Venomous posted:

you stopped???

hubris.height posted:

its loving 60 outside in Feb in WI, normally, even last year, we are sub zero at this point

I just don't loving know, how can anything but full ecological disaster be coming

it's like the fourth day in a row, it keeps happening

hubris.height posted:

its loving 60 outside in Feb in WI, normally, even last year, we are sub zero at this point

I just don't loving know, how can anything but full ecological disaster be coming

it's like the fourth day in a row, it keeps happening

Fozzy The Bear posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGkJSEOd1R4

Whoops, Antarctic sea ice is gone

NYTrash posted:

Scientists are freaking out about ocean temperatures

By David Gelles

From his office at the University of Miami, Brian McNoldy, an expert in hurricane formation, is tracking the latest temperature data from the North Atlantic with a mixture of concern and bewilderment.

For the past year, oceans around the world have been substantially warmer than usual. Last month was the hottest January on record in the world’s oceans, and temperatures have continued to rise since then. The heat wave has been especially pronounced in the North Atlantic.

“The North Atlantic has been record-breakingly warm for almost a year now,” McNoldy said. “It’s just astonishing. Like, it doesn’t seem real.”

Across the unusually warm Atlantic, in Cambridge, England, Rob Larter, a marine scientist who tracks polar ice levels, is equally perplexed.

“It’s quite scary, partly because I’m not hearing any scientists that have a convincing explanation of why it is we’ve got such a departure,” he said. “We’re used to having a fairly good handle on things. But the impression at the moment is that things have gone further and faster than we expected. That’s an uncomfortable place as a scientist to be.”

Spin the globe to the south, and the situation is similarly dire.

“The sea ice around the Antarctic just not growing,” said Matthew England, a professor at the University of New South Wales who studies ocean currents. “The temperature’s just going off the charts. It’s like an omen of the future.”

What’s driving the heat?
Global warming, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, has been driving up global temperatures on land and in the sea for decades now. Over the past year, worldwide average temperatures were more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, higher than before the industrial age. New data from a variety of sources has led some climate scientists to suggest that global warming is accelerating.

Given the overall warming trend, higher temperatures in the oceans aren’t a complete surprise. Oceans absorb most of the additional heat that greenhouse gasses trap near the surface of the Earth, and have been steadily warming for years. The current El Niño weather cycle is also leading to additional heat in the Pacific Ocean and allowing more energy to be released into the atmosphere.

Yet the past year has come as a shock even to those who follow the data closely.

“We all know that there’s been a rapid warming, particularly over the last few decades,” Larter said. “But it over the last 18 months, it’s jumped up beyond what we expected.”

Scientists are offering a range of explanations for the record heat in the North Atlantic.

One surprising factor may be a reduction in pollution in the area. In 2020, a new rule went into effect that limited the amount of sulfur dioxide contained in the fuel used by container ships. That has reduced the amount of particulate matter in the air, which let in more solar radiation and contributed to global warming.

“When those aerosols were in the sky above the shipping lanes, they helped create a cloud cover, and there’s much less now,” McNoldy said. “That’s a legitimate thing.”

But the reduction of sulfur dioxide alone can’t explain the North Atlantic’s extreme heat, scientists said.

Another factor may be the complex feedback loops in the Earth’s weather patterns. The North Atlantic has been unusually clear lately, with fewer clouds than normal to block the sunlight from heating the water. The area has also been less windy than normal, which may have also led to a spike in temperatures.

Without strong winds, colder water from deeper in the ocean doesn’t rise to the surface as readily, England said.

What comes next
In the near term, McNoldy said the warmer waters in The Atlantic could fuel a strong and lengthy hurricane season.

“Compared to other fairly significant hurricane seasons, this is way warmer at this point in the year,” he said.

The marine heat is also expected to reduce Arctic sea ice, Larter said.

“What’s bad news for sea ice has a lot of knock-on effects,” he said. “The formation of sea ice is the process that really drives a lot of the ocean’s circulation. And if the overturning circulation slows down, that really has climate impacts across the world.”

Recent research has suggested that as glaciers melt and more fresh water enters the Atlantic, a crucial ocean current could falter, potentially leading to drastic changes in global weather patterns, such as a rapid reduction in temperatures across Europe.

McNoldy said it was too early to say whether the ongoing heat wave is part of the early stages of such a change. “I hope it’s not something much worse, like, you know, like some significant change in the ocean current,” he said. “That would have far greater implications.”

Cabbages and Kings posted:

Posting in its entirety, emphasis mine.

[Biosphere Collapse] I Hope It's Not Something Much Worse

quote:

One surprising factor may be a reduction in pollution in the area. In 2020, a new rule went into effect that limited the amount of sulfur dioxide contained in the fuel used by container ships. That has reduced the amount of particulate matter in the air, which let in more solar radiation and contributed to global warming.

“When those aerosols were in the sky above the shipping lanes, they helped create a cloud cover, and there’s much less now,” McNoldy said. “That’s a legitimate thing.”

Xaris posted:

lol it’s basically been early June weather and super sunny-warm, and everyone is just like OMG its so nice outside!!!

Cabbages and Kings posted:

Posting in its entirety, emphasis mine.

[Biosphere Collapse] I Hope It's Not Something Much Worse

mags posted:

it is pretty nice outside

JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:

rollin' coal to save the shoal

quote:

....
“And so I thought: isn’t there some way to maintain that ice sheet for a bit longer until CO2 levels come down and the ice becomes regenerative? I had this naive idea: why not pump water on top of it?”
...
“At the moment the ice is about a metre thick,” says Real Ice’s co-chief executive, Andrea Ceccolini. “By refreezing the top layer, where there is snow, we will add 10-20cm. After that, the ice will grow thicker because we are removing the snow insulation, which is constraining further growth.”

Ceccolini hopes to develop an underwater drone that could navigate the -1.5C water, detect the thickness of the ice, pump up water as necessary, refuel and move on to the next spot. “If we demonstrate [this over] 100 sq km a day with 50 drones, then we can show that this can actually scale [up] to a much larger area,” says Ceccolini.
...
Julienne Stroeve, professor of polar observation and modelling at University College London, says it would probably be impossible to act on a large-enough scale to have a real impact on the climate.

“I agree that the sea ice is worth protecting, since it helps to keep our planet cool, but the entire Arctic Ocean is about 14m sq km,” she says. “The only real solution is to either pull carbon out of the air or cut our emissions to half of what they currently are.”

Cabbages and Kings posted:

[Biosphere Collapse] I Hope It's Not Something Much Worse

4d3d3d posted:

https://twitter.com/my__name__was/status/1762173907128488135

JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:

rollin' coal to save the shoal

TeenageArchipelago posted:

Ceccolini hopes to develop an underwater drone that could navigate the -1.5C water, detect the thickness of the ice, pump up water as necessary, refuel and move on to the next spot.

OIL PANIC posted:

Prototype:

Actuary X posted:

Two hours North of Albany. Still have some snow on the ground. But it's 60 degrees out. Surreal.
A foreshadowing of what the summer is going to be?

unwantedplatypus posted:

People are going to have lawns regardless of anyone’s opinion

Actuary X posted:

Two hours North of Albany. Still have some snow on the ground. But it's 60 degrees out. Surreal.
A foreshadowing of what the summer is going to be?

Cabbages and Kings posted:

[Biosphere Collapse] I Hope It's Not Something Much Worse

Karach posted:

BRING 👏 BACK 👏 DIRTIER 👏BUNKER 👏FUEL 👏NOW

TeenageArchipelago posted:

also we're getting close to 1 year of records!

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/



March 13th I think? Maybe the 14th

Dokapon Findom posted:

quote:

As Americans, some of us will have to lose our rose-colored glasses when we see no bananas, apples, or fish in the supermarket. Our favorite foods are at stake of disappearing from our dinner tables, in our lifetimes!

quote:

We need to respect our democracy and create laws. Instead of being up in arms about making composting and recycling mandatory, those who can afford it should be paying for others, too. Some people have nasty words for that kind of government, but paying slightly more taxes will not really affect your lifestyle. It may save society as you know it. Those who don’t choose to support the greater good at a time when we have true existential threats are (insert your metaphor here) delusional.

Good Soldier Svejk posted:

Liberalism is not equipped to handle this situation. All brains are poisoned

Salt Fish posted:

There is no political system equipped to handle this situation (well except the obviously superior political philosophy of anti-natalism).

TeenageArchipelago posted:

also we're getting close to 1 year of records!

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/



March 13th I think? Maybe the 14th

quote:

I am unclear what I am looking at but it seems unreliable. Sea temps are wildly variable between 60 N and 60 S and across 0 to 360. It appears that they averaged them together which is not fair.