Antarctica, Greenland ice definitely melting into sea, and speeding up, experts warn

[steve2470]

Source: NBCNews.com

What had been a blurry picture about polar ice — especially how it impacts sea levels — just got a whole lot clearer as experts on Thursday published a peer-reviewed study they say puts to rest the debate over whether the poles added to, or subtracted from, sea level rise over the last two decades.

"This improved certainty allows us to say definitively that both Antarctica and Greenland have been losing ice," lead author Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds in Britain, told reporters. Not only that, but the pace has tripled from the 1990s, the data indicate.

Combining satellite data from dozens of earlier studies, the study "shows that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets have contributed just over 11 millimeters (0.4 inches) to global sea levels since 1992," he added. Two-thirds was from Greenland, a third from Antarctica.

That's 20 percent of all sea level rise over the last two decades, with the rest mostly from thermal expansion of waters due to warming sea temperatures, the authors noted. In recent years, however, the percentage "has gone up significantly" to nearly 40 percent, added co-author Michiel van den Broeke from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Read more: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/29/15518574-antarctica-greenland-ice-definitely-melting-into-sea-and-speeding-up-experts-warn?lite

[Berlum]

1. Republicans Urgently Gear Up Climate Change Lie Wurlitzer

Republicans will need to step up their campaign of lies about climate change because of this -- and the fReaKy whang-damn ATMOSPHERIC RIVER STORM about to dump 15 freakin inches of rain on freakin California, while the parched shriveled fields of the freakin Heartland crumble into lifelessness as Dust Bowl 2012 continues to deepen and deepen.

But no doubt we can depend on Fox, Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly and the other freakin Professional Republican Liars & Allied RepubliSucker Proles to rise to the challenge.

[modrepub]

2. Probably Too Late

Scientists have estimated that the Greenland ice sheets will probably melt once atmospheric CO2 levels reach 400 ppb. Last I checked we were at 390 ppb. If Greenland melts we add about 20 feet to current sea levels, which pretty much wipes out most of our coastal cities. How long this takes is anyones guess.

[caseymoz]

3. Conservatives put themselves on the wrong side of this issue.

The most catastrophic event of the century, no of the millennium, and they're on record delaying every measure that might have lessened it until too late.

History, if there is much more of it, is not going to be kind to them. In fact, I think they'll come out as looking like some of history's biggest assholes. And I believe that pronouncement is going to start within a decade as we begin to see how badly screwed we are with the changing climate.

[Berlum]

4. As usual.

Republicans apparently hate not only America and Americans,
but the whole freaking planet. They need to stop lying. Immediately.

[caseymoz]

8. For most it wasn't a lie

For most, they believed the lies they were told by people whom they trusted.

It's the worst example of how Creationism undermined public trust in science. It made people think that any hillbilly had the expertise to make competent criticisms of scientific disciplines. It let conspiracy theories about the "liberal agenda" dominate the discussion. In fact, the doubters were generally the same people, or they had a lot of overlap. The main argument was always that humankind didn't have the power to alter the climate of the planet.

The problem is, the evidence is now overwhelming, and unlike doubting evolution, the doubt now has immediate, every-day consequences. Really, I hope the Intelligent Design movement is judged just as harshly.

[Berlum]

10. Republican "leaders" have been lying about this for years and years

...as the evidence mounted. As for those RepubliProles who allowed themselves to be SUCKERED by the Republican "leaders" and overpaid Professional Propaganda Pimps, they have not only committed a massive disservice to themselves and their families, they have -- by their willful disregard of the facts -- endangered the whole freaking planet.

As far as I can see, the Republican "leaders" intend to go on lying. And the RepubliProles intend to go on allowing themselves to be suckered.

[caseymoz]

26. Why would you presume human beings would be truthful?

What in human evolutionary history has required us to tell the complete and total truth to each other, or even ourselves. Our conscious minds operate under deception of our unconscious minds.

You look at any conflict in human history and it's usually over some bullshit that mattered to the psychology of the people of the time, but is actually just a contrivance that doesn't make any sense to us now. I mean, take the example of World War I. Countries lined up with each other in random alliances and started to beat the shit out of one another, and then developed the ideological justification retroactively. Look at the Thirty-years war. Was it really truthful that God favored Catholicism and considered the Protestants heretics, or vice versa? Apparently not.

But despite the religion, or the ideology or any of the other bullshit, the wars actually were always over a more basic problem: who would be in charge of the resources? It's strange how every ideology, every religion, every justification came down to that question. And the victors always took charge of the resources. Including in World War II. It's strange how consistent that pattern is. It was as though our unconscious minds pushed our conscious ones into conflict with some lame excuse when there was some question to be settled over resources.

And that's what happened with Global Warming. People treated it with the same kind of illusions that they did in any of our political conflicts. They tried to say the liberals were actually trying to enact socialism.

The problem is the bullshit wasn't bullshit this time. This wasn't like an argument over the Transubstantiation of the Eucharistic Host, and it had major worldwide consequences, probably for the very survival of the human species.

Our minds weren't adapted to handle such a problem on a huge scale. Our social systems, most particularly nation-states, weren't formed to deal with this kind of immense problem. They were set up to determine and perhaps lessen conflict between human beings for resources.

The reason why we're going to suffer dearly due to Global Warming? Things got real.

[NoOneMan]

14. As we stare extinction in the eye, again, its twisted into a political game

Everyone is lying. No one has solutions. We are all part of the problem.

But ultimately, as far as survival is concerned, the politics of the 20th Century, and their politicians, are irrelevant. They are temporary constructs of civilization with one purpose: to create the socio-economic environment that maximizes growth and increases complexity.

There is no more answer in them than can be found in the perpetual political struggle you have been conditioned to participate in. There may be no answer at all anymore, besides telling people to go live their lives.

[pediatricmedic]

22. How is the extinction going to happen again?

[NoOneMan]

23. Its already happening

200 species go extinct every day. It will happen to humans the same way it happens to the rest; our habitat will rapidly change fast than evolution allows us to adapt. Our current warming and ocean acidification is happening 10 times faster than any time before, and that rate for warming is predicted to move up to 20 times. With droughts in the breadbasket and a dying ocean, a +4C to +8C degree globe will be inhospitable to life as we know it.

[caseymoz]

24. Actually, looking at the basic biology

We did it to maximize our reproductive success. We're facing a population crash because we became very good at avoiding previous crashes. For example, as hunter-gatherers, as we got too good at hunting and denuded our habitates of game, and couldn't move to another habitate without great losses, because those were occupied by other tribes, we began to cultivate crops. The population crash was avoided. In the '70s, when the world faced starvation, we came up with the green revolution.

But Malthus teaches us that ultimately, the population has to crash. Sooner or later, you run out of luck for your intelligence to exploit. It's flying an airplane. You can defy gravity for only so long.

Simple as that. And we're well-prepared in an evolutionary sense, with our numbers probably peaking at 8-9 billion before the crash. Think of bacteria. A population that massive likely isn't going to go extinct. The population will probably drop to just a million. That's horrible. That's what ecologists call a bottleneck. Evolutionary pressures are going to become greater. Or we could die out. I wouldn't bet against the human species being the survivor in the great die off.

I know that sounds unjust, but humankind is just doing what any other animal would do if it could: reproduce with maximum success every generation. In case you want to check: there is no animal, and probably no species ever that self-regulates its population. No, their population is regulated by their environment, and usually that's enough to avoid massive crashes.

It was never in our nature to restrain our growth. If it had been, that would have been a quality uprecedented in any other life form.

[NoOneMan]

25. "Why *practice agriculture*, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?"

Said a Kung Bushman in the 1960s.

No, hunter-gatherers do not practice agriculture when they become too good at hunting (or we would have seen a mass, synchronous exodus). Instead, they practice leisure and keep their populations in relative statis. I will posit that overshoot is not viewed as positive trait by evolution in any species, evidenced by the very lack of species today that exhibit overshoot behavior. Animals evolve to be as energy-efficient as necessary in their environment to exist and reproduce, but not so much more that they cause ecological break-down (resulting in an ultimate deselection of that trait).

The reason hunter-gatherers convert is not because they are "too-good", but its because of encroaching agriculturalists are so much "better" at energy exploitation that they destroy the natural carrying capacity of the land. Those who convert from a communal 20 hour work week of self-sufficiency to an enslaved 40+ hour week of "capitalistic" dependence do so at knife-point if given the opportunity at all.

And no, we are not well-prepared in an evolutionary sense. This warming is happening at 10-20 times faster than by natural processes in the past. There will not be enough generations between now and 2200, much less 2100, to select the necessary genes to survive in a +4C to +8C degree world. The only thing that will cause this selection is the required wealth it takes to build a dome, and thats not much genetic preparation at all (or solace to the poor folk of the world).

It was never in our nature to restrain our growth.

Yet current hunter-gatherers do it. Yet mankind did it for a hundred thousand years prior to totalitarian agriculture.

Right now the world is dying from the momentum of one bad idea from one general region from one general species, and you tell me that its not just human nature but nature itself? I don't buy it.

[caseymoz]

31. Current conditions say nothing about the past.

The remains that archeologists find dating to the time human beings first switched to agriculture show that it definitely didn't create a surplus. The skeletons show tell-tale evidence of nutritional diseases and loss of size that weren't evident in human remains before. This went on for generations. Perhaps for several thousand years.

Meanwhile, agriculture involved backbreaking labor. Nobody puts themselves through that kind of starvation, deprivation and drudgery unless they have to.

Human beings at the start of agriculture didn't, and couldn't, calculate that scratching the earth would lead to what you would call an "overshoot." How could they imagine that? Try it today with the tools they had available. Assume you don't have domesticated animals to help you. Try it on uncultivated land that you have to clear, with unpredictable rain. See if you can create a surplus.

The reason they switched didn't involve the great 5,000-Year Plan to create leisure time. It was more immediate. They were hunting game into scarcity, increasing their population doing it, and they couldn't move to other land because they were surrounded by other tribes that did the same. Therefore, they either had to go to war lose half or more of their people to gain more land that was also denuded of its game, or they had to try agriculture. Some probably chose war. Look at the extinction of the larger species in North America after the Clovis people arrived. That's what happened in Europe and Asia.

Need I point out that any animal that can use spears, arrows, clubs and rocks and that coordinate in packs is a supreme hunter? When their prey had teeth, claws, horns, and maybe speed? Human beings could hunt species to extinction with that weaponry alone, and likely did.

The overshoot you describe has been going on for 10,000 years at the most, sporadically, which is such a short time an evolutionary sense, that it isn't even happening yet. Yes, what you see now is the overshoot, the surplus. However, human beings weren't always that good, and they definitely had no reason to stop hunting game and to risk starvation by cultivating unless it was absolutely necessary, due to game had become scarce. They definitely wouldn't do it with the idea of creating leisue time.

Hunter gatherers limit their population now? Unbelievable. What's this birth control that they use? I suggest you check your assumption more closely and see what the actual birthrate and causes of death are with hunter gatherers, rather than spread falsehoods.

I'll put it like this: it's impossible. It's practically a cornerstone fact of biology: no species limits its own reproductive success. Period. The environment limits it. For example, given a food source, bacteria will double its population every 20 minutes until it covers the planet, except the environment limits it. It's the same with any species.

Also, check on that claim that 200 species are going extinct every day. No way. Now the information I find is that "up to 200 species go extinct evey day," meaning worst case scenario, but I can't find any credible source for this information. In other words, it's a guess. What's the real number? Nobody knows.

Moreover it's a very poor guess. Here's why. That's 73,000 species a year. There's only 1.9 million known species (I Googled it). This means in ten years, 730,000 or about 40 percent of all species would be dead. In twenty five years, the entire earth's surface would be as barren as the moon. And how long has this been going on? If this was near correct, the earth would have looked like the moon by 1980 and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Don't believe every number you read just because it confirms your misanthropy. I think you're informed more by your bad mood and your emotional disgust than by facts.

And you're wrong about leisure time itself. In the wild, animals play. Generally younger animals under care, but adult lions will play with their prey, much the way a cat does.

[NoOneMan]

32. Do you have evidence to substantiate this theory?

Last edited Fri Nov 30, 2012, 11:02 PM - Edit history (1)

1) Re: overshoot of hunter-gatherers?
2) Re: hunter-gathers causing ecological breakdown and diminished game
3) Re: conversion of them by these means

Everything I've read shows past and present hunter-gatherers maintain a stable population and ecological balance. No, there is not birth control, but high mortality rates and breast-feeding mothers who do not bear high numbers of children.

Quick example: Why hunter-gatherer populations do not show signs of Pleistocene demographic expansions

no species limits its own reproductive success. Period. The environment limits it.

Though, mankind has the ability to alter the environment and its carrying capacity, illustrated by agriculture. In natural systems, organisms evolve to be incredibly energy efficient (a hunt should produce just more than the energy it takes to engage in it), but not at the cost of ecological breakdown. Of course mankind has circumvented that general law, which is precisely the fundamental problem.

It isn't the organisms that limit their reproductive success, but the system that success hinges upon. Genetics that lead to overshoot will not be selected. Genetics that do not lead to success will not be selected. There is balance, produced by the system, which is "correct" for each organism in its place



On Edit: This whole theory seems completely bunk the more I think about it. Hunter-gatherers don't show a consistent progressive advancement across the globe of converting into agriculturalists when they limit their food supply. The main branch of agriculture didn't spread with scarcity via need, but it was brought into other European regions by migrants coming from a point of origin (probably leaving areas of overshoot). The migrant agriculturalists were entirely different populations with their own religion and genetics. Article about the genetic study: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17857641

[caseymoz]

33. High mortality rates?

In other words, the environment? Unless it's homicide and suicide you're talking. Breast feeding implies an environment where women produce adequate milk. Environmental again.

Strange you would cite that link, because the last sentence of the abstract points to the Pleistocene expansion. Oh, so the hunter gatherer populations were growing. And the last clauses of the sentence pointed out that this is different from current hunter gatherers! You supported my point. Is there some trick you're going to pull here?

I'll tell you what really happens with current hunter gatherer populations that makes them look stable. First, they're hunting in poorer territory than the ancestral ones did. These are the places that nobody else bothered with. Second, emigration out of the tribe and into civilized areas hasn't been accounted for. That's an option prehistoric hunter gatherers didn't have. Or if they had emigrated to another tribe's territory, those other noble savages would have killed them.

This link makes the physiological deterioration during the transition to agriculture specific:

http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/icaes/conferences/wburg/posters/cslarsen/larsen.html

And I quote the first two sentences under the Growth and Development section:

"The transition from foraging to farming involved a shift to a subsistence spectrum that became narrow. This narrowing of dietary breadth involved a reduced availability of animal protein in combination with an increased reliance on a limited number of domesticated plants."

They went from a rich diet to a poor monotonous one. Just to create surplus leisure time. Read the rest of that section. The paper only goes into the effects of iron deficiency and stunted growth, but it gives you a picture of the overall nutritional quality. I'll repeat, they wouldn't have become farmers if they didn't have to. In nearly every way, early agricultural life sucked.

"Though, mankind has the ability to alter the environment and its carrying capacity, illustrated by agriculture."

Which has no bearing whatsoever on whether any species can limit it's own population. None. All you've done is point to oranges when I talked about apples. Study that point before you make massive moral judgments.

"In natural systems, organisms evolve to be incredibly energy efficient (a hunt should produce just more than the energy it takes to engage in it), but not at the cost of ecological breakdown."

This separation between artificial and natural, is, well artificial. Artificial is usually natural for human beings, and there's no moral superiority between what we do to survive and what termites do. None. A beaver's dam, for another example, will destroy the habitat of all the animals downstream. There is nothing natural or morally superior in what a beaver does compared to what human beings do. The only difference is, human beings do more of it.

Now, that doesn't talk about particulars of behavior. I mean, an atrocity is still an atrocity, but in general behavior, there's no logic in assigning one species behavior as natural/good and another as artificial/bad. You can hold people responsible. But to hold humankind in its entirety responsible, except maybe for you, does nothing for humankind or the environment and can't has no prospect of any positive change.

And no, organisms do not evolve to become "incredibly" anything. They become adapted to their environments. A word like "incredibly" has no place in scientific analysis, and your golly-gee reaction shows you've presumed and haven't looked close enough to confirm.

&quot a hunt should produce just more than the energy it takes to engage in it.)"

There's absolutely no justification for this declaration. First, it's factually untrue. A spider will take it's hunt and produce a hundred more spiders. Therefore, it has taken more energy from its hunt than it has expended. Every living thing does this, or strives to, and you're blind to what it implies for "energy balance."

"Of course mankind has circumvented that general law, which is precisely the fundamental problem."

There is no such general law, no justification for one like it. You've made it up. You're not quite as ignorant of facts as Creationists, but then again, for the ethical system you've adopted, you don't have to be. You still bend and ignore facts when it suits you.

And I see no reason to continue this conversation. I've made my point, and I have other things to do.

[NoOneMan]

34. The problem is there just was never a universal transition "from foraging to farming"

What we see today is due to the migration of a unique genetic and ethic group that came from a single point of origin, into forager's land: http://www.livescience.com/19924-agriculture-move-north-europe.html

This essentially invalidates your entire theory regarding this natural progression because of how "good" we are at doing things (and creating overshoot). The "transition" was not due to scarcity from overshoot but a change in population/demographics. The entire theory is simply not based on reality of what is happening today.

[caseymoz]

36. No animal makes a sweeping change like that without necessity.

None. Your article invalidates nothing I said. You have no sense of relevance. The "spread" of agriculture from a Southern European migration (which your article is so certain of it calls an "indication," so you're starting out weak) could have coincided with just the event that I was talking about. The reason why the proto-Europeans were able to spread their genes was because they were more successful than the hunter-gatherers whose food source had dwindled. This made the H-G methods obsolete in the environment.

Besides, your article only pertains to Europeans.

Again, without necessity, there was nothing to recommend early agriculture. Nothing. Those proto-Europeans must have been very persuasive to spread their lifestyle to hunter-gatherer tribes. This is hard to fanthom since those tribes could have kicked their asses given the difference in physical health-- provided that they were continuing to be healthy.

Agriculture was a very logical outcome of hunter-gathering existence. As game became scarce, the "gathering" part became more and more important and sophisticated. People only have to take a small step from harvesting certain plants for food to planting the seeds. Then, people figured out what was needed to make the seeds grow more successfully, and they protected them from predators. Agriculture started as foraging.

I'll repeat, a bunch of native species went extinct due to human hunting. It was not environmentally friendly. The most dramatic die off is seen in North America. When humans arrived there armed with arrows, spears, clubs, axes, rocks, and an unprecedented ability to coordinate a hunt, a whole slew of larger fauna went extinct. Now this is indicative, circumstantial evidence, but it's also emphatic.

Your POV isn't based on anything factual. It's based on misanthropy. I can see holding the people to blame for continued environmental wreckage responsible. The whole human species, though? No. Nothing is served if humankind goes extinct. Not justice, not anything else except some people's self- and fellow-hatred. Hatred being self-canceling, that means that, actually, nothing is served.

To tell you the truth, I don't care fucking Earth falls into the sun if humankind goes extinct.

[NoOneMan]

39. You're just making shit up now

Agriculture isn't an "outcome". Its a different approach/idea/technique/way-of-life. Its been tried in many places, in many forms, and failed leading to collapse and conversion back to gathering. One ethnic group, primarily, got it down perfectly and used it to harness energy and dominate the globe after 5000 years of expansionism. That's the bottom line facts that is known today.

And no, I don't hold the whole human species as responsible or view today as some inevitable natural progression. It was a bad idea that allowed its users to spread it like wildfire. We are all living an unnecessary lie that is a direct contradiction of our previous hundred thousand years of collective experience. If anyone is a "human-hater", it is not me.

Im not sure where and when you formulated this theory of progression and overshoot, but it flies in the face of where anthropologist stand today.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

30. They'll just blame Jimmy Carter, the Mexicans and Blacks - like they did with the banking scandals.

Fox and CNBC will cover their asses and re-write history.

50% of the population will believe it and 50% will know it's bullshit. Same as it ever was.

[Coyotl]

5. If all the ice melts, where will the high water mark be?

Global Sea Level Rise Map
http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/

"this map lets you enter your own levels of rise to see its effect on the world."
Google Maps of Sea Level Rises
http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2009/08/google-maps-of-sea-level-rises.html

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), sea levels have been rising about 3 mm per year since 1993 – totalling a 200 mm increase (7.87 inches) in global averaged sea level since 1870.

Introduction to Climate Change
http://gloresis.com/node/467

100-meter-rise Maps

http://resumbrae.com/archive/warming/100meter.html

[Berlum]

7. When Rush's $20-million 1% Republican mansion floods, he may consider telling truth. For a Change.

[slackmaster]

9. The last time the polar ice all melted, sea level was about 40 feet below my property line

I considered that as a factor when I bought it, not that there is any real possibility of it all melting during my lifetime.

[Delphinus]

17. Really?

n/t

[slackmaster]

19. It was a small factor, but I did check the topographic map just to be sure

[rDigital]

27. Chance favors the prepared. : ) nt

[Ash_F]

12. I would be just a short drive to the beach.

It's not all bad.

[NoOneMan]

15. Where will all the food be?

Droughts will kill more people than flooding IMO. A big tragedy of early warming news was the focus on flooding, which some people think they are immune to if they live inland. The breadbasket will be devastated and logistical supply lines will be greatly hampered.

[csziggy]

16. That first link is cool

It tells me that for my farm the critical point of sea level rise (all other factors being ignored) will be between 30 and 40 meters. At 30 meters, the coast will be a lot closer than it is now. At 40 meters rise, the ridge my farm is on becomes either a peninsula or an offshore island - there is a narrow area between two river valleys that could wash out enough to cut us off from the mainland.

That is also the critical point for my parent's house in peninsular Florida - at 30 meters, their town would still be attached to the mainland but at 40 they'd be living on a big island surrounded by shallow seas, sort of like the Bahamas.

[Coyotl]

6. Paleoamericans lived in a Florida twice the size it is today.

http://www.flheritage.com/facts/reports/contexts/paleo.cfm

[bemildred]

11. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, coming soon to a seashore near you.

Think of it as a permanent storm surge.

[pscot]

13. Big changes apparent in the comment thread at nbc

In the past the denialists have pretty much dominated the responses to articles like this, but now they seem to be on the run. Lots of strong, informational posts over there documenting the reality of AGW. One guy compared the deniers to the fools who ignored Noah's warnings. Too funny.

[Uncle Joe]

18. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, steve.

[steve2470]

20. my pleasure Uncle Joe nt

[triplepoint]

21. Climate Refugees and Chasing Ice--Two MUST SEE Documentaries!

Last edited Sun Dec 9, 2012, 11:18 AM - Edit history (1)

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[kelliekat44]

28. Ditto on "Chasing Ice" nt

[Coyotl]

35. I want to see the entire film.

[Coyotl]

37. Weathergirl goes rogue

[Uncle Joe]

40. That was good.

[rDigital]

29. K&R nt

[Kablooie]

41. America could have been the force to lead the world in controlling this.

Many countries were ready to band together and do something.

Our damned conservative politicians have doomed the human race to to a disastrous future that may threaten human civilization itself.