Anthropogenic Climate Change

Swiss traders selling highly toxic diesel to Africa. I don't know if it belongs to this thread, or to the "Meteorology and Earth Science" or "Environmentalism and Wildlife" ones.

Personnally, when you see the offences, I would be almost ready to post it in the "Death Penalty" thread, as those are white collars committing indirect mass murder for profit here.

Oh, Trafigura again? This isn't the first time they have done the "dump toxic stuff in Africa" thing. Seems like a question for the Environmentalism thread, though, it has nothing to do with climate change.

So with Trump's victory and his promise to back out of the Paris agreement, there's no way to meet the goal of +2C limit. So fucked....

Relax. Only states on the edge of the continent will be flooded. Oh...

Don't worry. It'll happen slow enough to drive all the liberals inland, change the political and social landscape of the whole country, and raise the friction between both parties to combustion levels.

I know you guys are only trying to lighten the mood (god knows we need it today) but rising sea levels is gonna exacerbate the refugee crisis worldwide, causing even higher anti-immigrant resentments. I'm just glad I'm in Canada.

edited 9th Nov '16 8:10:08 PM by nightwyrm_zero

So the world is gonna pretty much become the Great Sea (Without the monsters) or Waterworld in the future. Great.

edited 9th Nov '16 8:13:42 PM by Bat178

There is not enough ice for the sea to ever present a problem for most places. I think I heard once that thirty metres was a hard limit.

Yeah, it's not gonna be Waterworld. But a huge percentage of the human population currently lives on the coastline.

It's not just rising sea levels though, it's a series of extreme environmental changes that might very well make the planet impossible for us to live on. The Paris Accord was never a sure bet, neither was the idea that we haven't already damaged our environment beyond repair (climate science is not precise. The facts point to a very desperate problem, but there's no consensus on just how bad things might get). The majority of people just genuinely don't seem to care what happens 100 years from now, or that economic health is inextricably linked to environmental health.

I'm studying environmental geology. Since I was about 12 years old, I've known I've wanted to help protect the environment. Over the last day, I've pretty much felt as low as I was ever going to feel. I kept asking myself "what's the point of even trying anymore?"

But sitting around feeling sorry for us does absolutely nothing. Not everyone has given up yet. I won't. I can't. There is nothing wrong with continuing to try, continuing to hope. We can no longer rely on the US government to do a thing, sure, but to give up would to be unconscionable for me. We might fail, but we're gonna fail spectacularly. And I'd rather go out with some optimism - doing my best to look out for and support people - than with anger and fear.

So Trump is going to pick Myron Ebell for the EPA, the chairman of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a group of nonprofits that “question global warming alarmism and oppose energy-rationing policies.”

[1]

RIP the environment... Literally there is no hope for this planet now. Rip my town, it will be underwater.

edited 10th Nov '16 1:57:35 AM by Memers

Welp, Trump's trying to figure out a way to weasel out of the Paris Accords.

That was a real nice planet we had once. I'm so glad that I'll live long enough to see what kind of hell we turn it into.

In science news, artic sea sea ice is way below where it should be this time of year. Looking at the NSIDC data it looks like Artic sea ice coverage was a good 700 thousand square kilometers below the previous record-holder for this time of year, which in 2012 (where it was 9.359 million on November 18th, so a drop of 7.5%).

Antarctic sea Ice is also at a new record low. On November 17th, 1986 there was 15.244 million square kilometers of sea ice, and this year on November 17th there was 14.122, which is a drop of 7.3%.

This is not normal. This isn't even normal for the regular global warming trends. While I can't pretend to know this for certain, this could be a sign that we've passed a critical threshold and we are going to be seeing a collapse of the polar icesheets in a much shorter timescale then even the more pessimistic projections.

....Well it was nice knowing you Florida, half of Louisiana, and almost everything within a few miles of the coast. .

I wonder what these climate denialists are gonna say if they're around to see all this shit.

"Whoops my bad!!!"

"HOW CAN THIS BE?!!?!"

More likely it's going to be "This is god's punishment for not killing all the gays/atheists/muslims/jews!!"

edited 19th Nov '16 4:50:16 PM by nightwyrm_zero

There was a mole who liked candy. He liked it so much he ate it all the time. He couldn't be bothered about the wrappers, though; they'd just pile up around his chair, and at the end of the day he'd simply toss them all out of the hole that was the entrance to his little nest in a small natural cave.

Getting out of the nest became harder each day, what with the ever accumulating pile of candy wrappers lining the entrance. It became like a volcano, spewing candy wrappers each night, with the pile settling in sediments around the hole. Still, the mole wouldn't change his ways.

One day, the cave housing the nest finally collapsed. It just couldn't bear the weight of all those layers upon layers of candy wrappers any more. As the bits of plastic came flooding into the nest, the mole had to dig his way to the roof. As he drew his final breath out of the little pocket of air that was still left, he shouted at anyone who happened to be listening his last words:

"This is normal!"

See, I had the feeling that the 2015-2016 transition was a moment of change. There was the mega-El Niño and if memory serves climatologists did note that there will be a jump in temperatures after that.

That's definitely a possibility.

Given the nature of climate change passing a critical threshold is something that can only be determined for sure years after the fact. If the ice sheets rebound to semi-normal levels this time next year, then maybe we haven't gone that far just yet. But if it breaks this years record by another 7-8% or more, then the polar icecaps may be beyond saving for the foreseeable future.

Also, I checked the NSIDC data for November 19th, and the Artic Icesheet is now down 833 thousand square kilometers from the previous record. a 9.3% drop. That's such a big change over yesterday is because the Arctic icesheet has actually been slowly melting over the past few days...in November.

The Antarctic sheet isn't as dramatic as a change from when I wrote my original post, but it's still down even more then the previous record, About about 1.2 million sq/km less ice coverage, a drop of 8%.

edited 20th Nov '16 7:24:33 AM by Falrinn

The Arctic ice cap, that is. If the East Antarctic ice cap starts disappearing, you'd be far out of the frying pan and in the fire.

Hm. 1986 was not a leap year and 2016 was, so it shouldn't be the exact same day that's being compared.

It occurs to me to vaguely wonder whether or not, given the artificial nature of the calendar, like-for-like comparisons should be calendar based. That's a neutral observation, by the way, given that it either would or would not make any difference to the result (and if it did, it doesn't address size or direction).

Edited to add: That's a fun little tool though. I am now going to waste the remainder of my Sunday playing with it.

edited 20th Nov '16 7:52:04 AM by Wyldchyld

One day is not much of a difference. One week would be a bit problematic.

Well aware.

After accounting for the leap year, the Antarctic is down about 1 million square kilometers as of November 18th from the previous record holder. A drop of about 7% of total sea ice coverage. Which is certainly pretty significant.

The Arctic icesheet is certainly the more immediately concerning though since it should be freezing pretty rapidly at this time of year.

edited 20th Nov '16 2:04:02 PM by Falrinn

World will battle climate change sans Donald Trump

http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1417552-walkom-world-will-battle-climate-change-sans-donald-trump

So, this op-ed seems to be slightly optimistic that, because the other major economic powers seem committed to fighting climate change, that there is hope for progress/mitigation even if the face of the US' ideologically driven denialism. Fighting climate change through green energy is also becoming profitable, and money talks.

However, some countries (notably Canada) are worried that taking action against the fossil fuel industry will make them non-competitive in the face of Trump R Ping as a Captain Planet villain.

When all else fails, the scientists will know what to do.