if the frog jumps out. Its likely that a politician is trying to convince you to do something, and you should realize what they are telling you is probably wrong.

 

My High School Biology Teacher taught us there was a coming cataclysmic ICE AGE, that would probably kill us all in the next 100 -500 years. (I even remember the cover of Time Magazine being on "The Coming Ice Age"!! He also said that by the year 2000, we would run out of all the earth's oil due to our ever increasing use, and ever decreasing supply. He was very educated, kept up with all the then current scientific tests and data, and bought into the classroom the "Scientific facts" that were THEN being put forth. (Yes, this was the 70's when we had an oil shortage, gasoline shortage, and lines around the block for available gasoline). Then we had the year 2000 scare, where all our computers were going to freeze up, crash, and, and, you guessed it,, GLOBAL cataclysm was going to erupt as a result of it.

Yet, in reality, we now have more oil in the USA than in Saudi Arabia! But it cost's way more than the .50 cents a gallon of the 70's. 2000 came and went, without the bang "they" all said would happen. Now we are ALL suppose to be shaking in our boots over the "for sure", global WARMING... I bet when "they" get what they want out of us, (higher prices, more profit), amazingly, in 10-20 years, all this global warming will pass, just like the ice age, and year 2000 did!

 

It is good to have a healthy bit of skepticism of science in the media. I doubt your high school biology teacher, as nice of a person that he seemed to be followed the scientific journals on climate science. Now most of the science reporters are unqualified at the major news networks and worse there are fewer of them. We get more of this time bs. Its sensational. It sells magazines. The apocalypse is coming, but you should follow the science not the media and politicians.

Ok I was around in the Y2K scare and we joked about the dire predictions. People really screwed up software, but it was repairable. At least none of my friends believed that hype. The '70s scares though did some real damage. Carter and Senator Coal and KKK Byrd (head of the senate at the time) were able to pass very pro coal regulations, that are hurting the nation right now. That is why we should beware of hype from politicians. We do need to use less fossil fuel, that is true enough, but restricting natural gas, and promoting coal was not an answer, nor was government money to provide solar heating for rich peoples pools.

Someone is lying to you again. Probably someone that is a politician.
1974 : Flooding, Drought, Crop Loss And Mild Winters Blamed On Global Cooling | Real Science
For your global cooling you will see, that there simply was not scientific evidence for this. The mainstream press confused weather with climate, and science for fear. Many of the weather blames today are the same, but if you check the NOAA page, you will see some real scientists analyzing what ghg is doing and what it is not. Does the US have more oil than saudi Arabia? No of course not. We do have a lot of coal, and more fossil energy if you count it. I guess if you were senator coal, you would use this to your political advantage and recommend mountain top removal and strip mining, things awful for the environment but good for coal companies profits as they need fewer people to work the machines.

Now there is actual science going on with ghg climate change, and a lot of it can be quite bad for segments of the worlds ecosystems and some of the human population, although some will profit from the change. Don't let your high school biology teacher's lack of understanding taint yours.

 

I thought that they debunked the frog analogy years ago.
Yes....
I guess it's theoretically possible, but the required very VERY gradual temperature change would necessitate restraining the frog which makes the whole analogy moot.

The "reality" of the situation is that id somebody tries to question the science, then they're shouted down with insults.

There really were government level concerns in the 70's about global cooling, and magazine articles in the mainstream media about the same thing. They blamed it on human pollution, which coupled with naturally occurring volcanic eruptions were thought at the time to be responsible for redirecting or blocking solar energy.
Interesting enough, there was a government study exploring the benefit of distributing pot ash on the polar ice cap to accelerate ice melting.
Oops.
They didn't have media-tested phrases like AGC (W) back them and there were scientists back then that were screaming that the global cooling theory was incorrect and that a "greenhouse" effect would cause global warming.
Ever competitive for funding, insults were lobbed back and forth, but this was largely occulted (play on words largely unintended) by an abysmal economy and that fact that we were "running out of oil."
Nobody was yet worried about the looming ozone crisis, or the Y2K disaster....something that I would later make a few year's salary preventing.

SO?
Where are we 40 years later?

SSDD, except that the shouting and insults are no longer limited to universities and the scientific community.
Interestingly enough?
Ash is that is being deposited onto the Greenland Ice Cap is suddenly thought to be caused predominately by wildfires, which I guess means that there has been a very sudden cessation in volcanic activity, something that goes unmentioned (among other things) in the news or my copy of the climate assessment.

My understanding of the Antarctic Ice crisis is that scientists are predicting a >meter rise in GSS however (comma!) current modeling has a 200-900 year range....meaning that we probably have time to at least examine the data more carefully and less emotionally.

---especially if now, like 1973, it's already too late to stop it.

Interesting.....

 

Actually, there was quite a bit of "Real Science" behind the 70's global cooling data. I guess you had to live through it, see it, and hear it, as there was no net yet to track all that data, that has since been labeled foolish gibberish, and tossed. (I DO remember the polar Ice caps were ever expanding, just as they are now shrinking)..... I agree, it would serve the planet well if the WORLD tried harder to cut "carbon emission's", and the USA should do its part. Less use of coal would be a great start. However, as long as all the other nations keep doing what they are doing, the "clean" USA would be a drop in the bucket when compared to what China / India, etc. are doing, and will continue to do. I guess if you live through enough of these "dire threats", you start to question the next one that rolls around. Another dire threat was the R-11, R-12 freon that HAD to be banned, and replaced with R-134, while the rest of the world continued to use R-11 & R-12! It Made MILLIONS for the developers, manufactures, while latter, it was found to be not nearly as bad as thought. It all boils down to ways for the government to gain more control, leaving us less freedom, and when it is done, we pay for more government, and more for energy that we need to use. That is the real scientific cycle that I have witnessed in my life. Bottom line is YOU will get to watch it play out this time!

If the government really cared, they would be promoting and supporting building out a natural gas infrastructure, to get us off coal / oil and onto the bridge fuel natural gas. Instead, Nat gas is treated as almost a waist product from oil production as the "excess Nat Gas" is burnt off or flamed out. Soon we will be exporting Nat Gas / LNG rather than using it here as a cheaper fuel / cleaner fuel than coal, Diesel, or even gasoline. It all boils down to dollars and cents, who makes the most, who ends up with more of it and more power in their pockets! Its surly not We the Sheeple!
Next it will be "They SKY is falling"!!!

Fracking is turning the US into a bigger oil producer than Saudi Arabia - Americas - World - The Independent


The Math Behind the 100-Year, Natural-Gas Supply Debate
100 year natural gas supply??

NGVsNow: Natural Gas Vehicles for America’s Tomorrow
Taken from above:

 

Yes, so the guys that did it in the late 1800s either restrained the frogs or faked the results. The original experiment on frogs was to find the soul. A German physiologist experimented with frogs and removed part of the brain, where he thought the soul might be. The frogs with part of their brains removed cooked in slowly warming water, the ones with whole brains jumped out. Wonderbar. We learned that brain damage may make you less likely to survive. Now other folks seemed to do some other experiment, and its likely they either had bad methods or faked the results. At least that is what I learned in my science classes.

Which is pretty bad politication of science. Now some like my governor that edited a scientific reprort that talked about climate change, not even man, raising sea level putting galviston at greater risk. The politician thought the science should be redacted because it did not fit with his policy or his position while trying to run for president. I would say those that pointed to climate change and said you need to fund solyndra, you need to fund fisker, really have poked the pooch on one side, as these things do nothing for the jobs or climate they promised. in fact cheap chinese solar panels, changed regulations that make it easier and less expensive to install solar, makes a lot more sense, but hey the politicians can't make money off of that. What about removing grandfathering from coal plants and making mountain top removal illegal? That might help make the water and air cleaner and reduce ghg. Congress doesn't want that either.

We have 6 areas in the WAIS that will likely in around 200 years contribute around 1.5 meters to sea level rise. They are starting to understand the mechanisms of these things, and at least in the WAIS they are discovering that there is nothing anthropomorphic about it anymore. If we follow 350.org and remove the ghg this is still going to happen, it is just a mater of time. This is much better, meaning supported by data, than old predictions that either it would not melt, or man could stop it from melting. What we can do is mitigate, now that it appears the WAIS is past the tipping point, and this looks like it happened in the last 2 interglacials without man burning fossil fuel. Man might have gotten it here faster, but that is something that we really don't know yet, and now that it is too late to stop, it is a little absurd to blame the koch brothers, and not say the english industrial movement, as we know one is political and the other really did belch a great deal of the greenhouse gas out. Not that you should believe the koch brothers on clmate, they are jsut being political, and reject the science for profit, but they don't have the power that those idiots in the various governments have.

 

I also remember both 1970s oil crises. You are conflating science with global politics.

 

Somehow that data seems to have vanished from the record. There were predictions but no data. My guess is it was the coal politicians that did a lot of it, but perhaps you have a memory of a scientific journal that had peer reviewed data. Remember climate is not weather no matter what the main stream media seems to think.

Well in texas that has been illegal for a long time, and only emergency flaring is done here. Flaring is carried on in North Dakota and the EPA needs to step in, as the North Dakota environmental agencies don't seem to want to. We should be building pipelines for natural gas, and the country is.

I am not quite sure, my politics say that it is a national resource and massive export will drive up the price toward the world price. It is a limited resource. Now I know that some want to send the cash to those corporations, but run out of the resource faster, and I understand, they favor the few to the general population.

Well wow, there are lies, damn lies, and then political lies. Let's review the reserves.
U.S. Might Have More Oil Resources Than Saudi Arabia, But... - Forbes

Do you really want to count that uneconomic oil? It seems a little sly and dishonest to not disclose that it isn't liquid oil.

That means that there is an inherant dishonesty in saying we have more oil than saudi. What about that junk news that we will produce more oil than saudi arabia soon and that is good for america.

Let's see if we have 1/10th of the economic oil, and we pump it out of the ground faster because politicians think we should, our oil should last about 1/10th as long as saudi oil. In other words, we may do it for a couple of years but it is not sustainable. It really is big oil asking for permission to export so they can have larger profits, but it likely will be better for americans in 10 years if we keep these reserves for when oil is more expensive.

 

I thought I'd read the same thing somewhere.
Interesting that science was once interested in the idea of a 'soul'.....

I don't have any problem with providing China with a "shovel-ready" solar industry.
Industry in California?
Riiiiiight.
China could probably jump start our solarification if he hold our noses at the thought of the panels being produced with less regard to environmental, safety, or other US regulations.
But hey!
We'll get the panels at 10 cents on the dollar!

I also do not in any way have a problem with further regulation of coal and coal powered plants.
If the government were interested in real environmental reform, a path could be made from here to a carbon neutral exploitation of this resource.
Both sides are dug in however (pun unintended) so meanwhile????
We dig here.
China digs there.

Is it "around 200 years", or is it "200-900" years?
Is it 1.5 meters, or a range from .5-2.5 meters?
How accurate (and linear) are the models?

 

Concerning Nat Gas exporting you said:

Too Late!
Cheniere Energy has 3000 workers, and is spending $12 billion dollars building a massive LNG Export terminal in LA. See link below. The USA does not want to back the use of it's Nat Gas, so they will export it,, as we continue to import oil... Makes total sense!!! Lets just hope the incoming oil super tankers, do not coiled with the outgoing LNG super tankers! BOINK!

U.S. energy boom may signal a new export era - Los Angeles Times

Below quote is from above link:

My Daughter spent 2 years in Saudi, they are running out of oil over there, it is the main reason they are building Dubai to be a world economic center,,, to create an "industry" other than oil. Did you know Saudi's count their wealth by how many 747's they own???

Just like Global Warming, its all about what you want to believe, and put your faith into. One Scientist will say one thing, than it will be reversed in a couple years. They are still fighting over weather or not Coffee is good, or bad for you. Today, good, tomorrow, bad. Give it time, soon someone will want to legislate a government group to investigate it, then regulate it, for the greater good! Guess who gets richer? Might as well just enjoy driving our Prius, and have another cup of Joe!

 

I'm glad we are in agreement on so much

1.2 meters - 3.6 meters from wais but that 1.2 or likely 1.5 are locked in no matter what we do. As for how long, that is a big question, if Hansen is right it's going to disapear fast, but that is contradicted by this study. Could it be 900 years, sure, we need to look at each of the 6. The rate on the one ice sheet of the six that they are farthest along is providing about 1 mm/year, which is far above the 0.25 mm/year they had estimated before. That will if linear will provide an extra 0.1 meters of sea level in the next 100 years instead of 0.025 meters thought by the IPCC climate models. This isn't based on the IPCC climate models, but of actual data of how they are melting. The surface temperature is cooler, but currents and weather patterns are sending warmer water under the ice. It should accelerate slightly, then decelerate, but here there is disagreement so just a guestimate at how fast. It isn't going to disapear tomorrow, as the ice melts it chills the water, so that is a limiting factor, but it is doubt that eventually the currents will push warmer water under the ice and they will melt.

 

Well as happy as you are with this news, I expect that 10 years from now you will be telling someone that they lied to you again. There are some approved export facilities and gas to liquids built to produce diesel. If the politicians agree to as many export facilities as the industry wants we can expect the price of natural gas to rise a great deal like it did earlier. I am against this plan. Read the whole LA times article and you see all the minuses from exporting oil and large amounts of lng. The US seems to be exporting more coal as we use less of it. That is a different trend, I just wish we would shut down mountain top removal and strip mining, and forced coal to be produced with less environmental damage.

Again, passing Saudi Arabia in oil production, while having 1/10th of its researves, doesn't sound like a great idea to me. I'm sure you want to export it, so that we are importing more 20 years from now. Dubai is part of UAE, not Saudi Arabia. To me that is quite an anti-american prospect. In WWII we exported a great deal of our oil cheaply.

 

Not at all! I think we should get off the imported oil, and save what we have, for US! Why are we continuing to fund those that dislike US? Sometimes I think this was all planned. Use up the worlds oil, FIRST, then, use our own when the worlds supply begins to wane. It is a total shame to see what all the oil money has done to the Saudi's. I mean, the whole nation, does not have to work. They have an imported labor force, as no Saudi, needs to work. That's pretty twisted.

 

Actually,
I take a longer view.Deplete their oil reserves, and then jack the price on them with ours.

Since China and India are going to issue nearly 2 billion learner's permits over the next decade or so we're probably going to have to figure a different way to fuel ICEs and make electricity.
No matter how much oil is left there's still a finite supply of the stuff, and even if climate concerns are completely groundless (pun almost unintended) there is going to be some environmental impact.

Fortunately, an ICE will burn almost anything that you can fit through the injectors.