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    #26
    The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

    And rather less exciting as to the future of the planet, but very interesting indeed all the same, is the discovery that the Greenland shark might have a life expectancy of at least 400 years.

    Imagine the stuff you'd see in 400 years. Obviously it lives deep down in the ocean and goes blind pretty early in life due to parasites eating its eyes, so I suspect its actual existence is a bit dull really, but still.

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      #27
      The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

      Being fated to swim in icy darkness for near eternity with parasites eating your eyes sounds like something from ancient Greek mythology.

      I wasn't aware of Ming the clam before. Poor sod. Sits around for half a millennium minding his own business then gets whacked in the name of science.

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        #28
        The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

        I worked with the people who radiocarbon dated this shark.

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          #29
          The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

          In some slightly positive news, China ratifies the Paris Accord, pulling the rug out of the ridiculous "Yeah well China so we can't do anything" canard beloved of deniers.

          Also the UK looks set to ban microbeads.

          On a personal note, the diesel's going, to be replaced with a PHEV. I'd like to go full electric but none of the cars available work with the current family situation. The one that does, the Tesla, is waaaay too expensive.

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            #30
            The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

            Fuck Bees.

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              #31
              The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

              I'm not as freaked out about methane release as some people are.

              Methane has a relatively short lifespan in the atmosphere compared to, say, CO2. While it might create a positive feedback loop, generally methane emissions dissipate in about 10 years, where CO2 takes 200 years to go. And therefore, provided the release is incremental rather than sudden, I qould be surprised if we got into that feedback loop.

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                #32
                The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                Everything I've read about methane release suggests it is (historically) sudden. That said, I've not looked at the science closely for about 10 years, so it could well have changed.

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                  #33
                  The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                  No, sudden as in large amounts of methane released from hydrates in a short period of time, contributing to catastrophic warming.

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                    #34
                    The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                    This from xkcd is very good.

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                      #35
                      The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                      If we want to keep warming at under 2 degrees - No new mines. No new oil wells. No new gas drilling.

                      I fear the human race isn't going to be able to manage this.

                      As an aside, it puzzles me that keyboards include obscure characters you only ever see on keyboards, like the opposite apostrophe, but not the degrees symbol.

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                        #36
                        The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                        I'm reading 'This Changes Everything' by Naomi Klein - basically she flags that the economic system needs to change fundamentally if we are to have any chance of reversing climate change.
                        While she writes with enthusiasm, it only makes me see how difficult (impossible) it will be to stop the disaster unfolding.

                        Unfortunately the book would have been twice as good if it was half the size as her anecdotes delay her getting to the point she wishes to make.

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                          #37
                          The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                          Long and fascinating New Yorker article on melting ice and socioeconomic changes in Greenland

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                            #38
                            The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                            loose cannon wrote: I'm reading 'This Changes Everything' by Naomi Klein - basically she flags that the economic system needs to change fundamentally if we are to have any chance of reversing climate change.
                            Indeed, case in point being the last economic crisis, when people in Germany suddenly stopped buying new cars and decided to just make do with and extend the life of the cars they already owned. Manufacturing new cars is very energy intensive, so Germans continuing to get the most of their existing cars was better for the environment. Car companies, which form the heart of the German economy, were losing money hand over fist. So Merkel responded by launching tax incentives for the purchase of new cars.

                            As long as our world economy is based on constantly manufacturing loads of new stuff, we will continue to use up resources.

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                              #39
                              The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                              It's blooming hot at the North Pole.

                              "“What we are seeing is both surprising and alarming. This is faster than the models."

                              How many times have words to this effect been uttered in recent years? Seems like a lot.

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                                #40
                                The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                                It's snowing in Tokyo in November for the first time since 1962.

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                                  #41
                                  The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)



                                  When there is less sea ice, the colour of the Earth is darker average, so it absorbs more sunlight. Like a dark blue car being warmer inside than a white car. This albedo effect can cause a feedback loop... ice melting causes causes change in albedo causes more energy absorption from the sun causes more ice to melt.

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                                    #42
                                    The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                                    I would guess that the climate in the polar region and state of the polar ice cap is primarily driven by ocean temperatures, rather than solar absorption (especially in winter). We're coming off a strong El Niņo season, with significantly warmer northern Pacific water temperatures.

                                    As far as alarmism go, you can't top this prof, who speculates that the pendulum has swung so far already that there is no longer much we can do, we've got ten years left. I think he's a tad too pessimistic...

                                    http://www.newshub.co.nz/world/humans-dont-have-10-years-left-thanks-to-climate-change---scientist-2016112408

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                                      #43
                                      The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                                      OTF helpfully allows you to use a degree symbol - 32oC - for example. Use the x2 symbol above the reply box and enter a lowercase o.

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                                        #44
                                        The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                                        We're coming off a strong El Niņo season, with significantly warmer northern Pacific water temperatures.
                                        There have been other El Ninos...

                                        Climate models predicted literally decades ago that the greatest warming would be in the poles. Global warming doesn't happen uniformly over the planet, it happens most at the poles, due to how heat distributes over the planet. And all the ice is at the poles.

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                                          #45
                                          The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                                          In sure humans will be around in 100 let alone 10 years. If nothing else we are resilient bastards (we were down to what, less than 10000 after the Toba event). Even if it comes down to Ray fucking Mears types, I'm sure there will be pockets of survivors who manage to adapt to the new normal.

                                          In what state though. I don't want to be alive in a Riddley Walker/walking dead type world, and even if there isn't a total societal collapse, doubt the forms of power and control in a world of extreme weather and more and more inimical to industrial food production will be pleasant at all.

                                          Sure as shit though, we won't make real attempts at mitigation till it's too late. We can't do abstract danger, we need to see the meteor almost hitting the Earth before we get our best men on the case.

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                                            #46
                                            The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                                            These are the IPCC sea level predictions made in 2001 vs actual satellite observations:



                                            As you can see, the scientists were wrong. They underestimated sea level rise.

                                            Here is the latest sea level satellite dataset:



                                            It keeps on going up.

                                            Here are the long term predictions from 2001, which we now know are, at best, much too optimistic (for the record, the latest predictions for 2100 have us between 80 cm and 100 cm of sea level rise in 2100):



                                            Of course, time doesn't end in the year 2100. There are people being born today who will be 84 in 2100.

                                            So here are some predictions out to the year 2300:



                                            The bottom of the grey band is basically if we go carbon neutral tomorrow. We've already caused two metres of sea level rise in 2300, it just takes a while for it to happen (mainly through thermal expansion of the ocean). Good job everyone.

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                                              #47
                                              The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                                              antoine polus wrote:
                                              We're coming off a strong El Niņo season, with significantly warmer northern Pacific water temperatures.
                                              There have been other El Ninos...

                                              Climate models predicted literally decades ago that the greatest warming would be in the poles. Global warming doesn't happen uniformly over the planet, it happens most at the poles, due to how heat distributes over the planet. And all the ice is at the poles.
                                              There is no doubt about the warming in global temperatures, but the data set in the graph above starts at 1978, which was the beginning of the current warming cycle. Between the 1940s and 1970s, global temperatures were coming down. It would have been interesting to compare the last El Niņo data with those from the peaks from previous warming cycles such as the 1930s-40s.

                                              As far as the climate predictions of warming at the poles, the ice shelf in the Antarctic has been growing significantly, contrary to what the climate models predicted. Nearly all the ice on Earth is in the Antarctic (90%). As well, the ice floating on the Arctic Ocean has zero impact on sea levels.

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                                                #48
                                                The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                                                Sweet jeebus, man, not everything is a conspiracy. El Niņo is up there with sunspots for not explaining this at all (outside the pure bank failing evil sophistry of Matt Ridley et al).

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                                                  #49
                                                  The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                                                  The Antarctic ice shelf has been growing because of increased winds from the circumpolar vortex, pushing the coastal ice further off shore. This is actually a feature of global warming. It's not a good thing, particularly.

                                                  It is also (as you note for the arctic ice) floating and therefore not going to impact sea levels.

                                                  The trouble with the Arctic Ice melting is not that it contributes directly to sea level rise - apart from the melting of the ice in the Greenland ice caps, which is more than enough to screw us if it melts - but because much of the planet's albedo comes from polar ice, changing bright white ice to dark blue ocean creates an positive feedback loop. The growth of the Antarctic sea ice does not nearly compensate.

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                                                    #50
                                                    The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

                                                    As far as the climate predictions of warming at the poles, the ice shelf in the Antarctic has been growing significantly, contrary to what the climate models predicted.
                                                    So you are a climate change skeptic as well?!

                                                    No, the current lack of warming in the Antarctic is exactly in line with predictions from years ago.

                                                    Scientists have, for a long time, predicted that the warming in the coming centuries will be the greatest in the polar regions. They also predicted that the warming would start first in the Arctic, but that warming in the Antarctic regions would be delayed until later in this century... and then it will take off there to. It's all built in to the global climate already, thanks to all our previous emissions, and it's all going to happen.

                                                    But in the post-truth reality we live in, none of this information matters.

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