[HN Gopher] Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?
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Why are Alaska's rivers turning orange?
Author : maciekmm
Score : 103 points
Date : 2024-01-24 22:11 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| notamy wrote:
| https://archive.is/2024.01.10-221938/https://www.scientifica...
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240125064804/https://www.scien...
| gmuslera wrote:
| They focused on the water color, acidity, and the effect on the
| fishes, but they are not putting enough stress in the elephants
| in the room, the 2.4+oC increase of average temperature northern
| regions over very few years (not since preindustrial times) and
| the massive permafrost thawing that is happening there.
|
| Yes, it is causing this. And many more things in those regions
| and all the world, for more time than a single framed picture.
| crazygringo wrote:
| They literally say exactly all of that at the start of the
| article:
|
| > _Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that
| the ultimate cause is climate change. Kobuk Valley National
| Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees
| Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C
| hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for any other
| national park. The heat may already have begun to thaw 40
| percent of the park 's permafrost, the layer of earth just
| under the topsoil that normally remains frozen year-round.
| McPhee wanted to protect the Salmon River because humans had
| "not yet begun to change it." Now, less than 50 years later, we
| have done just that. The last great wilderness in America,
| which by law is supposed to be "untrammeled by man," is being
| trammeled from afar by our global emissions._
| mc32 wrote:
| Good news is it's not because of what happened to the Rio Tinto
| in Spain... This is ecology running its course.
| smallerfish wrote:
| As a sibling pointed out, they state that as the cause.
|
| Further, right under the image at the top of the article:
| "Tukpahlearik Creek in northwestern Alaska's Brooks Range runs
| bright orange where permafrost is thawing".
|
| It doesn't help climate's cause to be hysterical without
| actually reading things you want to critique.
| grecy wrote:
| Yep, climate change is coming _very_ fast across the North. It
| 's already very noticeably different up there since I lived
| there from 2011-2015. Way, way warmer temperatures in the
| winter, the glaciers have retreated and shrunk drastically to
| the point I don't recognize photos of places I've spent a lot
| of time.
|
| Heck, I live 2000 miles south now, and we can see our local
| glacier retreating yearly with our own eyes. Also it's raining
| today. In the middle of winter. Not good.
| kortilla wrote:
| Are you suggesting that there is some kind of global warming
| going on?! Someone should really say something.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Man if only we knew about it a few decades ago....
|
| Oh wait.
| graphe wrote:
| No, it snowed.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| We got a snow storm last week, how would that be possible if
| the globe was warm?
| dionian wrote:
| Is it time that we finally addressed the massive escalation of
| fossil fuels by countries like china?
| tejtm wrote:
| I would settle for cleaning our own house and setting a good
| example
| pests wrote:
| Why do you want to go force China to do things when we have a
| ton of improvement to do ourselves?
| graphe wrote:
| Focus on 95% of 5% or focus on 20% of 95%? You're choosing
| #1.
| throwawayqqq11 wrote:
| China is hit by climate change too. Every side has to fix
| theirs first or how could you (rich west, that profited
| mostly from unsustainable economic growth) ever make
| demands to anyone else. Take it from the game theory
| perspective. Everyone or noone. And which side is the
| easiest to change?
|
| To me, the answer is simple and just pointing at
| whataboutthem is just short sighted, like building a wall
| to fix internal crime rates.
| graphe wrote:
| A dike had a large and small hole with that logic will be
| underwater.
| throwawayqqq11 wrote:
| A large hole that one cannot reach. Game theroy requires
| at least two participants. Sounds logic now?
| kirubakaran wrote:
| I don't think there are elephants in Alaska, let alone indoors,
| in rooms or otherwise.
| rolph wrote:
| we have mammoths and mastodons, but most of them are not
| available until thawed from the permafrost
| phkahler wrote:
| What nobody ever talks about is that some of the old organic
| stuff (roots, leaves) in the thawing permafrost did not grow
| there in recent times because that stuff _won 't grow in
| permafrost_. This means the thawing of the permafrost is not new
| and that the area used to have more stuff growing there than it
| does now. We should expect a greening of parts of Alaska if the
| warming continues and growth resumes.
| itishappy wrote:
| Wonder if anything might still be alive in there?
| mrspuratic wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/21/arctic-
| zombi...
|
| You're welcome.
| mort96 wrote:
| Why do you think people should be talking about that more? I
| would think people aren't talking about it much because, well,
| it's kind of obvious.
| phkahler wrote:
| There is a narrative that melting permafrost is new and some
| kind of global catastrophe. That narrative falls apart if we
| point out that there's really nothing new going on.
|
| Sea levels have risen more than present levels in prior
| interglacial periods too, but that's another related
| catastrophe.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I don't understand how greening formerly frozen Alaska is
| not part of a global catastrophe?
| outside1234 wrote:
| Climate change in of itself is not the problem - it is the
| rate of change at which it will occur that is the problem
| such that we can't adapt to it (ie. stop populating Florida
| etc. etc.)
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| The earth was once a hot fireball, so if for any strange
| reason it would turn into one again we can all be relieved,
| say that isn't new and post funny "this is fine" dogs? What
| kind of logic is that.
|
| Time scales are huge, 1 year is different than 100 years
| than 100000 years than 1 million years.. what's "new" is
| very relative, come on.
|
| You really want to still state today that global warming
| (to what permafrost thawing relates) is a narrative?
|
| > Sea levels have risen more than present levels in prior
| interglacial periods too, but that's another related
| catastrophe.
|
| Why you mean not? Does it matter if at that time fewer than
| 100 millions of humans inhabitated earth, and now we have
| billions.. and more than the number above will be
| threatened by sea level rise?
| Lutger wrote:
| You make two mistakes here which are very common in this
| topic. One, just because there have been plants where there
| is permafrost before, doesn't mean there is nothing new
| about this event. Everybody who studies a little bit about
| climate change will soon learn that the real problem isn't
| the change perse, its how fast it is happening. And that is
| also quite unprecedented.
|
| Second, and most fatally, yes there was a lot of vegetation
| there. There was also a time when there were plants on the
| antarctic. The sea levels were 20 meter higher back then,
| which may give you a clue it could be a slight problem, as
| you yourself indicate.
|
| There were mass extinction events before. Natural or not,
| some people might say they would feel humankind going
| extinct or almost so is exactly what a catastrophe is,
| pointing out something similar has happened before doesn't
| make it any better.
|
| So no, the narrative doesn't fall apart. Furthermore, it is
| not a narrative in the first place, it is a risk assesment
| based on scientific understanding. There is no drama, just
| facts and theories. The hand-wavy 'it is all natural thus
| its good because we live in a just world and that magically
| makes everything okay and eco-logical and stuff', now
| _that_ is a narrative.
| zardo wrote:
| Why bother to thaw out a turkey, just throw it in the oven.
| It couldn't possibly matter how quickly the temperature
| changes.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| You can cook a frozen turkey, it just takes a little
| longer.
|
| https://www.thespruceeats.com/cook-a-frozen-turkey-483280
| javman wrote:
| The reason why melting permafrost is considered a global
| catastrophe is that it's a feedback loop that will
| accelerate warming. There is massive carbon that has been
| frozen in the permafrost. Permafrost melts > the organic
| matter decomposes > more CO2 released into atmosphere >
| warming happens faster.
| patall wrote:
| I have no idea above this, but aren't there plants growing on
| permafrost? As permafrost only starts in a depth of a few
| inches, those plants may well enter permafrost if they are in
| the ground above and slowly get submerged more and more.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that the
| ultimate cause is climate change.
|
| quelle surprise
| samstave wrote:
| >" _The only constant in the Universe is change..._ "
|
| Seems obvious now, doesn't it.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| I don't get it.
| samstave wrote:
| In almost all Spiritual/Religious teachings - they say "
| _The only constant in the universe is change_ " - so Its
| kind of banal to say " _Scientists who studied the rivers
| simply allot it to Climate Change_ " as if its the
| profundity of Science here...
| avgcorrection wrote:
| If `cl` is the climate change function then Climate
| Change really specifically is referring to the derivative
| of `cl` right now.
| freejazz wrote:
| Probably orders of magnitude less banal than your
| comments here on it.
| samstave wrote:
| I guess you missed I was pointing to that they put in a
| whole bunch of meat in the article about the apparent
| study and they boil it down to a very simple conclusion
| of "climate change"?
|
| That's not banal? (im not being flippant - I just thought
| the conclusion was weak, and didnt feel like I learned
| much.
| freejazz wrote:
| What makes you guess that?
| troyvit wrote:
| It might, but the first time I heard it (put differently) it
| blew my mind. The way I heard it was: There is no such thing
| as equilibrium in nature. It's more about constant
| imbalances.
|
| It made me re-think our whole approach to environmentalism.
| When we attempt to restore something, what are we restoring
| it to?
| magneticnorth wrote:
| I think we want to restore it to a random walk with less
| bias in the "warming" direction.
| samstave wrote:
| Agreed - I was going to write more about how the imbalances
| within nature and the ebb and flow between the current
| state is always changing, just at scales larger than a
| single human life's observance.
|
| Its amazing to me that so many ancient civiliaations had an
| understanding of cycles many thousands of years long, and
| understood that things change in cycles, as opposed to
| linear....
|
| Take, for example the Pyramid of Ku at Chichenitza...
|
| I went there in 2001 with a Mayan Elder named Hunbatz Men
| [0] -- He explained the nature of the Pyramid as the
| calendar:
|
| The pyramid is broken into a number of architectural
| elements that define various aspects of the solar calendar:
| the indentations on the sides of the steps of the pyramid
| are divided to reflect the year, the levels represent
| divisional seasons, the steps inside the pyramid leading to
| the top is 72 and it represents the 72,000 year cycle of
| the plieades over head - the graduations in the face of the
| steps of the pyramid are the 28 days of their 13 month
| year. The top of the pyramid is the correct height that
| when you look down the groove on the top cube, they align
| perfectly to the horizon in all directions - and a bunch of
| of ther aspects of time tracking. Its an amazing celestial
| clock.
|
| https://www.council-of-world-elders.de/en/members/hunbatz-
| me...
|
| https://en.everybodywiki.com/Hunbatz_Men
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Nice philosophizing, but too simple. There definitely are
| constants in the universe, and dynamic things can stay
| pretty constant over looong time scales, think of stars, or
| something complicated as a solar system.. and then it is
| about rate of change at all levels.. what's nothing for me
| is the lifetime for a fruit fly, and I live merely a split
| seconds of our Earth's age.
|
| And then there are humans, always against change ;) But
| some is reasonable, e.g. when life threatening conditions
| change. I step out of my house in freezing temperatures, if
| I don't do something I'll freeze.. I don't start
| philosophizing about where to restore it to, just wanna be
| safe and warm again.
|
| I don't get all the clever insights. Environmentalism is
| already such a stupid term imo, this is not about saving
| the environment at all, or trying to keep the world the
| same. It is just human warranted egoism, about saving us.
| troyvit wrote:
| It's not philosophizing, it's ecology.[1]
|
| Regarding stars and solar systems, over the lifespan of
| the universe those things are just blips.[2] In 110
| trillion years the Milky Way will be down to about a
| hundred stars. That's a small fraction of the 10^10^120
| years estimated to be the lifespan of the universe. So
| those aren't constants.
|
| The only constant is decay (and C I guess). So I don't
| see what was too simple about what I said, or even how it
| was much different from what you said. There's no
| equilibrium to return to, and any environmental actions
| to try to restore that will have a problem.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4188511/
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future
| crazygringo wrote:
| That's _not_ true over short-to-medium timeframes though.
|
| There absolutely _are_ equilibria in nature, all over the
| place. The idea of that "constant imbalance" is always the
| rule is simply false.
|
| Now, as a rule at _some point_ in time either an external
| force will interrupt things, or an energy source that was
| maintaining the equilibrium will run out. So no equilibrium
| will last _indefinitely_.
|
| But an equilibrium can be maintained for an awfully long
| time -- much, much, much longer than you or I will be
| alive. It's not like populations are always either growing
| or shrinking. Absent man, they're generally extremely
| constant (allowing for seasonal oscillations and similar).
|
| And to answer your question: when we seek to restore
| something, it's generally to as close as we can to the
| state of equilibirum it would be at without the industrial
| effects of man -- a level of rich biodiversity. We're
| almost never completely successful, but we can still do our
| best.
| troyvit wrote:
| > The idea of that "constant imbalance" is always the
| rule is simply false.
|
| Modern ecology would like a word:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4188511/
|
| A natural balance is the actual myth.
| itishappy wrote:
| > Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius
| (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2
| degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for
| any other national park.
|
| Holy shit. 10degC is currently the difference between NY and DC,
| or Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico, or Montana and Southern
| California...
| JohnMakin wrote:
| This is what people don't realize when we talk about "average"
| global temperature rise. 2 Celsius average doesn't mean 2
| Celsius everywhere - it means some regions are going to be much
| higher than that.
| graphe wrote:
| Permafrost melts mean more habitable land for humans! This is
| wonderful for humanity. Russian and Canada will be way more
| populated in the future.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Yeah, especially Russia, at the rate it's collapsing
| demographically.
| graphe wrote:
| I suspect the borders will be very different. Much of
| Russia's population was taken from China. Siberia if warmed
| would probably be fought over. It's currently closer to china
| but the transportation was designed to only benefits the
| Russian government.
| csours wrote:
| Before reading, iron dissolving due to higher reactivity
| (including bacterial action) because temperatures are higher
|
| ___
|
| After reading:
|
| > "Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that
| the ultimate cause is climate change. Kobuk Valley National Park
| has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since
| 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a
| greater increase than projected for any other national park. The
| heat may already have begun to thaw 40 percent of the park's
| permafrost"
|
| > "Some researchers think acid from minerals is leaching iron out
| of bedrock that has been exposed to water for the first time in
| millennia. Others think bacteria are mobilizing iron from the
| soil in thawing wetlands."
|
| ___
|
| Other thoughts: iron bearing silicates often contain gold. New
| gold rush?
|
| -
|
| Things like this have surely happened before _but not while there
| were so many people around_
|
| Extinctions have happened before too, but that doesn't make them
| _good_
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > Other thoughts: iron bearing silicates often contain gold.
| New gold rush?
|
| Could a significant amount of gold be extracted from the water
| that way? It would likely be a much more environmentally
| friendly way to mine gold given that there would be no digging
| required.
| RajT88 wrote:
| If they could make it work at scale, they'd have done it with
| ocean water by now.
|
| That's the sci-fi dream: all the elements you could want end
| up dissolved in varying amounts in seawater. It's
| unfortunately a hard engineering problem.
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