[HN Gopher] Rain falls at the summit of Greenland Ice Sheet for ...
___________________________________________________________________
Rain falls at the summit of Greenland Ice Sheet for first time on
record
Author : yboris
Score : 140 points
Date : 2021-08-20 13:02 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| the-dude wrote:
| "On record" seems to be 32 years ( from TFA ).
|
| Then the article concludes : _And now rainfall: in an area where
| rain never fell._
| SamBam wrote:
| Huh? From TFA, I assume you're referring to
|
| > In fact, temperatures at the site only rose above freezing
| three times before this in the past 32 years, according to
| observations at Summit Station from 1989.
|
| These were the years of the most recent melts. It doesn't say
| there was rainfall.
| irrational wrote:
| Yesterday I noticed that on July 2nd someone left a review for a
| movie that said in part "They did have to put in Climate change
| nonsense. Wonder if that is a requirement with funding so AL gore
| can get billions of more tax dollars. 1168 people found this
| helpful."
|
| It is incredible to me that climate change is still considered to
| be nonsense by so many people.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Yes, and many of those people are scientists. Skepticism is (or
| should be) a normal part of the scientific method. Controls and
| reproducible results need to happen before results can be
| considered conclusive. I understand that sometimes this is
| impossible in climate science. Climate change is a fact. Humans
| being responsible for increasing CO2 levels is a fact. Whether
| the consequences of raising CO2 levels will be more detrimental
| than beneficial is yet to be seen. There is little that the
| western world can do to slow CO2 emission growth. Raising taxes
| doesn't accomplish much.
|
| Also, accurate observations of Greenland (present day and
| historical) are available here:
| http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/
| yongjik wrote:
| > Whether the consequences of raising CO2 levels will be more
| detrimental than beneficial is yet to be seen.
|
| Yet, propose something like a $50B government program for
| renewable energy, and these same people will be up in arms,
| totally _confident_ in their prediction that it will lead to
| corruption, unemployment, suffering of the poor, and end of
| personal freedom.
|
| It's frankly amazing.
| gamegoblin wrote:
| Even setting aside warming affects of CO2, it's well-
| understood that increasing atmospheric carbon leads to ocean
| acidification which is much more inarguably a massive net
| negative.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| Perhaps, but perhaps not. In the history of the Earth, CO2
| levels have been significantly higher for a much longer
| time. (See here:
| https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-
| co2/ and note that the time-line is on a log scale.)
|
| Worst-case projections show that at our present CO2 growth
| rate, things will get bad rather quickly, but keep in mind
| that the Earth's climate cycles have many (not well
| understood) self-regulation systems. Increased atmospheric
| CO2 may lead to explosive vegetation growth which may lead
| to increased carbon sequestration.
| gamegoblin wrote:
| CO2 has historically been higher, but life on earth, and
| ocean life in particular, was completely different that
| what we have today. The rate of ocean acidification is
| such that species do not have millennia to evolve to
| handle increased CO2 levels and are experiencing massive
| die-offs.
|
| An extremely well-understood effect is that ocean
| acidification thins the shells of shellfish.
|
| This may seem like a minor effect, but rapidly upsetting
| the food chain of the ocean seems like an absurdly risky
| experiment to run on the planet we inhabit.
| space_fountain wrote:
| So obviously the most apocalyptic predictions are wrong.
| Life on planet earth can and will survive this. My view
| is life on planet earth can survive most things we're
| capable of throwing at it, but the question isn't will we
| sterilize the planet. The questions is will it be a bad
| time for humans and yeah rapidly changing the composition
| of the ocean will be bad for humans. How bad I don't
| know, but pretty clearly bad
| fancifalmanima wrote:
| Even if all the changes that were happening were entirely
| natural, there's an argument to be made that we know we
| do well in the conditions that existed during
| industrialization, and that we should try to maintain the
| environment within those bands. If we knew the globe was
| heading into an ice age naturally, for example, I don't
| know that I'd be against trying to prevent that. I don't
| want mass starvation, etc.
| ptkd wrote:
| Perhaps not? You clearly are not well versed on climate
| change. To take something that is already happening and
| is very bad: massive yearly wildfires in California. I
| grew up in Washington, and NEVER had a "smoky summer".
| Now it's a yearly occurrence. It's at best naive and at
| worse actively evil to be promoting this "oh it might
| actually be fine" narrative
| fsflover wrote:
| > In the history of the Earth, CO2 levels have been
| significantly higher for a much longer time.
|
| https://xkcd.com/1732/
| adamrezich wrote:
| skepticism is now wrongthink. either you believe what you're
| told (even if it contradicts what you were told yesterday),
| or you're a "conspiracy theorist." healthy skepticism is no
| longer considered a virtue in popular culture, it's either
| join the consensus or shut the fuck up. pretty sad state of
| affairs.
| namuol wrote:
| You're exaggerating. Skepticism is is a multi dimensional
| spectrum. Certain flavors of "skepticism" have been abused
| and, well, society has shifted its trust accordingly.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Don't confuse intellectual contrarianism with true
| skepticism. a lot of people claiming to be engaged in the
| later are really just adherents to the former.
|
| A true skeptic applies that skepticism as equally to their
| own beliefs and to frings beliefs as they do to popular or
| widely accepted beliefs.
| adamrezich wrote:
| is there any difference between "intellectual
| contrarianism" and "true skepticism" aside from whether
| or not you agree with the conclusions being reached (or
| perhaps the questions being asked)?
| jfengel wrote:
| The difference is intellectual honesty. If you're truly
| willing to consider the evidence, and not just seek out
| things to reinforce your pre-existing conclusion, then
| you can be skeptical. Otherwise you're just contrarian.
|
| The problem is that if somebody is dishonest, there's no
| way to convince them that they're being dishonest. Either
| they know it, and refuse to admit it, or they're so
| dishonest that they've completely lost track of what it
| means to objectively evaluate evidence.
|
| So it's the kind of thing that experts in the domain will
| all be able to discern, while those same experts will be
| thought of as conspirators by the contrarian (and
| reinforced by their equally non-expert circle of trusted
| acquaintances). About the only hope you have at that
| point is noticing when the conspiracy is so large that
| it's simply not reasonable to expect it to persist. But
| since they get reinforcement from their large circle of
| non-experts, they usually conclude that the same logic
| applies both ways.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Yes, absolutely. I already explained what that difference
| is but let me go further since you didn't understand:
|
| If you only apply your skepticism to polular narratives
| but not to your pet theories, then you are not truely a
| skeptic.
|
| It doesn't matter what you believe, it just matters that
| you approach what you believe with an equal or higher
| level of skepticism than you approach what others
| believe.
| titzer wrote:
| I, too, am skeptical that the sky is blue, space is black,
| and that the planets orbit the sun. I mean, I haven't
| _directly_ observed space or the planets, so the
| _scientific_ approach is to be skeptical. I also hold out
| some tiny hope that electrons aren 't real and
| microprocessors are powered by multi-dimensional hamsters.
|
| It _is_ denialism--really, it 's willful, militant
| ignorance--at this point to go against the consensus on
| climate change. It's just being obtuse.
|
| All I can say is, buckle the F up, because the effects of
| climate change are compounding year by year and decade by
| decade. I am so confident in this, after reading tons on
| the subject, having been all over the world and seen it,
| that I'll just leave it there.
| ptkd wrote:
| I mean on some level i agree with you, but since skepticism
| about climate change is likely leading to a massive
| humanitarian crisis it's pretty reasonable for people to be
| angry at those who say "well actually according to MY
| research..." when there is such an overwhelming body of
| evidence pointing to disastrous climate change
| consequences.
| ku-man wrote:
| "It is incredible to me that climate change is still considered
| to be nonsense by so many people."
|
| Well, having hysterical kids screaming around climate doomsday,
| doesn't help.
| titzer wrote:
| > It is incredible to me that climate change is still
| considered to be nonsense by so many people.
|
| Most will take that denial to their graves. For some, many
| even, it's part of their cultural identity to reject all
| indication that their lifestyle isn't the flat-out awesomest
| and most moral way to live in the whole history of humankind.
| norov wrote:
| More like it's against their cultural identity to ever
| validate "the liberals".
| umvi wrote:
| > It is incredible to me that climate change is still
| considered to be nonsense by so many people.
|
| No need to be incredulous. Any issue that is politicized _by
| default_ will cause polarization of beliefs on the subject. If
| you haven 't realized this by now, take a look at covid.
|
| Because climate change is politicized, your political
| affiliation changes how you view the issue (because your
| political affiliation affects your trusted sources of
| information in the world):
|
| Extreme left: "Humanity's only hope for survival is to colonize
| Mars. Climate change will have apocalyptic consequences for the
| planet in the very near future, and earth is pretty much
| doomed. Nothing short of an authoritarian new world government
| can hope to approach sequestering the amount of carbon we need
| to reverse the effects."
|
| Far left: "Climate change is THE biggest threat facing
| humanity. This problem MUST be prioritized at all costs above
| all other problems, NOW."
|
| Middle left: "Climate change is real, but what can I really do?
| I already drive a Nissan Leaf and recycle. Our best bet is to
| transition to renewables/nuclear and hope for technological
| breakthroughs in the future."
|
| Middle right: "Climate change is probably real, but taking
| drastic action seems unreasonable considering how long it's
| taking to see daily life impacted by it. At this rate, society
| will crumble due to in-fighting before it crumbles due to
| climate change."
|
| Far right: "Climate change might exist, but the earth's climate
| has always changed. Just ignore the alarmist/fearmongering
| liberals, they are always freaking out about stuff that just
| isn't that deadly for the average person."
|
| Extreme right: "Climate change does not exist. Let's go coal
| roll some Teslas."
| irrational wrote:
| The fact that the right uses probably, might, and not exists
| is the real problem. When something is an indisputable fact,
| yet an entire group of people dispute it, that is a cause for
| alarm.
| soperj wrote:
| Nothing in science is an indisputable fact. That's part of
| what makes it science.
| wesleywt wrote:
| When you consider people denying the existence of Covid while
| being in the hospital ICU with it, it is not surprizing. The
| saddest thing about last few years is finding out easy and
| effective propaganda is.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| I used to assume that people, on the whole, were rational and
| reasonable. I now understand that most people can maintain
| rationality only for the domains in which they have first-hand
| experience or education, and otherwise will resort to hearsay,
| fantastical speculations, conspiratorial thinking, and
| propaganda of all sorts. It is becoming ever more clear to me
| that the potential genius of a representative system of
| government is the chance for citizens to put their trust into
| informed and reasoned individuals to make decisions in their
| name. We should elect reasoned people, and review their record,
| not day to day, but bi-yearly, so that our ignorance does not
| impede their work. Of course, when the representative system
| has been distorted as it has, we do not trust or respect our
| representatives.
| h2odragon wrote:
| linked earlier: https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/2021/08/rain-
| at-the-summit...
|
| > Earlier melt events in the instrumental record occurred in
| 1995, 2012, and 2019; prior to those events, melting is inferred
| from ice cores to have been absent since an event in the late
| 1800s.
|
| doesn't that make "first time on record" a stretch too far?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You're mixing up rainfall and melt events. You can have a
| melting ice cap without it raining.
| adrianN wrote:
| See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28240552
| teddyh wrote:
| And https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28245506
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| more discussion yesterday already:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28240552
| dredmorbius wrote:
| It's worth noting that the record here extends back 32 years, to
| 1989. And that the weather station isn't equipped with rain
| guages, as those were seen as not useful.
|
| The story also mentions that the liquid precipitation should form
| a distinctive ice layer which will be preserved in the snowpack,
| and detecatable in future ice cores.
|
| For those curious about any _previous_ liquid precipitation
| events, that ice record might give some indication of when those
| might have occurred. According to the article, "ice core data
| shows that the last time melting occurred at the ice cap top
| dates to the 1880s." Which suggests not within at least 130-ish
| years.
|
| This is a reminder that the duration of _direct_ observations of
| meterological conditions is limited in both time and geography.
| Similarly for satellite observations: very comprehensive in
| territorial coverage, but beginning only in the 1960s and making
| great strides in each decade since.
|
| Paleometerological records are limited in _location_ to places
| where weather events can be reliably recorded, and often it 's
| only a specific set of characteristics which are (ice cores,
| pollen samples, isotopic characteristics, etc.). But they do
| provide a view across a broad span of _time_.
|
| Both temporal and spatial aspects have enormous significance.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Any larger, perennial or otherwise noteworthy deeper in those
| ice cores?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Not clear from TFA. I'm not sufficiently familiar with ice
| core research to know what if any patterns of liquid precip
| exist.
|
| Those would be the questions an alert reporter would be
| asking of the team making this announcement though.
| mzs wrote:
| "ice core data shows that the last time melting occurred at the
| ice cap top dates to the 1880s."
|
| That could have been melting instead of rainfall though, right?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Correct.
|
| It's the most recent _possible_ occurence, or _candidate_
| occurrence. Not the most recent _definite_ occurrence.
|
| We _do_ know that _it has not rained at that location for at
| least 130 years_ , at least sufficient to leave an ice-core
| trace.
|
| We _do NOT_ know _when_ it did rain most recently,
| previously, based on the information in the article.
| cozzyd wrote:
| Hah I was up there up until about a month ago. We did not design
| our equipment to be resistant to rain. Oops, apparently.
| echelon wrote:
| Totally unrelated question.
|
| Greenland has so few people, yet so much land. I get that this
| is on account of the temperatures, but would it be possible to
| build large cities there if there were demand? Or are the
| geography and natural resources insufficient to support cities
| of scale?
| cozzyd wrote:
| If you're talking about building on the ice sheet, building
| on ice is very difficult, the snow is constantly drifting and
| requires a lot of maintenance (lifting or moving buildings
| every few years, etc.). And only the 109th national guard
| operates ski-equipped C-130's that can bring supplies.
| Smaller planes can come (Baslers or Twin Otters) but those
| can't carry nearly as much. They used to have a traverse from
| the air force base at Thule but they stopped due to
| difficulty getting on the ice sheet from there.
|
| On the coast it would be more reasonable to build a city,
| though the topography is rough and getting enough food would
| be expensive. The only place I've been on the coast is
| Kangerlussuaq (the main commercial airport for Greenland, and
| also a base for the 109th ANG which is how I got to Greenland
| and to Summit). You can explore on street view what it looks
| like: https://www.google.com/maps/@67.0035567,-50.6859212,3a,
| 75y,3... . It actually has the largest road network in
| Greenland and a seaport. But... there isn't that much room to
| build if you wanted to and I think that's more or less the
| story everywhere in Greenland. For example, ere is Nuuk, the
| capital and largest city: https://www.google.com/maps/@64.177
| 0542,-51.7239805,3a,75y,4...
|
| Not great terrain for city building...
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I mean, it's 98% ice, miles of it. It's certainly possible
| for people to live on ice if there's demand and energy, but
| there are a lot of other open areas of the earth for people
| to build cities on.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| This year has seen both a high melt [1] as well as a high
| accumulation [2] of snow, the balance of which currently lies
| clearly at the positive end - Greenland has far more accumulated
| snow than average. These images come from the Danish polar portal
| [3] which I assume to be a canonical source given that Greenland
| is a Danish province.
|
| The explanation with the images reads as follows:
|
| _The map illustrates what the ice sheet's total surface gains
| and losses have been over the year since 1 September compared to
| the period 1981-2010. It does not include the mass that is lost
| when glaciers calve off icebergs and melt as they come into
| contact with warm seawater.
|
| The animation shows one frame every seven days going back to the
| previous 1 September.
|
| The blue curve shows the current season, whilst the red curve
| shows the corresponding development for the 2011-12 season, when
| the degree of melting was record high.
|
| The dark grey curve traces the mean value from the period
| 1981-2010.
|
| The light grey band shows differences from year to year. For any
| calendar day, the band shows the range over the 30 years (in the
| period 1981-2010), however with the lowest and highest values for
| each day omitted._
|
| [1]
| http://polarportal.dk/fileadmin/polarportal/meltarea/MELTA_c...
|
| [2]
| http://polarportal.dk/fileadmin/polarportal/surface/SMB_comb...
|
| [3] http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/
| xaedes wrote:
| > This year has seen both a high melt as well as a high
| accumulation of snow, the balance of which currently lies
| clearly at the positive end - Greenland has far more
| accumulated snow than average.
|
| Seems to apply for the whole northern hemisphere. Look at the
| diagrams for 'the current Northern Hemisphere snow water
| equivalent relative to the long-term mean and variability'
| (GCW/FMI SWE Tracker) at
| https://globalcryospherewatch.org/state_of_cryo/snow/
|
| Last year this diagram was similar.
| cs702 wrote:
| FYI, there's a school of thought which has concluded that
| global warming will lead to another glacial period within the
| current ice age, because higher temperatures disrupt ocean
| currents -- particularly the Gulf Stream, which redistributes
| warm water from the Gulf of Mexico to northern Europe. As the
| Gulf Stream makes its deposits of warm water along the coasts
| of Great Britain and northwest Europe, it keeps the
| temperatures in northwest Europe warmer than in eastern Canada,
| even though they both are roughly the same distance from the
| equator. The hypothesis is that, if Arctic ice melts as a
| result of global warming, huge amounts of fresh water will pour
| into the North Atlantic and slow down the Gulf Stream, cooling
| Europe, and triggering a feedback loop with colder and longer
| European winters, and more and more ice building up on the
| planet's surface.[a][b]
|
| [a] The book "Ice Age" by Cambridge-trained astrophysicist John
| Gribbin and his wife Mary has a good high-level overview of
| this school of thought: https://reanimus.com/store/?item=1420
|
| [b] Recent studies of circulation in the North Atlantic already
| show a significant reduction in currents flowing north from the
| Gulf Stream:
| https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/09/new-s...
| the_third_wave wrote:
| As far as I can tell the slowdown or cessation of the gulf
| stream will not lead to an "ice age" but to a cooling of
| north-western Europe. The climate there will be more
| comparable to that of the southern part of Alaska. While to
| the inhabitants of this region it may feel like an "ice age"
| the difference is that in an ice age the global average
| temperature goes down while this is not the case for the
| above scenario. It is quite possible - likely, even - for
| some regions to end up with lower average temperatures while
| the average global temperature increases.
| cs702 wrote:
| My understanding is that we're already in an ice age --
| specifically, we're in an inter-glacial period of an ice
| age. What you call the "cooling" of northwest Europe would
| be a glacial period within this ice age.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| We're in an interglacial, awaiting a new ice age. If
| history [1] is anything to go by we're at the trailing
| end of the warmest period of the Holocene epoch [2].
| Depending on how this interglacial develops the
| temperature will either gradually decrease into a new ice
| age (i.e. follow the same pattern as the Pleistocene) or
| rebound for a second peak (like the Pliocene, Eocene and
| Paleocene interglacials). At the end of the Holocene
| interglacial the ice will return for the remainder of the
| epoch.
|
| [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/C
| o2_glac...
|
| [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/H
| olocene...
| cs702 wrote:
| I believe you are using the terminology incorrectly.
| According to Wikipedia, we currently are in an an ice age
| that began approximately 2.6 million years ago:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation
|
| Within this ice age, we've had glacial and inter-glacial
| periods. For example, Europe's "Little Ice Age" was a
| glacial period within this ice age:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
|
| Currently, we're in an inter-glacial period.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Could be, I interpret "interglacial" literally, as being
| "between two ice ages". Were we in an actual ice age the
| same etymology would produce the term "intraglacial", a
| word I've never seen but that might be because written
| language was not yet a thing when there were people
| living in that circumstance.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Could be, I interpret "interglacial" literally, as
| being "between two ice ages"
|
| Pretty sure the literal interpretation of 'interglacial'
| is 'between glaciation.'
|
| Literal 'between two ice ages' would be 'inter-ice age.'
| shkkmo wrote:
| There is a conflict between the popular and scientific
| meaning of "ice age" that seems to be tripping the two of
| you up. If you are going to get into a semantic debate
| about related meanings, you should clarify the specific
| meaning you ate intending.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| I don't think there is a need for any debate, it is after
| all clear what we mean: an ice age is the whole cycle
| (interglacial + glacial), glacial is the period of
| maximum ice coverage, interglacial is the period of
| minimum ice coverage. In the common vernacular "ice age"
| equals the glacial period.
| NationalPark wrote:
| Are there any climatologists who have written about Gribbin's
| Ice Age idea? Not that I think he's necessarily wrong, but I
| am a little extra skeptical when an expert in an adjacent
| area of research is positioned as a contrarian to the
| mainstream of another field. For whatever reason
| (overconfidence? credentialism? inexperience?) this always
| seems to produce sketchy science.
| api wrote:
| > a little extra skeptical when an expert in an adjacent
| area of research is positioned as a contrarian to the
| mainstream of another field.
|
| Thanks for putting words to something I've always noticed.
|
| I think it comes from overconfidence borne of expertise in
| one or a few other fields. A pop culture example would be
| Elon Musk thinking he understands virology and epidemiology
| because he knows a lot about rockets, computers, and other
| non-living engineering systems.
| neffy wrote:
| I think there is a reluctance to discuss this, given the
| politicisation of the entire problem, and inevitable
| confusion. But note that global warming did get changed to
| "climate change" a decade or so back. Unfortunately this
| particular aspect gets very geopolitical, very fast, on any
| contemplation about which regions benefit from the two
| states. The ice core record itself is very clear, we're
| towards the end of an interglacial period of the dominant
| 100k year ice age cycle, caused by small cyclic differences
| in the earths position vis a vis the sun over that period.
|
| As to what happens next, the generally accepted theory at
| the moment is that the rise in CO2 combined with
| differences in the orbital inclination this cycle make an
| ice age onset unlikely. However know enough to read between
| the lines, the known unknowns if you like, and it's clear
| we don't know nearly enough about what actually causes
| glacial onset, or why it appears to happen so quickly. One
| could also go a bit further and comment that all
| interglacials seem to have a pattern of increasing CO2
| (although not nearly to the extent we have triggered),
| until an abrupt drop. The Ocean Circulation theory
| originated out of the Wood's Hole Research Lab a few years
| back.
|
| The wiki page is good, and has the relevant papers linked:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
| oenetan wrote:
| https://ghostarchive.org/archive/Z5ypj
|
| https://archive.is/nkILZ
| dredmorbius wrote:
| #TIL GhostArchive.
|
| https://ghostarchive.org/index.html
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(page generated 2021-08-20 23:02 UTC)