Meanwhile the planet melts…

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
18
0

While our political class continue to fail us by providing and advocating for radical environmental reform to adapt our economy and society for the reality of catastrophic climate change, the planet continues to melt far faster than predicted…

Scientists Saw a Nearly Unheard of Antarctic Meltdown

Antarctica is unfreezing. In the past few months alone, researchers have chronicled a seasonal waterfall, widespread networks of rivers and melt ponds and an iceberg the size of Delaware on the brink of breaking away from the thawing landscape. A new study published in Nature Communications only adds to the disturbing trend of change afoot in Antarctica. Researchers have documented rain on a continent more known for snow and widespread surface melt in West Antarctica last summer, one of the most unstable parts of a continent that’s already being eaten away by warm waters below the ice.

ICEBERG THE SIZE OF DELAWARE WILL BREAK OFF ANTARCTIC ICE SHELF ANY DAY NOW, SCIENTISTS SAY
One of the largest icebergs ever recorded is about to break off an Antarctic ice shelf and float away. The separation of roughly 10 percent of the Antarctic Peninsula’s Larsen C ice shelf—equivalent in size to the state of Delaware—from the main body is imminent.

The “calving” event, as scientists call the break, will take place within “days, hours or weeks,” the MIDAS Project predicted on Wednesday. A U.K.-based Antarctic research project, MIDAS investigates the effects of a warming climate on Larsen C and has been monitoring the growth of this major rift in the shelf.

Carbon Dioxide Set an All-Time Monthly High
With May in the books, it’s official: carbon dioxide set an all-time monthly record. It’s a sobering annual reminder that humans are pushing the climate into a state unseen in millions of years.
Carbon dioxide peaked at 409.65 parts per million for the year, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s not a surprise that it happened. Carbon dioxide levels at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii peak in May every year.

…so our carbon dioxide levels are higher than they have been for millions of years and we know that when CO2 was this high last time, rapid and catastrophic climate change that totally flips the climate within decades can occur.

The only difference is that the process for those events takes hundreds of thousands of years to build up to, human pollution has done that in the space of 2 centuries. We are in utterly uncharted territory here and all that can be said for certain is that the catastrophic climate flips we have seen in the past will probably be far more violent and severe this time around.

Our political spectrum simply are not providing the solutions or urgency for change to adapt to the new climate reality. I suspect as things get far worse in terms of climate over the next decade the electorate will start demanding radical political change.

Green Socialism is the future.

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18 COMMENTS

  1. Guy McPherson and Sam Carana are saying the planet will hit about the same average temp as is was 250 million years ago during the ‘great dying’ when 96% of all life went extinct, within 4 years, yes just four years from now. Giving humans about 1 year or so left.
    I guess most of us will be around if it doesn’t happen in that time frame, so maybe the laugh will be on me?
    http://arctic-news.blogspot.co.nz/2017/05/abrupt-warming-how-much-and-how-fast.html

    interesting times.

    • McPherson et al have been egregiously wrong in regard to time frames previously.

      Really, how about getting your science from more rational surveys of the literature, such as the IPCC and those referenced by organisations such as NASA and The Royal Society.

    • If McPherson is tied down to detail he admits much of the science is not his field so he is taking a generalised view and with some good cause.

      But his sweeping statements are not to be relied upon as not one circumstance is identical to all others across the globe.

      Sea level in tropics will be very different to mountainous terrain in temperate regions and land mass size, terrain, sea currents , wind patterns and soil with vegetation also has a bearing.

      There are selected places around the globe where survival at the early stages will be easier and at later stages then smaller pockets of relatively survivable micro-climates may well see a residual population for some time long after the main human dies off.

      The main population is at dire risk and so is the environment we depend on for food. The Non Renewable Natural Resources we are consuming and stuffing up will no longer be there to assist survival so less will survive just because of our consumption now.

      Western Economist today take none of that into account yet we give them ear.

      Chandran Nair and Indian Economist in Hong Kong is refreshing in his wider analysis and condemnation of the main stream economist crap

  2. Ok, here is a chart showing a some inconvenient scientific facts: https://s20.postimg.org/4na49m3yl/Geological_Timescale_op_712x534.jpg
    It is a record of history showing temperatures and CO2 levels. There is essentially no correlation between the two, or even an INVERSE correlation. In the Precambrian, Silurian, Carboniferous and end of Jurassic eras CO2 concentrations fell while temperatures rose (at the end of this period CO2 levels rose while temps fell). While there is a correlated rise in the Miocene epoch we still see changes in temperature, both up and down, with nearly constant CO2 levels.

    Either this chart is wrong, despite being ENTIRELY founded in scientific evidence, or the notion that CO2 causes “warming” is utter rubbish. You can’t have it both ways – either this research is somehow incorrect or we’re being sold a giant lie. Needless to say, I’m with the scientifically gleaned historic record on this one since it deals with data that has already occurred (and cannot really be debated, unless you feel the research is wrong somehow), as opposed to modern climate science conjecture that is based on VERY recent correlations that may well not (or don’t) exist.

    It comes as zero surprise to me the various “climate models” have thus far all been wrong in their predictions; i.e. they all predicted both far greater temperature and sea level rises than have occurred. The reason for this is obvious to me: they all rely on the core immutable assumption that CO2 levels are the driving force for said climate change – something the historic temperature record shows is more than likely ill founded.

    • Except that those temperature rises/falls occurred over a span of centuries, thousands of years, millions of years.

      The big difference is that the current temperature increase has happened over a hundred years, and does correlate with increase of CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide.

      • But that is irrelevant. IF CO2 indeed directly causes warming (which is the very cornerstone of ALL climate change models) then it MUST have also done so previously REGARDLESS of how fast said CO2 concentrations rose. A high CO2 level is a high CO2 level, after all. So explain how high CO2 levels historically more often than not did NOT produce an increase in temperature (which is a direct contradiction with the premise of our current climate models which aspire to “prove” that high levels of CO2 result in a concomitant increase in temperature)?

        • it is the lag time that the ice gives us
          In the last rise of CO2 which took something like 10,000 years to hit 400 ppm, the ice might have all gone at 315 ppm (?) as the CO2 would have sat for 100’s of years per ‘number rise’ eg 100 years @ 300 , 100 years @ 310 etc etc, so the ice might have all gone long before 400 PPM.
          280 ppm in 1850 – 405 now is an average of .46 ppm per year
          where 280 – 400 back then was 0.0124 ppm per year.
          And ‘they’ can’t get a true measure of the CH4, as it converts to CO2 ?
          ‘We’ are currently seeing something like 3. ppm rise per year at the moment, it is called exponential.
          Back then the planet got to something like 23 c average (currently 17C?) 23 C is the hottest the planet has been in something like 2 billion years,
          The only thing stopping us from matching 23c is the Ice, which as I said should have all gone @ way less than 400 ppm, what we are in now is unprecedented, the last time there was 10,000 years+ of continued volcanic activity, which ‘built’ the Traps.
          Did you know Earth was 100% ice (snow ball) it was a mile thick at the equator, interesting ?

        • So, everyone who deals in climate science is wrong, nitrium? Just because you can’t get you head around it?? Man, I don’t understand how computers work, but I know they exist. Instead of posting your denial shit here and making yourself look silly, why not do the basic research and edukamate yourself. It’s amazing what you’ll learn with some reading.

        • Nitrium, if you really want to learn about the issue, why not access the ample research websites that are available. Denying anthropogenic climate change because it doesn’t fit your worldview, and then sharing that prejudice on a political forum is not a wise move. You just end up looking very foolish.

      • Frank, don’t bother arguing scientific with scientific consensus deniers such as Nitrium. You are not a climate scientist and Nitrium certainly isn’t either. Nor m I.

        It is plain however that Nitrium doesn’t understand what a scientific consensus is, how it is achieved and, most importantly, what the implications of a scientific consensus entail.

        This is illustrated by his dismissal of the consensus and instead raising data anomalies along with cherry picked talking points.

        These are presented with the arrogant and simply put, stupid implication that the wider scientific community are unaware of the points that he (insert similar adjective) regards as game changing revelations, still…

        In fact, billions of dollars and decades of research across multiple scientific disciplines have ample evidence, such that not a single serious scientific organisation on the planet disputes the scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet and that this warming is potentially dangerous.

        Really, it’s pathetic, and ultimately scientific consensus deniers have nothing, either tens of thousands of independent lines of evidence are wrong or being interpreted incorrectly by tens of thousands of independent scientists and the peer review system, or, the world’s scientific community are lying to everybody.

        Consensus deniers always fall back on conspiracy theory when pushed hard enough, because their scientific talking points are demolished by that reality, that is, the weight of evidence.

        The scientific consensus of AGW is real, it is unassailable.

        https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

        https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

        http://www.ipcc.ch/

        • Frank, don’t bother arguing scientific with scientific consensus deniers such as Nitrium. You are not a climate scientist and Nitrium certainly isn’t either. Nor m I.

          Hell, I don’t even get the internal combustion engine!!

          On a related note, a climate-change denier posted a tweet on Il Duce Trump’s twitter account attacking a critic of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accords. He demanded that the critic provide evidence on climate change right there, on that twitter account.

          I couldn’t help myself. I asked the dear chap how we should present millions of bits of data within a set-limit of 140 characters.

          Next challenge: how to prove to Earth-centrists that our world is not at the center of the solar system, with everything revolving around us. Work in progress.

  4. Anyone who doesn’t think our climate is now entering a sharp period of dramatic change and vastly increased precipitation should just come down to any beach during the winter and see the erosion occurring of a metre loss of foreshore every year now.

    https://www.accuweather.com/en/nz/national/satellite

    Also just look at the images of the water vapor clouds now emerging from the Ross sea area just below our country adjacently at the south pole now.

    The ice is melting folks and we are entering a very wet cloud covered future for sure.

  5. ice berg the size of Delaware? How the fuck big is Delaware? Don’t tell me it’s the size of a block of ice.
    Ok. I’m going to see if I can find out. Hang on a minute…….

    Ok. Delaware is 6452 square kilometers.

    Canterbury NZ’s 45,346 square kilometers

    Canterbury’s a shade more than 7 times larger than A. Delaware and B. A block of ice.

    Why is it that saying a block of ice is as large as Delaware making it feel like it’s larger than saying it’s 6452 square kilometers?? Weird right? Americans are funny old things aye?

    ” Green socialism is the future ” That’s if there’s anyone left for a future to be had.

  6. Even if anthropogenic climate change wasn’t real; that it’s a vast conspiracy by scientists and politicians, orchestrated by dastardly Chinese plotters sequestered in some secret volcano lair…

    What’s the worst that could happen if we stopped air pollution?

    Clean air?

    Isn’t that a good thing?

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