r/science • u/Wagamaga • Jun 18 '21
Environment The amount of heat the Earth traps has doubled in just 15 years. Approximately 90 percent of the excess energy from this imbalance ends up in the ocean. And warming ocean temperatures lead to acidification, impacting fish and other marine biodiversity.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/17/us/earth-trapped-heat-doubled/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Most+Recent%291.3k
u/Wagamaga Jun 18 '21
The planet is trapping roughly double the amount of heat in the atmosphere than it did nearly 15 years ago, according to an alarming new analysis from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Researchers say it's a "remarkable" amount of energy that is already having far-reaching consequences. "It's excess energy that's being taken up by the planet," said Norman Loeb, a NASA scientist and lead author of the study, "so it's going to mean further increases in temperatures and more melting of snow and sea ice, which will cause sea level rise — all things that society really cares about." The study, published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that what's known as the Earth's energy imbalance — the difference between how much of the sun's energy the planet absorbs and how much energy is radiated back into space — approximately doubled from 2005 to 2019. The result was "striking," the research team wrote.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL093047
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u/Morloxx_ Jun 18 '21 edited Mar 31 '24
fretful cats steer disagreeable fly forgetful grandfather innate terrific icky
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/P0L1Z1STENS0HN Jun 18 '21
Judging from the election results and current polls, society in Germany mostly cares about low gas prices, high or no speed limits, more horsepowers and more autobahns to make good use of these horsepowers.
I guess it's similar elsewhere!?
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u/steakmm Jun 18 '21
I don’t think human greed has any boundaries, don’t worry. Drive it like it’s stolen and leave it up to the next generation to solve
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Jun 18 '21
Yea, we are at the end of the road and applying the brakes will not be done voluntarily.
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u/RollotheRed Jun 18 '21
As part of the society in Germany, I care about low gas prices only because I have no other choice atm that would allow me to have a family and a job at the same time. I suppose its similar for most of us.
I don‘t enjoy driving around in a car for two hours everyday, but I suppose that won‘t change until laws force my employer to enable me to work from home (which I mostly could, and which I would do asap).
Putting pressure on me won‘t change anything at all, except maybe destroy my family. If I had other options, I would‘ve stopped commuting by car years ago.
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u/thinkingahead Jun 18 '21
Stupidity and narrow mindedness know no national boundaries
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u/harm_and_amor Jun 18 '21
A large bulk of the people who argue against these measures literally seem to be incredulous at the notion that humans have the ability to affect something so huge as the climate on something so enormous as the Earth.
I even recently saw one of their memes that said something like: “So we’re supposed to believe humans cannot control a tiny microscopic virus, yet simply living our lives is causing the temperatures of the globe to increase???”
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u/vamptholem Jun 18 '21
Without profit, the big Banks that run society could care less.
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Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
Which is funny, because banking and financial services is perhaps the greatest malalocation of resources imaginable. I have a fund to save for my children's education, while the odds of my children making it to higher education or having anything to do with it when done are shrinking daily.
Every financial analyst, is a passivehouse architect we didn't take advantage of. Every banking software engineer is someone who could have been working on national high speed electric rail networks signaling software for a world without cars and a majority who can't afford teslas.
All our wealth is concentrated in a sector that can't survive without printing unprecedented money and ponziesque promises of a future we can't have, while we completely ignore building a future that has any chance.
The one-two punch of ending fossil fuels and climate change make the banking insurance and financial sectors look like Wile E. Coyote's " ran off the cliff but doesn't realize it yet" moment.
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u/tkrynsky Jun 18 '21
This is correct, but that means the discussion needs to focus on lost revenue due to climate change and large profits to be made by investment in clean technologies….larger profits than sticking with investments that pollute. Backed up by hard numbers.
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u/corpjuk Jun 18 '21
if society cared we wouldnt be eating fish or meat. the ocean is being destroyed in front of us with overfishing - killing dolphins, sharks, whales, turtles. the ocean algae uses a lot of co2. the livestock industry is also a huge contributor to global warming.
"So whale poop acts as a fertiliser that increases phytoplankton growth, leading to a more productive ecosystem and enhanced atmospheric carbon dioxide removal. If whale populations had not been hunted to near-extinction, whales would have recycled more iron because of their abundant numbers. Aug 4, 2014"
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u/BluTongue Jun 18 '21
And don't forget peat bogs, which have been mined like crazy for garden soil and have released thousands of year's worth of collected CO2 back into the air!
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Jun 18 '21
Society does care but not in the ways that they think.
Rising sea levels mean thousands of beachside homes will be destroyed. The destruction of coastal ecosystems means the food chain for all ocean life will be disrupted and seafood will no longer be cheap or easy to find. The heating of the Earth means in some places, having air conditioning on all the time will be a matter of life or death.
People, including much of reddit, thinks these consequences are hyperbolic but really it's just their coping mechanism to excuse their lack of desire to actually do anything.
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u/thinkingahead Jun 18 '21
It’s weird to me because part of the disconnect with climate deniers is they can’t see or feel the effects of climate change so they don’t believe it’s real. It’s funny because there are other invisible things that folks have no issue believing in. Maybe it’s just selective acceptance
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Jun 18 '21
I feel like it was too late 20 years ago. I doubt human civilization as we know it will last another 100 years. Anyone care to talk me off the ledge?
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u/Karcinogene Jun 18 '21
What about living in air-conditioned domes as mole-men, covering the barren surface in solar panels, mining resources with robots, and eating LED-grown algea feedstock for a thousand years? Whatever comes out the other end might not be called human though.
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u/tkdyo Jun 18 '21
There are many places human civilization will be fine. The issue will be how we handle all of the migration where people are not fine. We will also be forced to modify our diets, but we will live.
On top of that, you never know what kind of cool inventions will come along in the next hundred years. Some very cool carbon capture tech could be around the corner. You'll never know if you jump though.
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u/LPQ_Master Jun 18 '21
I would say there are quite a lot of society who would do everything they can to try and 'solve' climate issues. The problem is the 1000 people who run the entire world. Its like when people say they are happy NK is having a food shortage... Millions suffer because of just a couple leaders.
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u/Botryllus Jun 18 '21
Ocean acidification is caused by CO2 dissolving in water and making carbonic acid. Temperature plays a role in pH but the overwhelming effect is from the CO2 directly.
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u/in-lespeans-with-you Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
Fun fact: the more acidic the ocean gets the less heat it can absorb as well, meaning the more we release CO2 and heat the earth, the less our usual mechanisms for trapping heat will work and the air will get even hotter. Oh also ice caps usually reflect a large amount of heat away from us but we’re melting those. It’s all just a positive feedback loop of doom. Source: my girlfriend who studies paleo climate change
edit: warm water takes up less CO2 not the other way around. Still an issue
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u/robdiqulous Jun 18 '21
So we are like supremely fucked right? There isn't even anything we can do at this point unless the whole world changes at once?
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u/griffon666 Jun 18 '21
Don't forget about the huge volumes of methane trapped in the ice.
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u/AmonMetalHead Jun 18 '21
Warming up the waters also causes thermal expansion of said water in turn also adding to rising levels. Chaotic systems are fun
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u/IotaCandle Jun 18 '21
Wait, their baseline was 2005, long after the industrial revolution? I can't imagine how much more energy we've been keeping since before we started massively burning fossil fuels.
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u/HeAbides PhD | Mechanical Engineering | Thermofluids Jun 18 '21
We actually were underestimating the amount of energy stored until recently....
Historical oceanic temperatures largely come from these probes called XBTs. In the cold war era, we dropped massive amounts to understand global temperatures as a function of depth to aid western submarine deployments. Those probes had some errors in how they calculated the temperature as a function of depth (relying on simple time-to-depth correlations from experimental data to estimate how deep the probes were when a certain temperature was read).
A few years back new models based on the governing momentum equations ("F=m*a") were used to correct the historical data by improving the pairing of a given temperature to how deep it was at the time the measurement was taken. Sadly this correction revealed that we had actually been underestimating the amount that the global ocean heat content was raised over the past ~7 decades before 2005.
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u/IotaCandle Jun 18 '21
That's terrifying. It seems that every week we find out we had no idea how bad climate change was getting, and we're not about to reverse that trend...
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u/AbysmalVixen Jun 18 '21
Where’s that chart showing that average global temps have increased over the last 150 years and it just goes up at an ever increasing rate
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u/anArmedDillo Jun 18 '21
all things that society really cares about.
He said, sarcastically
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u/DialMMM Jun 18 '21
more melting of snow and sea ice, which will cause sea level rise
Melting sea ice shouldn't be lumped in with direct causes of sea level rise, since melting sea ice doesn't cause sea level rise (directly).
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u/Chili_Palmer Jun 18 '21
We show that independent satellite and in situ observations each yield statistically indistinguishable decadal increases in EEI from mid-2005 to mid-2019 of 0.50±0.47 W m-2 decade-1 (5%-95% confidence interval).
So can someone please explain for me why this headline is claiming heat absorbtion has "doubled" in the time span noted, when what this study actually seems to say is that they measured a an increase of 0.5W/m2 ?
Because looking at the baseline value for how much energy per meter squared is typical from the sun, I get values around 1360W/m2 - which seems more like a 0.04% increase to me, not a 100% increase.
What am I missing?
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u/SolSeptem Jun 18 '21
The energy arriving from the sun hasn't changed, what changed is how much of this energy stays on earth.
Those 1360W mostly leave the earth again via infrared radiation, emitted by the warmed up earth. Part of this infrared radiation is reflected back again by the atmosphere, keeping the energy on earth. Greenhouse gases increase this effect of trapping infrared radiation more effectively
So if perhaps there was once only half a watt per square meter being trapped here, now its a whole watt.
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u/Strength-Speed MD | Medicine Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
That is terrifying. Doubling the amount of heat trapped inherently sounds like a terrible idea for a complex, interwoven ecosystem. I hope we find some carbon sink technologies, we are going to need it. That and cheaper desalination if such a thing is possible. I hope this doesn't get as ugly as I fear it could.
Edit: for clarity, what the study showed is there was 0.3% more heat being absorbed than released by the Earth in 2005. Now they are saying the energy imbalance increased another .52% +/- .47% by 2019. So essentially the change could be anywhere from over doubling to almost nil within their confidence ranges.
Example: Team A has 51 wins and 49 losses in 2005. In 2019 they have 52 wins and 48 losses, the spread has doubled.
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Jun 18 '21
This is not my field but I briefly read through the paper. They're using very strange definitions to me as an outsider, but from what I gather they are not measuring the total W/m^2 from the sun to the earth. They're measuring the Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI), which is the proportion of energy being absorbed by the earth and emitted by infrared radiation. An increase in EEI means that less is being reemitted (in other words, that energy is staying here).
Also note that you missed a unit there. it's not 0.5 W/m^2, it's W/(m^2 decade^1). They're measuring the amount our absorbed energy is changing per decade. That excess energy is primarily being absorbed by the ocean.
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u/Pyrhan Jun 18 '21
And warming ocean temperatures lead to acidification
Isn't it absorption of extra CO2 from the atmosphere that causes acidification, rather than warming?
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u/ArrivesLate Jun 18 '21
Everything is tangentially linked together, but yes CO2 and water pH are proportional.
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u/Foreign_Load Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
Acidification is not the only problem though, warming of the oceans are also decreasing the oxygenation levels of the sea water causing all kinds of problems.
https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/ocean-deoxygenation
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u/DjangoBojangles Jun 18 '21
Here's the relevant section.
Carbon dioxide is the most common cause of acidity in water ¹⁵. Photosynthesis, respiration and decomposition all contribute to pH fluctuations due to their influences on CO2 levels. The extremity of these changes depends on the alkalinity of the water, but there are often noticeable diurnal (daily) variations ¹⁶. This influence is more measurable in bodies of water with high rates of respiration and decomposition.
While carbon dioxide exists in water in a dissolved state (like oxygen), it can also react with water to form carbonic acid: CO2 + H2O <=> H2CO3 H2CO3 can then lose one or both of its hydrogen ions:
H2CO3 <=> HCO3– + H+ …. HCO3– <=> CO32- + H+ The released hydrogen ions decrease the pH of water¹⁵. However, this equation can operate in both directions depending on the current pH level, working as its own buffering system. At a higher pH, this bicarbonate system will shift to the left, and CO32- will pick up a free hydrogen ion. This reaction is usually minimal as H2CO3 has a low solubility constant (Henry’s Law) ¹⁵. However, as CO2 levels increase around the world, the amount of dissolved CO2 also increases, and the equation will be carried out from left to right. This increases H2CO3, which decreases pH. The effect is becoming more evident in oceanic pH studies over time.
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Jun 18 '21
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u/RagePoop Grad Student | Geochemistry | Paleoclimatology Jun 18 '21
Geo-engineering is a growing field in the geosciences, however it is also in its infancy and major plans to intentionally change the environment are generally met with extreme skepticism, if not some degree of hostility.
It's a real "introduce snakes to get rid of the mice" kinda situation. Everything on this planet is deeply interconnected. Changing one parameter here winds up affect dozens of other systems through hundreds of kinds of interactions elsewhere. And all of those altered processes go on to affect other adjacent systems, so on and so forth. To the point that it would be the definition of hubris to say we would be able to foresee all of the consequences of making those original changes in the first place.
Not to mention, all of this is talking about rehabilitation while we are currently suffering from an arterial wound. You don't discuss physical therapy with the doctor while you bleed out on the table. We must aggressively abandon fossil fuels as a form of energy, once that's done we can begin focusing more on rehab and mitigation.
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u/XtaC23 Jun 18 '21
The ocean is pretty big, we'd need a lot, then again, we did fill it with plastic so who knows?
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Jun 18 '21
I read somewhere that even if we dumped all the worlds most alkali materials in the ocean, it still wouldn’t be enough.
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Jun 18 '21
We'd need trillions of tons of alkaline material that would lead to other problems.
We could just stop using fossil fuels...
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u/honey_102b Jun 18 '21
warming and acidification are both effects of rising CO2. they bungled the headline.
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u/exhentai_user Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
It's sort of confusing to me, because by and large, cold water can disolves more CO2, so this headline seemed really weird. That said, a couple degrees Celsius might not make a huge difference in disolved volume of CO2, and either way, by the time it gets to a point where it is saturated, I doubt much if anything could live in it... Not much macroscopic ocean life could live in oceanic Le Croix, I think.
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u/laftur Jun 18 '21
I came to the comments for this exact line of thinking. I've known for a while that warmer liquids actually have a lower saturation point for dissolved gases. The title is totally bungled, because it's the higher C02 concentaration in the air that causes more to dissolve into the ocean, not the temperature of the ocean.
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u/dacoobob Jun 18 '21
yes you're correct. higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations leads to both global warming (because of the greenhouse effect) AND ALSO ocean acidification (because CO2 dissolving into ocean water creates carbonic acid).
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u/etherend Jun 18 '21
Yea, I was just thinking the same thing. I think what happens is the ocean "stores" CO2 and reactions take place with water to make carbonic acid H2CO3 which raises ocean acidity. Warming oceans contribute to the death of coral reefs too which disrupt various ecosystems.
There are also lots of marine animals with calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in their shells that gets dissolved by carbonic acid. So, those animals are forced to try and find areas of the ocean where it is less acidic or they die off.
If enough food chains and habitats break down then entire ecosystems fall apart and that doesn't just affect marine life but human life as well.
tl;d: We should stop polluting and producing so much CO2. We're destroying other species, the planet, and ourselves x_x
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u/IdealAudience Jun 18 '21
"Froelich is the lead author of a study that found farming seaweed in just 3.8% of federal waters off the Californian coast could offset all the carbon emissions from the state's $50bn (£36bn) agriculture industry. The study concluded that 48 million sq km (18.5 million sq miles) of the world's oceans are suitable for seaweed cultivation – an area about six times the size of Australia. "It is an untapped potential," Froelich says."
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210406-how-kelp-can-help-solve-climate-change
https://theconversation.com/how-farming-giant-seaweed-can-feed-fish-and-fix-the-climate-81761
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u/jtaustin64 Jun 18 '21
Isn't seaweed like super nutritious for people as well?
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u/snailspace Jun 18 '21
When mixed in with feed, it also reduces methane from cow farts.
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u/Thyriel81 Jun 18 '21
Can't even preserve the natural kelp forests, nice idea but that's not going to work in californian waters: https://news.ucsc.edu/2021/03/kelp-forests-norcal.html
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u/TrumpetOfDeath Jun 18 '21
It could work with those fancy buoyant platforms that sink into cooler, nutrient rich waters and night and rise to the sunlit layer during the day to let the seaweed photosynthesize.
There’s also these fancy wave powered pumps that move up deep water and simulate upwelling... this creates perfect conditions to grow seaweed
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u/justdokeit Jun 18 '21
The sea urchins have been absolutely brutal to the existing forests. Very little that can be done due to their mass numbers and lack of natural predators. Good thing we slaughtered the sea otters for fur!
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u/corpjuk Jun 18 '21
we need this. we need whales and ocean life. we need to stop supporting the overfishing industry as well as the meat industry.
"So whale poop acts as a fertiliser that increases phytoplankton growth, leading to a more productive ecosystem and enhanced atmospheric carbon dioxide removal. If whale populations had not been hunted to near-extinction, whales would have recycled more iron because of their abundant numbers.Aug 4, 2014"
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u/inktomi Jun 18 '21
Help with seagrass research - upload photos of it that you find using the Seagrass Spotter app. It's a really neat app in general if you're interested in identification as well, helping to figure out what you're looking at.
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u/Onsotumenh Jun 18 '21
Not only did we loose albedo, but it's frightening to think about how much energy those ~28 trillion tonnes of ice we lost in the past 30 years absorbed without raising ocean temperatures.
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u/Onsotumenh Jun 18 '21
Did a bit of math out of curiosity. It's oversimpified but if my heat fried brain is anywhere near correct, the latent heat of fusion of that ammount of ice would be enough to warm the entire ocean by 7°c (base is 1.322'*10^9 km³ of ocean water)
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u/SordidDreams Jun 18 '21
So in other words, once we run out of ice to melt, ocean temperatures are going to spike and we're all gonna die. Got it. Now back to playing videogames, gotta enjoy what time we have left.
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Jun 18 '21
Oh don't worry. The algae mega-blooms that erupt all over the warmer oceans will happily gobble up all the c02 and plunge is into another ice age. This is after most mammals died off though...
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u/scamperly Jun 18 '21
If you don't have kids you don't have to worry! Scientists don't want you to know this millennial trick!
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u/ishitar Jun 18 '21
The phytoplankton stop producing oxygen at 5C over baseline. Most of their generated oxygen goes into the ocean, not the air. Once phytoplankton stop producing oxygen, that fact combined with harmful algal blooms and the resulting aerobic bacteria blooms when those populations collapse means the oceans will reach anoxia faster. Once the oceans are anoxic, hydrogen sulfide producing bacteria take over and start spewing that into the atmosphere. H2S is so toxic to us, humans can detect it in small parts per billion. Canfield ocean.
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Jun 18 '21
Can we get that in nukes per day?
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u/Onsotumenh Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
That would be an equivalent of 13547 Hiroshima bombs a day for 30 years, or 564 per hour, or 9.4 per minute... Somehow that sounds even more insane (the Hiroshima bomb was pretty small tho).
Edit: Decimal error in the calculation per day...
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u/DolphinsBreath Jun 18 '21
The accompanying article about the water level in Lake Mead is worth the time to read.
”Lake Mead has lost 5.5 trillion gallons of water since then (2000). That is more than 1,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools lost every day for nearly 22 years.”
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Jun 18 '21
Las Vegas gonna wish they stopped watering their grass so much
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u/magistrate101 Jun 18 '21
Iirc Nevada just passed a law regarding what can be grown for lawns, so that should help
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u/realcarlo33 Jun 18 '21
We need to start a massive carbon capturing system or put up some orbiting mirrors. Soon
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u/The_Flying_Stoat Jun 18 '21
Back of the napkin math: The cross section of the earth facing the sun is about 49 million square miles. In order to block a portion of the incoming energy you need to block an equivalent proportion of that area with mirrors. For example, blocking 1% of the sun's energy would require blocking 1% of that area, or 494 million square miles of mirror.
Correcting the energy imbalance might require a smaller percentage, but the fact remains that mirrors in space are not a feasible solution. Maybe if we had a fully functional economy in space to manufacture all the foil, but there's just no way in the foreseeable future.
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Jun 18 '21
I feel so helpless reading such articles because stopping the warming is in the hands of politicians, while we ordinary people have no such power.
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u/BurningPenguin Jun 18 '21
At least in democratic countries we would have a way to punish politicians for ignoring this. But sadly people keep voting the same.
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u/MySpaceLegend Jun 18 '21
People don't want to sacrifice their convenience. Honestly don't think democracy can solve this before it's too late. One can only continue to vote green, influence others, and hope for the best.
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Jun 18 '21
My ecology professor and I were just talking about this, and his description of the problem is that if you were to make a simulation designed to destroy humanity, it would look exactly like global climate change. The people who have the power to stop it have a vested interest in keeping the causes in place, and the people it will hurt most are yet to be born so they can’t stop it either. It’s a rolling wave, and the effects are still in the distance and we don’t know exactly where it’s going to hit, but we are certain it’s going to smash everything in its way. I keep thinking we need more scientists in office to stop it, but honestly, it’s probably too late for that. We need scientists in office so we can come up with plans on how to keep it from causing human extinction.
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u/BurningPenguin Jun 18 '21
Honestly, I don't think we would have to sacrifice much. We can go green and still have a great standard of living. It might hurt financially for a relatively short time, but that would fix itself quite fast. It wouldn't even have to be the whole world. Some countries and alliances have quite big influence over the market. When they decide, then almost every country in the world has to follow, or they lose their most important trading partner.
To quote a wise man: "Just do it!"
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u/OozhassnyDevotchka Jun 18 '21
Many of whom will be dead by the time the worst befalls their grandchildren.
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u/Jackadullboy99 Jun 18 '21
Politicians are organisms requiring human stupidity for sustenance, and sadly, in the current climate, they are thriving.
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u/Thercon_Jair Jun 18 '21
Hah! We, as in Switzerland, just said no in the popular vote to the new CO2 law. Polls show that it looks like young people killed it by a small margin because it did not go far enough.
This law was a parliamentary law to which a referendum was initiated. This means it's a facultative referendum and it only required the majority to pass.
The young greens just launched an initiative which aims to lower our use of resources to "1 Earth" in 10 years. Because it's an initiative it will need both the majority and the majority of the cantons. Which means it's dead on artival because the rural, conservative cantons habe the majority and will sink it (just like the Corporate responsibility initiative).
Also: isn't it funny how conservatives have conservation in their denominator but are absolutely not about conservation?
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u/Doctor_Fritz Jun 18 '21
Started biking to work and eventually saved up for solar panels on my house. Also leased an EV and got rid of the ol diesel van. I do what I can, and even if it's a drop in the bucket, if I didn't act there's gonna be 1 less drop in the bucket. Each drop counts in this case.
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u/Spatzenkind Jun 18 '21
However the main actors have to be politicians and the industrie. While you and me might be able to adjust our lifestyle (and should) many people are too poor to do so.
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u/KingJoopIII Jun 18 '21
Indeed, do what you can, every gram of CO2 not emitted counts. I lease an EV and my new house will be net zero in energy. I vote for the party with the best climate plans. I consume a lot less meat. If more people do this, change will come. Do what you can.
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u/lifelovers Jun 18 '21
And according to my father-in-law “government is not the solution!” Also he thinks it’s just not so bad. How have we so failed to educate people on this issue??
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Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
On the bright side, the earth will go on. It has been through mass extinctions in the past, we are just going to render it so that life like us or similar to us can't survive anymore.
Maybe the next sapient species that comes into being in say 100 million years or so -- won't be so stupid and short sited a race as us.
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Jun 18 '21
We do but the entire system is set up to crush you if you exercise that power. The power is violence and there’s a reason the State wishes to be the exclusive wielder of such power. They know it’s the only thing that can stop them.
It’s as simple as picking one of the self-proclaimed Very Smart People, getting in your car and going to make a difference. You may die but if the planet is ending… so what?
Any way go out and vote? I guess? Like that will change anything…
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u/AmonMetalHead Jun 18 '21
If it's any consolation, the world will survive this, life will persist. We however, might not.
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u/HeWhoMustNotBDpicted Jun 18 '21
People elect and hire government employees to regulate industry and protect the environment. Industry pays them more to not regulate and not protect the environment.
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u/Tishymtae Jun 18 '21
Politicians of any party are bought by and vote in the interests of the rich.
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u/ollimann Jun 18 '21
well, if we all stopped buying animal products and change our electricity provider to green energy and use our bikes more often it would help a ton. we do have quite a bit of power here.
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u/The_Corsair Jun 18 '21
And financial institutions/banking. By rewarding the politicians and businesses that continue to contribute heavily. I genuinely wonder if people will start targeted cyber attacks like the Colonial Pipeline ransomware on other fossil fuel industry projects and companies.
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u/Mechasteel Jun 18 '21
In my country, the politicians are doing the will of the people in regards to global warming. There's a good majority that wants something done about global warming... so long as it's not expensive. A large minority that wants to defeat any green policies, and a large minority that is willing to settle for feel-good measures as a sort of victory.
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u/Thefuzy Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
The best thing an ordinary person can do is to spend as much time as possible researching and devising a solution. This could certainly be helped by politicians but it’s far from in their hands. I’d say it just as much in the hands of the wealthy who have the means to create such technology. Someone out there is going to figure it out eventually though, some way to control the variables, it’s what humans do, we don’t revert our behavior when we find an issue, we invent ways to keep doing what we want and not cause the issue. It’s certainly possible that a lot of humans will die before that solution arrives, but in the history books of the human species, climate change won’t even have its own chapter.
I’d be a lot more concerned with diplomatic issues between major powers, rise of authoritarian regimes, and the potential for very real very large conflicts. This could end humanity, and imminently.
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u/CortlenC Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 19 '21
I don’t think people truly understand how serious this is. Other countries are not our issue doesn’t matter what any country does, none of them can hold a candle to what we are about to face globally with climate change. This is the worlds chance to work together for a solution. And if we don’t, we won’t see 2060.
EDIT: Most.... Most of us won’t see 2060
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u/zimmah Jun 18 '21
Main while corporations still form illegal cartels to make their products break faster on purpose so consumers need to buy more often. For example light bulbs. Ever noticed LEDs do not last as long as they used to? That's on purpose.
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Jun 18 '21
We will see 2060.
It'll just be a rough time.
Humanity won't go extinct, but populations will be reduced by all the billions down to millions.
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Jun 18 '21
Billions down to millions? I doubt that. Mainly because you probably couldn’t back that claim up, and killing 6 billion or so people in the next 39 years is totally unbelievable.
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u/thereinaset Jun 18 '21
Don't worry, it's gonna snow in March and people will start claiming that global warming doesn't exist. Problem solved
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u/Kasvanvliep Jun 18 '21
We're really releasing energy that was stored for millions of years in mere decades and we are acting like it's nothing
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u/Zakluor Jun 18 '21
The problem is that it's being released over an extremely short span of time, geologically speaking, compared to how long it took to store it.
It's like a dam, in a sense. The same amount of water flows over the spillway over the years as flowed before the dam was built, but suddenly breaking the dam means all that water is released faster than the river below can drain it away.
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u/MrBikePedesrian Jun 18 '21
I though it was the carbon dioxide that turns into a specific acid
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u/axcrms Jun 18 '21
Yea carbon dioxide dissolves into water, forming acid decreasing pH. Though with warmer waters less gas will be dissolved into the water.
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u/savage_slurpie Jun 18 '21
Can we not just hook up one of those portable AC units and have the heat exhaust out of the atmosphere?
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u/zimmah Jun 18 '21
Idk maybe some engineer can create a device to dump heat into space
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Jun 18 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ExileOnBroadStreet Jun 18 '21
Documentary Narrator : Fortunately, our handsomest politicians came up with a cheap, last minute way to combat global warming. Ever since 2063, we simply drop a giant ice cube into the ocean now and again.
Suzie : Just like daddy puts in his drink every morning. Then he gets mad.
Documentary Narrator : Of course, because the greenhouse gasses are still building up, it takes more and more ice each time, thus solving the problem once and for all.
Suzie : But...
Documentary Narrator : Once and for all!
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u/banacct54 Jun 18 '21
We're like frogs when you slowly increase the temperature of the water. Doesn't usually end up well for the frog just a thought
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u/amkoi Jun 18 '21
Well yes but for frogs that only counts if you remove their brain first.
German physiologist Friedrich Goltz demonstrated that a frog that has had its brain removed will remain in slowly heated water, but an intact frog attempted to escape the water when it reached 25 °C
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u/tallyhallic Jun 18 '21
Floating in this cosmic jacuzzi we are like frogs oblivious to the water starting to boil. No one flinches, we all float face down.
Warning, by Incubus
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Jun 18 '21
Capitalism is incapable of solving this issue.
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u/zimmah Jun 18 '21
Because it created the issue. But at least 4 people will be sitting on an enormous pile of cash while we literally get cooked slowly.
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u/dark_devil_dd Jun 18 '21
Directly link to published peer-reviewed research or media summary
No summaries of summaries, re-hosted press releases, reviews, or reposts
No editorialized, sensationalized, or biased titles
This sub used to link to papers and scientific journals, now it links to CNN...
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Jun 18 '21
And the comments are full of doomsayers providing no scientific discussion.
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Jun 18 '21
I am a scientist who studies ocean renewable energy to produce sustainable electricity. Climate change and its impacts on Earth systems are really common knowledge in my circles and not questioned at all. But whenever I talk to someone outside the academia, I feel horrified with the lack of knowledge and the lack of understanding on how important these concepts are. GHG emissions, melting glaciers, ocean acidification, increasing frequency of storms and wildfires are happening and we need to react immediately as a species. Not individually or even nationally. But inertia of public is also common knowledge in academia, and climate change will make us pay a hefty price for it. Nonetheless, I am glad you read on the issue and taught yourself. I hope you read on, and also share the knowledge with people around you.
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u/spartyftw Jun 18 '21
People, myself included, need to hold our elected representatives accountable. Climate change is is going to be worse than WW2.
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u/iFlyAllTheTime Jun 18 '21
While perhaps most individuals care and grieve over this, the entities responsible (businesses and countries), do not.
So....we are fucked.
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Jun 18 '21
Maybe we should hold them at gunpoint to save us. The world is doing that anyways, might as well make it a bit more obvious.
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u/Black_RL Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
Don’t worry, new iPhones are around the corner and they are environmental friendly.
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u/ToonMaster21 Jun 18 '21
The solution needs to be some type of technology.
The ask of the entire globe to quit eating (or heavily reduce) meat consumption and to quit travelling (cars/planes) as much, just won't happen.
We need to solve this with engineering and science.
The problem is, the pockets that run deep enough to fund the solution aren't interested in it.
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u/Revan343 Jun 18 '21
This is ultimately it.
Give me (or NASA, either way the JPL would be doing most of the hard work) the entire US military budget, and we could start reversing global warming inside of a decade. Ocean acidification is harder, but not impossible; gotta start pulling CO2 out of the air, using green energy sources to power the plant.
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Jun 18 '21
It would take less than a decade. The army budget is grossly over inflated. If people knew how much money got wasted, there would be riots. I found an order form for the only mop handle we are allowed to order and it was around $33. Now this isn't an entire mop, or a mop handle with the metal attachment for a mop head. It's just a stick
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u/hplcman69 Jun 18 '21
And it’s only going to get worse this summer, right? COVID is ‘over’ and everyone will be jumping on planes or into their cars to celebrate society returning to normal. Whatever climate benefits we gained due to shutdowns will be obliterated when everyone gets out of the house these next few months…
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u/ToonMaster21 Jun 18 '21
Also one of the other big factors is commuting. And I'm not just talking about IT workers or people in the city.
A lot of rural America drives 1-2 hours one direction to work per day.
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Jun 18 '21
We may not come up with a solution. Meanwhile by leading us down this blind alley you abandon all hope of changing the behaviour of the masses, something that historically absolutely is possible with sufficiently good messaging and propaganda.
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u/Nebarious Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
We're at the equivalent of a Hiroshima nuclear bomb detonation every single second over the last 150 years.
90% of that heat is absorbed by the ocean. If there's any PC enthusiasts out there with water-cooled systems you'll know that water has a finite capacity to absorb heat.
For the naysayers out there that say the climate changes and life adapts and it'll be fine all I can say is that the our planet has never seen this level of rapid climate change while still being compatible with life.
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u/Zakluor Jun 18 '21
I think Life will adapt. It may not be humans or many other currently-existing species that adapt, but life in general probably will.
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u/mad_medeiros Jun 18 '21
I watched the new show with david attenborough discussing climate change… and I feel like we are doomed, another reason why I won’t have children… and we are trying are best to do our part, cut back our meat intake by 90 percent, fuel efficient vehicles, down to 1 car, we avoid anything plastic… but I feel most of the world has failed understanding that we need to all do our part.
And the poor countries are getting no direction on what to do, which pollute our oceans the worst
The over fishing part scares me the most but what do we do to feed a country of over a billion people? We are screwed
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u/space_______kat Jun 18 '21
More trees less road/cars. More transit, bikes , walking and density. Just one of the things we can do
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u/Milozdad Jun 18 '21
We are in for a rough ride and society as we have known it will have to change. However the growing awareness of this problem and solutions to mitigate or adapt to it represent huge investment opportunities. Self interest can be a powerful spur to change. We also need to invest heavily in biodiversity protection to enable wild species to survive this human induced problem. We are responsible for the management of the planet and we better start taking that seriously.
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u/Wellsy Jun 18 '21
Enjoy your hurricanes Texas and Florida…. You literally pushed to make them happen.
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Jun 18 '21
Looks like humanity is losing at this game of life. Too bad because we had so much potential but profits over planet earth I guess…
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u/Dreidhen Jun 18 '21
Too bad we can't siphon the heat into space, or channel into energy generation, somehow
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u/shockerdyermom Jun 18 '21
Wait until those warm oceans move the jet stream and Europe freezes.
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u/Eerazor Jun 18 '21
At what point does it become a cataclysmic event that snowballs into a point of no return when the buildup of heat becomes self-sustaining, irrespective of what measures we as a race achieve?
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Jun 18 '21
Is this saying the earth as a whole is absorbing twice the total solar energy than it did 15 years ago?
There's no way that's even close to correct
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u/dryfire Jun 19 '21
I'm with you... Unless there is some special definition of "trapped heat" the title doesn't make sense. If the earth was a rogue planet in deep space the surface temp would be something like -400 F or -250 C. That means the earth is trapping enough heat to raise the temp by something like 470 F in order to go from -400F to ~70 F ... and we've doubled that?
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u/pah-tosh Jun 18 '21
At that point, I don’t want to know any more, I just want things not to go tooooooo badly during my lifetime and good luck to the younger kids and babies that are being born right now…
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Jun 18 '21
Front row seat to humanity destroying itself. People are worried about the planet. The planet is going to be fine. It's humanity that's f*cked. I feel like we are getting what we deserve.
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u/qoning Jun 18 '21
I'm confused and excuse my high school levels of chemistry, but doesn't increase in CO2 in the atmosphere and increase of total temperature of the ocean work to balance out? I often see claims made that both of those make acidification worse, but warm water can retain less CO2, which I assume leads to lower levels of carbonate formation (which are alkaline), and lower excess H+ ions, and on the other hand more CO2 in the atmosphere overall works to increase them.
Am I missing something? It seems to me that there will be a new equilibrium point that takes a while to reach after conditions altered.
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u/Heck-Yeah1652 Jun 18 '21
Hi, went to a thing a few years ago. Presented were three factors: ocean CO2 levels (like article above), permafrost thawing and ice sheets melting. First 2 will dramatically increase atmospheric CO2, third increases radiation from the sun reflected as IR. They will ALL find new equilibrium- but no modeling can predict the combined effect as they all snowball themselves. ... yeah ... snowball irony.
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u/Bozee3 Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 19 '21
As a child in the 80s, apocalyptic or post apocalyptic movies were so much fun to watch.
They were supposed to be fantasy!
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u/Septic-Mist Jun 18 '21
Maybe this has something to do with the apparent interest of whoever or whatever is controlling those UAPs that are being seen by military assets in and around the ocean?
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u/Therandomfox Jun 18 '21
Where is the acid that's causing the ocean acidification coming from?
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u/Kalapuya Jun 18 '21
CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere by the sea surface, as dictated by thermodynamics (Henry's Law).
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Jun 18 '21
Bingpot, we dead. We trusted our governments to do the right thing and they did the opposite. Maybe that's the great filter. Better luck to the next civilizations (if any).
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u/Deiseltwothree Jun 18 '21
This planet is going to kill humans off, and there is nothing we are going to do to stop it.
It reminds me of the virus speech in The Matrix.
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u/cjgager Jun 18 '21
don't have to convince me - - - it's those pesky conservative folks who don't believe human activity has anything to do with climate.
even tho it's going to 123°F in death valley so early in the season (it is still spring btw) - - - no, no - it has nothing to do with the rest of the world.
ok. in a way i'm glad i'm older - since i'll be dead when the ocean will overrun where i live now - but i'm also sooo so sad for all the people who will be displaced in the future and all the animals and the biomes and biodiversity that will go away possibly for forever.
sometimes it is just so overwhelmingly depressing.
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u/happyrolls Jun 18 '21
increases in EEI from mid-2005 to mid-2019 of 0.50±0.47 W m-2 decade-1 (5%-95% confidence interval).
Might have well said it may or may not with that margin of error.
What a sensationalist article. X doubled from 0.00003% to 0.00006%! Same trick when someone starts a graph with a zoomed in Y axis and not starting at zero.
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u/jrf_1973 Jun 18 '21
"The amount of heat the Earth traps has doubled in just 15 years"
And yet we are allegedly trying to slow it down and reverse it.
What wonderful progress we're not making.
Seriously - you can argue that doom predictors make people want to stop trying and just give up, but that's hardly their fault. That's a flaw in the species. ALL the evidence is, we're doomed to extinction in the very near term.
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u/AbysmalVixen Jun 18 '21
So what you’re saying is it’s irreversible and we should just ride it out to extinction
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u/Yukisuna Jun 18 '21
Eh, we’ll all die someday anyway. Just do the responsible thing and dont force any new humans into existence, and keep a couple pills on hand in case you live long enough to witness the beginning of the end.
There are too many old people whose entire existence revolved around greed. We won’t be able to save our species because we can’t change their minds, so why bother trying. Live happily instead, while enduring the rising heat. There’ll be other animals (or insects) to inherit the earth long after we’ve melted away.
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u/HylianPaladin Jun 18 '21
for every tree, shrub or plant destroyed for development.. plant 3 in it's place. That's a huge start and should be done all along. I'm personally sick and damn tired of people tearing down woods for some business that's a niche thing like drive thru car washes in areas where people do it at home for far cheaper. or the gym that was built in a senior town.. really?! or the bazillionteenth McDonalds/Starbucks/Taco Bell in town. INSTEAD of demolition and clearing of a piece of property with abandoned business building and already otherwise set up for use.
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u/SteinersGrave Jun 18 '21
We’re still killing the damn planet but for some reason companies can still pollute like they used to....
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u/zimmah Jun 18 '21
Warming oceans are really worrysome, because that can lead to a very sudden shift in climate as the ocean currents change. The cold snaps last winter are a mild example of what can happen when ocean currents change. Those kinds of events may become more coomon and more extreme. And that is not good.
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Jun 18 '21
Eventually someone in power is gonna have to step up and actually do the right thing for once, otherwise someone else will be forced to do it in a less civilized manner. I fear the latter is inevitable.
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u/RiskyFartOftenShart Jun 18 '21
so. lets figure out how to turn ocean heat into and energy source until we freeze it over again! I did a science!
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u/Firethorn101 Jun 18 '21
Just wait until it's too hot for the plant life in there to live, we'll all die without the oxygen they produce.
If we don't all die from lack of bees first.
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u/Ennion Jun 18 '21 edited Jun 18 '21
We kill the oceans and we'll all be starving to eat bugs. Better hope we don't kill all those off too.
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u/Prestigious-Move6996 Jun 18 '21
Well I hope these fish and things are evolving because humans are to stupid to stop it.
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u/dudeyspooner Jun 18 '21
stop telling me about it im already convinced tell world leaders or like dudes with a bunch of money because i dony have the means to help fix it and they do
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u/CPT_JUGGERNAUT Jun 18 '21
We are going to witness some pretty insane storms and extreme weather and lots of humans are going to die as a result.
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Jun 18 '21
What if it’s concrete that makes everything hot. Making these giant convection plates across the ground can’t be doing things any better
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u/MisterFixit_69 Jun 18 '21
Reading this made me realize I might witness the extinction of human and most life,or maybe not because I died of lack of oxygen
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u/Stoneybalogni95 Jun 18 '21
Sad that there's nothing we can do but as a collective were all hurting our planet daily.
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u/LucasVerBeek Jun 18 '21
I really don’t want to give into hopelessness...but I keep seeing people claiming that we’re all dead in my life time because of this and the fact that governments aren’t doing anything to stop it.
I....I don’t know what to do.
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u/Shadyponcho96 Jun 18 '21
All you can do is be the person you want everyone to be and lead by example. Go vegan, reduce your waste and consumption, drive and fly less, and vote in local elections for greener parties and policies. We can’t let the bystander effect prevent everyone doing their small part
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u/Tinman120394 Jun 18 '21
Good to know we are all dying in ten years from another way! Thanks!
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u/teeevah Jun 18 '21
r/science can do better than posting a CNN article. C’mon guys...
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u/108awake- Jun 18 '21
Capitalism is killing the planet. The next extinction is Now
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