Just a comment.

I just started to watch Season 1 of 'The Expanse' a sci-fi/political thriller set in the 2300s on Amazon Prime.

In one scene, a spacecraft does a flyby of New York City and the Statue of Liberty is surrounded by a fifty foot high levee wall. This is a possibility if all of the land based ice has melted, and it likely will by 2300.

As a land developer in California I had to be aware of sea level rise and on one of the last projects I worked on we had to account for a localized increase in sea level of 2.5 feet. This is the expectation of the sea level in 2050, 30 years from now.

I have been interested in this subject for some time and when doing a bit of research I discovered that in some of the underwater fresh water caves in Southern Mexico, they have found human bones 200+ feet below the current sea level. The bones, a teenage female, date back to the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago when sea levels were significantly lower.

Imagine walking from Denmark to Scotland on dry land.

I believe the time has passed to halt or even slow any man-made effect on the Earth's climate and it is time to start to think about building levees, however high, to stop the deluge that will be slowly creeping up to some of our doorsteps. London, NYC, Miami Melbourne, Mumbai, Shanghai - start building, or drown.

Reasoned thoughts welcome!

Sadly, I'm more concerned with the potential disaster that will likely hit the grain belt long before the water is a problem.

Yes, given time, the water might rise to cause massive economic destruction to coastal cities around the world. Given enough melt, Florida even ceases to exist.

But if the heat goes far enough, our grain belt dies, then the world will be in big trouble. I don't think people really understand how close we are to massive global starvation. There might not be enough people living to fret over a few coastal cities.

If we dump enough fresh water ice melt into the gulf stream, the gulf stream in the Atlantic might well fail. It was the source of the notion for the film The Day After Tomorrow, which was based on a book I have that while a lot less dramatic than the film was also a lot grimmer. Because in the book, it starts to snow and just doesn't stop. Summer comes, and still snowing. A full year of snow and most of society will collapse. We won't need a sensationalized made up storm to do it in a day. One year of global northern hemisphere winter equals no crops for way too much of the industrialized world. If the 1st world rolls over and dies, well it won't wipe out humanity, but it will certainly eliminate the modern world we live in.

Unlike in the movie, where everyone invades the southern hemisphere, and as ironic as American suddenly illegally immigrating to Mexico might sound, the thing is, most of the northern half would not make the choice soon enough. Canada would become a slim sliver of itself with the only ones surviving, being our northern peoples who are used to a lot of snow. Most of Canada though would probably just perish.

That's just one variable. We might just heat the planet back to the level it was for most of its existence. Most don't realize it, but, 50 celsius was the norm for most of our planet's history. The trees will not mind. The oceans locked away methane will be released. The permafrost will not be frozen either. Greenhouse warming could become quite spectacular. Our species is simply not evolved for 50C.

I occasionally worry about war in the usual fashion. But, I'm not so sure it will happen for the reasons a lot of blind politicians and warmongers might think. This isn't the 20th Century and hasn't been for 20 years almost. The geopolitical reality has shifted considerably. I worry about a war between China and India over water. I worry about people fighting over water, not oil. I worry about people fighting for food.

Hi Miki and Lesley!

If human civilisation will die, how could any civilization survive long enough to be wealthy enough to colonise other places and do long space travel and stuff. Perhaps we ill get around it, I hope so, coz I don't like the idea of all that happening!

Celia xx

Many roads to the same destination.

The Roman Empire was totally 'the thing of its time'. But it did fall.

The industrial revolution was a major turning point for humanity. It changed everything.

Creation of nuclear weapons totally changed how our species expressed anger and frustration politically.

I think another major change is headed for our species. The current house of cards, it just gets taller and taller.

We as a species won't get wiped out so easily. Mother nature has tried 11 times that we know of, and she has still failed to turn our planet into Mars. But Venus is not impossible as Venus proves.

We need to master ourselves before we master getting off of this planet.
We are driven by fear, through our religions. And easily manipulated by people of questionable character. We need to get rid of religion, utterly. Time to wake the fuck up.
We need to master greed. We are obviously easily manipulated by people of questionable character. We need to get rid of the notion that wealth is worth the damage it causes us socially.
We need to master our obviously nearly impossible urge to breed. Just because we can do a thing, doesn't mean we SHOULD do a thing. Maybe homosexuality and transgender is life's way of trying to limit our obsession with breeding. Yes, two gay men or two lesbian women, or a transgender person can still have kids. I'm proof of that, and D'arcy is proof of that, and there are several of you guys who have kids. But it takes a lot more planning routinely. It takes no planning at all for cishets to have more kids than they can handle. And there are simply too many good examples of that.

I mastered the sciences needed to understand our planet and space decades ago.
But unfortunately, there are no real sciences to learn to understand how to control our species in a useful fashion. I said useful fashion.

I'm fully aware that religion is a lie. I have proof. Solid proof. I can look a person in the eye and tell them, their religious beliefs make them look developmentally challenged.
But greed is not a matter of beliefs. It's just our species being stupid. Just plain dumb.
If our species just did what was required for logical reasons, we'd be able to go to space casually.
But we are not a logical species.
Our biosphere isn't 'dying', but the creatures that depend on the current conditions, sure are in for a shock.
50k years ago, Toba erupted. Damn near wiped out our species. But we still made it.
Our species NEEDS that house of cards to exist as it currently does.
But when that house of cards collapses, and I think it's just a matter of time, it's going to be plenty messy, plenty violent, and a lot of things are going to die.
As a species, we'll probably still be around after it crashes.
But, our current modern world will likely be gone quite decisively.

Imagine for the sake of it, we experience a very bad summer, and what happened in the US in the 20s, happens in China, Argentina, Australia, Ukraine, and in Canada and the US. Massive crop failures. Dust storms enough to mimic a bad volcanic event. And then a bad hurricane season, and bad fires in forested regions adding to all that dust. The US can't afford the cost of all of that damage. It won't matter if you believe in bullshit government party A, or bullshit government party B, because the money will just not be there. What if it's all of the world's governments suddenly dealing with too little money, too little water, and too little food? All because it got a bit too warm.

It won't matter what your military looks like. It won't matter if you are a nuclear nation and what your navy has to play with. Tanks and nukes and navies can't fix hurricane damage and fire damage, and they can't make food and water. And if everyone is starving, there won't be any to beat up and rob of resources.

The status quo needs to go away.
We need Gene's future, but we don't want to get there the way he envisioned, and there are no aliens to come and say hello and help us.

Hi Lesley!!!

Can't argue with much of that, good post. You know I believe in a creator, but not in a religious way though...…

Long ago, I conversed with an old, (to me then), guy in a local pub I used to frequent with my partner. I am not really a pub person but my partner was an alcoholic, I was there often. I knew the man quite well and he was quite an intelligent man so I liked hearing him talk about stuffcoz he was fun too. Once he explained to me that genetics had discovered that man nearly was wiped out, just by looking at genes... he explained it to my daft little brain by likening it to a wiggly shaped glass vase, the base is thin, then it got fatter, it carried on like that but at one time it got very thin indeed. Of course the rim at the top, in other words today, is very, very wide.

He also thought that if the Roman Empire had lasted up to today, we probably might have made the Moon in the 15th century and today would be very different, but that none of us would be here though!!! He also was the one that gave me the Beer Bubble Theory, that pooh poohs all theories on the Universe, as we don't know any for fact and that the Beer Bubble Theory might as well be correct, that is that the Universe is a beer bubble in a glass of Guiness at the supercelestial table. I have likely forgotten other stuff that I think I know, that came from him,  the tap going down the plug in different hemispheres in different directions is an example, but lots anyway!

I looked for Gene's Future on the web, I've not heard of it, but got lots of results just about genes! What is it and who is Gene?

Celia xx

Celia totally crashes and burns not recognizing the reference to Gene Roddenberry creator of Star Trek

Yeah, when the supervolcano Toba erupted 50k years ago, it wiped out the better part of our then species. All of the evolutionary progress to that point more or less ended with the exception of a good few thousands of us. Those remaining thousands were where all of the today humans came from. So all of our evolutionary progress following the Toba eruption stems from a fair small population base.

They say you can see the signs under a microscope if you have the skills required to see.
That won't impress a creationist of course. But their minds are so pathetically small.

Lesley Niyori wrote:If we dump enough fresh water ice melt into the gulf stream, the gulf stream in the Atlantic might well fail.

I picked this one comment to, well, comment on.

Climate change is real and while I believe man is only contributing and not causing the climate shift, there are a lot of charlatans selling their snake oil know-it-all books.

I was listening to a talk radio show about 20 or so years ago when the author opened up for questions. She was asked about the 'Greenland Conveyor Belt' - you could hear the blank stare coming from the radio speaker.

Another caller asked about the 'Hamburger Effect' on climate - again, a blank stare.

The 'Greenland (Ocean) Conveyor Belt' is where the naturally warm water cools between Greenland and Newfoundlamd/Labrador becoming less dense.

Ocean surface currents redistribute heat around the world and have a profound effect on the world’s climate. Nowhere is this clearer than in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Current ferry huge volumes of warm salty tropical water north to the Greenland coast and to the Nordic Seas. Heat radiating off of this water helps keep the countries of northwest Europe, which are at the same latitude as Labrador and Greenland, relatively comfortable places to live.
http://oceanmotion.org/html/impact/conveyor.htm

The above is an excerpt from the excellent description of what will happen to this very important, and mostly to Europe, effect of changing the flow of warm water off Greenland if the fresh water ice of Greenland melts and is dumped into the Northern Atlantic Ocean.

The 'Hamburger Effect' has to do with the amount of methane gas being produced by cattle. Cattle, as opposed to other ungulates produce much more methane gas. It is a complex calculation involving the destruction of CO2 eating trees to be converterd to grasslands to feed cattle. Cattle use roughly 5 times their weight in grain and grasses to produce a pound of meat. Cattle also use roughly 100 times what a human uses during the life of a cattle in water.

Couple all of that with the amount of methane gas cattle produce, which nearly equal that of all of the cars in the U.S. use annually.

Bison, which occur only in North America are a much more effective source of meat, use less water and produce significantly less methane gas - but, their meat is brown and an unattractive to many in the U.S. (I have eaten Bison meat and it is a very tasty contribution to a health meal!)

Hi Miki!!!

So the meat is brown uncooked? That would not worry the British if they knew it was fresh, it is rather like Chicken eggs, (sorry best be specific), which naturally are brown from the Jungle Fowl, that is the wild Chicken, whereas many other nations prefer them pure white. Brown meat is fine, because it most likely goes either green or grey when off, when that colour.

The European nations most affected by the Gulf Stream, should it cool because of the ice melt, are Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Britain and Norway, to a lesser extent Northern France, Belgium, Holland and Sweden. Portugal may feel some effect too. Other nations would have mild repercussions. I believe it is no coincidence that our temperate climate is changing, it used to be quite mild most of the year with very short, if any very cold or very hot spells. These days it seems to be either boiling hot or freezing cold for much longer than ever, with much shorter spells of mild weather, even though that still prevails over all...

Sorry Lesley, I guess I did crash 'n burn!!!! But, to be fair, I did not even know his name. I've never been into social media much, I watch the stuff and don't read the credits or ogle over baftas, Oscars, emmys etc. Gene Thingybob might have been your dustman, refuse collector for all I knew!!!! I watched Star Trek as a kid and loved it, never knew the guy, let alone that he made those predictions.

Gonna look up Toba, did not know about that. One thing is for sure, if a really big volcano goes up, drop what ya doin', go down to Tesco and buy all the tinned food you can lay your hands on!!!! It's not the lava, it's the smoke, it'll blanket the earth for a year or two.

Celia xx

A bit confused here.

I was not suggesting the ice melt 'cools' the water. Fresh water is not the same as salt water for density and buoyancy. It's not about cooling the water, but about redirecting the direction of the current.

Hi Lesley!!!!

Sorry, got wires crossed! I did not explain, coz it's probably not been reported there as it effects North west Europe mostly.

When the ice melts and bergs flow south down the North American East Coast, they are slowly cooling the Gulf Steam, a fortunate warming of the sea from our west. Westerly winds prevail in the UK. In England you are never more than 75 miles from the sea. The Gulf Stream is the reason that Ireland, Britain, Northern France are Temperate, the warming sea warms the air flow and makes Scandinavia habitable too.

Here is how: and it is to do with cooler water from your side!

Thingbobcantremembernow!!! wrote:"Driven by water density and wind patterns, the Gulf Stream currents move warm water in the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean Sea northeast to northern Europe and the British Isles.
Surface water in the north Atlantic is cooled by winds from the Arctic, making it more salty.
Water without a high level of salt in it does not drop easily to the ocean depths, which is what usually happens to the Gulf Stream to the north of Iceland. This is where the current plunges to the ocean floor before returning to the tropics and then towards the Antarctic Ocean.

As the cold water travels towards the equator it warms slowly. The vast oceanic current on the surface of the Atlantic ensures our mild winters and temperate summers. If it were to malfunction, then temperatures in Europe could plummet."

London, England, the very south of England in the very far land protected East, is on the same latitude as Seattle. But London has far warmer mean temperatures, this is almost entirely due to the Gulf Stream, a little is due to slow sea cooling, being so close to it, also, though that is only seasonal and prolonged cooling would cease that effect entirely. Most of the UK is on the same latitude as Canada in fact. Ice breakage and bergs floating down the east coast of North America effecting the Gulf Stream is a serious threat to the UK, Ireland and the Scandinavian nations bigtime.

Celia xx

Hehe, Celia, not arguing that point. MY point is the sudden influx of way too much ice melt, more than the usual amount, and resulting decrease in salinity is where I'm going with this.

TOO much ice melt, won't just dump some cold water in the ocean, it will alter the current dynamic of the current direction (hmm using current two ways in that sentence was amusing).

Anyway, if the gulf stream alters its normal path, if the decreased salinity causes the current to perform differently, that nice warm water, well it's not really THAT warm, but, it's not arctic levels of cold, could actually decrease in warmth. Cold fresh lacking in salinity water decends and it could end up dragging down colder northern water with it. Resulting in a colder British Isles.

Lesley Niyori wrote:I was not suggesting the ice melt 'cools' the water. Fresh water is not the same as salt water for density and buoyancy. It's not about cooling the water, but about redirecting the direction of the current.

And neither was I. If you read the entire article (not long) that I referenced you will understand the impact of the fresh water ice melt will have on the 'Conveyor'.

Yes, warm salt water is more dense than cold fresh water and the impacts the flow of the Gulf Stream and hence the 'Conveyor'.

I think I fiiiiinally found the item you've latched onto

"This scenario has led to wild talk of the start of a new ice age, a notion that climate scientists universally dismiss. "

They claim it is 'universally' denied. I'm saying it is not so 'universally' denied.

If 9 out of 10 people are wrong about something, they're all still wrong if they are wrong about it.

You won't find any shortage of examples of when large swathes of people are wrong about some things.

Most of the world is religious. Most of the world's peoples are still wrong when it comes to religious beliefs.

Science though, also states, extraordinary statements need extraordinary proof.
I'll grant you, that my position regarding the Gulf stream might need MORE proof.

Sea ice is definitively melting:

NSIDC -- Sea Ice

What the Trumptards do not understand is the idea of positive feedback, the less sea ice, the lower albedo, the more energy from the Sun that gets adsorbed, the less sea ice, the lower albedo, the more energy from the Sun that gets absorbed, rinse and repeat.

Jehanne wrote:Sea ice is definitively melting:

NSIDC -- Sea Ice

What the Trumptards do not understand is the idea of positive feedback, the less sea ice, the lower albedo, the more energy from the Sun that gets adsorbed, the less sea ice, the lower albedo, the more energy from the Sun that gets absorbed, rinse and repeat.

That would require them to acknowledge science, which would imply that the entire f*****g universe doesn't conform to their each and every brain fart whim.

Unsurprisingly, sea ice actually always melts. That is why we don't have icebergs down by the Azores. Even when the vast ice shelfs of the Antarctic break off - they eventually melt as the move north.

The melting of sea ice, as opposed to glacial ice does not impact sea levels. To visualize this - take a glass of water and put some ice cubes in the glass. Note the level of the water with the ice and after the ice melts. It does not change. The same with sea ice.

MichaelaSJ wrote:Unsurprisingly, sea ice actually always melts. That is why we don't have icebergs down by the Azores. Even when the vast ice shelfs of the Antarctic break off - they eventually melt as the move north.

The melting of sea ice, as opposed to glacial ice does not impact sea levels. To visualize this - take a glass of water and put some ice cubes in the glass. Note the level of the water with the ice and after the ice melts. It does not change. The same with sea ice.

Two points:

1)  When you heat water, it expands; that will raise sea levels. (Note that water is at its highest density around 4 C, and so, it will expand rapidly if things start to get out of control beyond that.)

2)  A lot of ice (and, I mean, a LOT) is on land; when that melts, sea levels with rise.

Well, I feel sorry for the Polar Bear, Walrus and other seafaring animals that need the ice. I know that he warm water rises to the top and the cold water goes down too. Over here they have been measuring sea temperature and the average temperatures of the changing will effect many creatures living around North-West Europe too. If you remember we had Benny The Beluga decide that the Thames was a good place to be, whereas he should be living up in he Arctic!!!! Poor Benny was all confused!!!! He has appeared to have gone home now, but who knows?

Celia xx

Celia Eriksson wrote:Well, I feel sorry for the Polar Bear, Walrus and other seafaring animals that need the ice. I know that he warm water rises to the top and the cold water goes down too. Over here they have been measuring sea temperature and the average temperatures of the changing will effect many creatures living around North-West Europe too. If you remember we had Benny The Beluga decide that the Thames was a good place to be, whereas he should be living up in he Arctic!!!! Poor Benny was all confused!!!! He has appeared to have gone home now, but who knows?

Celia xx

Hey hon; warm water, because it is more dense sinks, which brings colder water, because it is less dense to the surface, a positive feedback. This is why water freezes from the top down.



Dawn

I don't think that is correct:

Water is more dense the colder it is (before freezing). Warm water, given the same chemistry, is always at the top of the column.

The water in the ice glaciers in Greenland, which is nearly pure fresh water, will sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean cooling the warmer, more dense salt water of the Atlantic Conveyor, upsetting the current flow and disrupting the eastern edge of the Atlantic's climate.

Please take my comments knowing I may not have a clue about what I write.

I think you have it Miki. The danger to the Gulf stream is when we dramatically increase the rate of cold entering the ocean.

Don't know if this helps? Coz I don't know either! All I know it means colder winters!!!!! Anyway, it's from a hack newspaper, though quoting scientists at Potsdam University, I would name them but this newspaper is the most crashiest site in the Universe, ya can never read a full article without it crashing!!!!! But it looks like ya both right, depends where ya are on the planet, both sink and rise, depends on salinity, I think????!!! I'm developing one of my famous headaches....

Daily Mail Article wrote:
The findings suggest that as global temperatures rise due to climate change, areas that are warmed by the Gulf Stream could see temperatures fall, particularly in the winter.
The Gulf Stream is a powerful current that forms part of the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.
This is a system of currents that are driven by the rising and sinking of water in different regions of the Atlantic.
Warm water from the equator is driven north towards the Artic where it cools, increases in salinity and sinks to the ocean depths.
This drives deep sea currents that pump water back to the equator, where it is warmed, rising to the surface and feeding the currents towards the pole.
In the Arctic, cold salty water sinks to the ocean depths, driving deep sea currents down to the equator where warmer water then rises to the surface and feeds the Gulf Stream.

The influx of warm water from the equator, which travels up through the Gulf of Mexico, past Maine and then up the west side of Britain and Norway, helps to warm weather systems in Northern Europe.
It makes winter conditions in much of northern Europe far milder than they normally would be, keeping Britain and the west coast of Norway largely snow and ice free through the winter months.
The researchers, whose study is published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that the sea in the northern Atlantic is colder than predicted by computer models.
They estimate that 8,000 cubic kilometres of fresh melt water haver flowed into the northern Atlantic from Greenland's icesheets between 1900 and 1970.
They say between 1970 and 2000 an additional 13,000 cubic kilometres of fresh water has poured into the Atlantic from Greenland.
This fresh water is less dense than the salty water of the ocean and tends to float on the surface, disturbing the balance that causes cold water to sink in that region.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3009162/Gulf-Stream-slowdown-faster-Fresh-water-melting-ice-sheets-make-European-winters-colder.html


Celia XX

MichaelaSJ wrote:I don't think that is correct:

Water is more dense the colder it is (before freezing). Warm water, given the same chemistry, is always at the top of the column.

The water in the ice glaciers in Greenland, which is nearly pure fresh water, will sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean cooling the warmer, more dense salt water of the Atlantic Conveyor, upsetting the current flow and disrupting the eastern edge of the Atlantic's climate.

Please take my comments knowing I may not have a clue about what I write.

I value my online relationship with you more than scientific fact or truth.

But, back to the Trumptards, what they do not understand, fundamentally, is that there is more energy in the form of heat in the first meter of ocean than in the corresponding column of air above the water. And, so, even a 0.1C rise in temperature across the oceans of the world would be a huge increase in thermal energy for the entire planet, many more joules of energy than in all of the nuclear weapons in the entire World.