1 yr. ago • 98%

Antarctic sea-ice at 'mind-blowing' low alarms experts

www.bbc.com Antarctic sea-ice at 'mind-blowing' low alarms experts

Missing winter sea-ice signals changes in Antarctica that could be "absolute disaster for the world", scientists say.

52 comments

Dr Caroline Holmes at the British Antarctic Survey explains that the impacts of shrinking sea-ice may become evident as the season transitions to summer - when there's potential for an unstoppable feedback loop of ice melting.

Even modest increases in sea levels can result in dangerously high storm surges that could wipe out coastal communities. If significant amounts of land ice were to start melting, the impacts would be catastrophic for millions of people around the world.

Buckle up kids, this ride’s about to get bumpier.

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it never ceases to amaze me how stupid we all are as a civilization.

we're opting out of it, but nature will continue. this will be a very curious and fairly hospitable world full of interesting xenoarcheological mysteries... in the distant future, to a visiting spacefaring civilization.

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- You have to wonder if we aren't just confirming what the Great Filter is. There may not be any space faring civilizations.
  
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  Seriously, that’s what I’ve been thinking recently - that we’re hitting the self-destruction theory of the Great Filter.
  
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  It's not a bug, it's a feature. It takes too much energy to simulate multiple space faring civilizations at once in our universe. First come, first served and I guess there's something out there....
  
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- I've said it before, and I'll say it again, planet gonna planet. It give zero fucks about us and will happily continue spinning long after we are gone. If civilizations get purged along the way makes no difference. Kinda makes the "evil villain" from Kingsman: The Secret Service right that we are the virus.
  
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  "The end of the world" (I can't believe I have to explain this) is a euphemism for humanity being wiped out or at the very least the end of the planet being habitable
  
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You know what's most depressing? Statistically people reading this comment (people who have access to computers/phones + the internet) will have little to mild effects of climate change, compared to the BILLIONS that will perish. Humans will survive all this, but at the cost of unimaginable suffering from the silent/silenced poor.

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- "Humans will survive this" - I am unconvinced, I think there are very real reasons to consider the coming climate variations as an existential threat.
  
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  My new nightmare is that we manage to kill off oceanic algae and the rainforests and most us oxygen-breathers just all slowly collectively suffocate to death. Probably at a rate that we know it’s coming for humans at a certain point. Scientists would probably be able to predict it down to the week. So us humans all see our fate and are just patiently waiting for our death as we watch all the smaller mammals perish before our eyes.
  
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  Difficult to predict the future, anything is likely. But my point was if humans do survive, it'll only be the priveleged few. Even in the last days of humanity, those who have the means will survive longer
  
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  Everyone talks about climate, no one mentions the planets ecosystems (aka life support) are dying at an unprecedented rate. Hoping the next form of life on this planet is slightly less stupid than we are
  
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- Humanity will survive this but everyone will suffer the effects. Even something relatively minor like COVID had great effects to the global economy, but with these we are talking about:
  
  Weather inestabilization, with greater storms and massive heat waves.
  
  General crop failures in many places of the world.
  
  Desertification in many areas.
  
  Massive migration waves.
  
  Very difficult and unstable economy.
  
  We are starting to see some of this, but 2050 onwards is going to be a very difficult time for all humanity except the most wealthy.
  
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  So you're saying there is a deadline to eating the rich?
  
  ... Noted...
  
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- If it gets bad enough that millions die, let alone billions, the effects will hit everyone, hard. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the economy is very interconnected and fragile, and wars are started over a lot less.
  
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- Humans will not survive this. Looking at Thwaits. If this glacier melts, sea levels will rise 60 meters in a few hundred years. it is like a cork that holds back the melted water of Antarctica. The sad thing is that it has already started and can no longer be stopped. The question is no longer if it will happen but when it will happen. Like an ice cube you put on the table. It will melt but it will take time.
  
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  "The collapse of Thwaites would cause seawater levels to rise by around 2 feet (65 centimeters). This could, in turn, destabilize neighboring glaciers, potentially increasing future sea levels by almost an additional 10 feet (3 meters)."
  
  Thwaites melting would raise water levels by 0.6 meters, not 60 meters. You're off by a factor of 100x
  
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It's happening so fast now... I always thought we would have more time

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- I actually did think it would speed up like this.
  
  ...but not for science reasons, it's just, I know from defrosting the freezer that it does not melt at a steady rate but gets faster and faster.
  
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  I mean, that's pretty scientific training right there
  
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- So did the scientists. Stuff is happening now that wasn't supposed to happen until the 2070s.
  
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look this is going to sound horrible but -- i was born in 1996, i've been hearing this shit all my life, climate catastrophe, uninhabitable planet....i'm just waiting for a spectacular collapse so i can stop having the background anxiety about it and we can live our lives like in our favorite post-apocalyptic films

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- Unfortunately, large-scale systems change slowly due to inertia and the distances involved. Unless you introduce extreme amounts of energy like the dinosaur killing meteor.
  
  Even then it's happening ridiculously fast considering changes of this scale typically happen over tens of thousands of years at least.
  
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- Yeah!
  
  We're all gonna be in this apocalyptic film
  
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  If there is enough civilization to have film after.
  
  After the fall of the Mediterranean Bronze Age civilizations, it took several hundred years before any real civilizations arose. And the only one with any records of it were the Egyptians
  
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  And even though I can't explain it, I already know how great it is...
  
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  Uhh, well ... not all of us. Wouldn't be much of an apocalypse otherwise
  
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- God yeah. This is like a tease that has been happening for decades. I cannot wait to normalize living in bunkers.
  
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  You all need to lower your expectations. Billions of people are going to die.
  
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  All the bunkers in my part of the world are owned by Silicon valley billionaires/Russian oligarchs.
  
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- I always think of it like an exponential function. There seems like nothing until it starts skyrocketing.. The ocean/ice/atmosphere has had enough of our added heat and greenhouse gases to the point of no return, and it is just getting started. I often think of it like a glass of water getting hot in the sun after all the ice melts... and now the warming is always "faster than expected"
  
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- Fuck that noise. Do something about it now. Unmake a pipeline. Blockade a coal port. Fight, for fucks sake. We don't get to undo this.
  
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Toss it on the fucking pile of shit that's unfixable at this point.

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Well.. it was nice knowing you all...

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- It was n(ice) while it lasted
  
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This is the best summary I could come up with:

The sea-ice surrounding Antarctica is well below any previous recorded winter level, satellite data shows, a worrying new benchmark for a region that once seemed resistant to global warming.

Antarctica's huge ice expanse regulates the planet's temperature, as the white surface reflects the Sun's energy back into the atmosphere and also cools the water beneath and near it.

Dr Caroline Holmes at the British Antarctic Survey explains that the impacts of shrinking sea-ice may become evident as the season transitions to summer - when there's potential for an unstoppable feedback loop of ice melting.

As more sea-ice disappears, it exposes dark areas of ocean, which absorb sunlight instead of reflecting it, meaning that the heat energy is added into the water, which in turn melts more ice.

There are signs that what is already happening to Antarctica's ice sheets is in the worst-case scenario range of what was predicted, says Prof Anna Hogg, an Earth scientist at the University of Leeds.

At the scientific base Rothera, Dr Mallet is using radar instruments to study sea-ice thickness for an international research project called Defiant.

The original article contains 905 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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Blue Ocean Event 2027

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- Tell me more
  
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  This is a good explanation.
  
  Look this up yourself with other sources though too. You'll want to fnd out how much ice coverage is left at the poles, how much we've lost this year so far, and the loss projection for if the next 5 years are as hot as 2023. Then look up what will happen to the earth with all the unreflected solar radiation we'll be absorbing without the ice caps.
  
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Tume to buy a ponton style home boat !!!

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- Time to build an ark?
  
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  No good, only 2 of us are allowed on
  
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OH GOD OH SHIT OH FUCK

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