Time is a double-edged blade here.
If the shit kicks in overnight losing infrastructure, livelihoods, and possibly lives, then nations would be sympathetic and donate resources for assistance.
However things are gradual...there's no urgency, and no one wants to admit things will become worse for the simple reason that they don't believe that they need to something now.
I think the topic came up because of the polar ice caps melting (which would cause an approximate 230 sea level rise), not Greenland melting (and I'm not sure about the timeline, impact of Greenland melting - @Endus probably has better info).
Now, I'm not sure what the timeline is for the polar ice caps melting, but I know it's sooner than Greenland. This article suggests by 2035, which is soon, and I believe it uses pretty good data for their timeline. And interesting, Greenland "melting" wouldn't affect sea level rise nearly as much as the polar ice caps. Really the danger are the Polar Ice Caps melting, I think.
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If it kicks in overnight I believe we'd be fucked, as a civilization. 200+ foot sea level rise would be the end of most things civilized. For the United States, we'd lose Hawaii and Alaska (collapse because no shipping). We'd lose more than 1/3 of the population's housing, all of our shipping. We'd see riots, famine, and more than likely the collapse of government.
Found an interesting tool that show sea level rise, but it only goes up to 10 feet.
If 40% of the population lives at what is defined as near or on the coast I wonder what the CO2 emissions would be in order to re-settle.
And I know that mean the poor nations are simply "tough luck".
But soon after Mr Xi secured a third term, Apple released a new version of the feature in China, limiting its scope. Now Chinese users of iPhones and other Apple devices are restricted to a 10-minute window when receiving files from people who are not listed as a contact. After 10 minutes, users can only receive files from contacts.
Apple did not explain why the update was first introduced in China, but over the years, the tech giant has been criticised for appeasing Beijing.
I think we'd collapse rather than resettle. We'd lose D.C. and all the government infrastructure that would be key to organizing a nation wide resettlement. The military might stay functional, depending on desertion for family (people leaving their station to save their family, etc). Without a functional government and a military to keep order, we'd devolve to local Warlord rulers. Hard to dig out of that.
Globally most island nations would disappear.
But soon after Mr Xi secured a third term, Apple released a new version of the feature in China, limiting its scope. Now Chinese users of iPhones and other Apple devices are restricted to a 10-minute window when receiving files from people who are not listed as a contact. After 10 minutes, users can only receive files from contacts.
Apple did not explain why the update was first introduced in China, but over the years, the tech giant has been criticised for appeasing Beijing.
Gotcha, agreed.
Also, I think my info must be off a little. I'm seeing articles saying polar ice cap melt by 2035, and that equals 200+ sea level rise. But if that were conclusive (more the timeline than the sea level rise) I would think people would be freaking the fuck out. I keep bugging @Endus for his knowledge/input, and I feel a little guilty, but that guy knows his shit - especially what is good info/articles and what is not.
https://www.floodmap.net/, yes I know it's in meters, get with the times.
I'd have to look it up to get the exact figures, but it's somewhere around 30-50 feet of the total that's Greenland, the rest being Antarctica (the remaining glaciers around the world are basically negligible, a couple percent of the total; they're more critical as indicators than in terms of volume).
Hookay. Gotta make some points here.Now, I'm not sure what the timeline is for the polar ice caps melting, but I know it's sooner than Greenland. This article suggests by 2035, which is soon, and I believe it uses pretty good data for their timeline. And interesting, Greenland "melting" wouldn't affect sea level rise nearly as much as the polar ice caps. Really the danger are the Polar Ice Caps melting, I think.
First, that article is looking at the Arctic ice cap, the Northern pole. That's sea ice, in that it's floating, not landborne. Ice that's floating is already displacing a volume of water equal to its weight in liquid form; you can trivially test this yourself by filling a glass with ice, and then filling it RIGHT to the brim with water so the ice floats, and then letting that ice melt; the water won't overflow. Arctic ice melt doesn't directly contribute to sea level rise.
I emphasize "direct" because losing that ice darkens the albedo of the Arctic seas, meaning they absorb more solar energy, meaning they warm up, which both accelerates further melting, and also causes water to expand; that expansion isn't huge, but when you're talking oceans, it adds up and adds inches to sea level rise.
As for Greenland's lower contribution; see my first response here; it's a much smaller ice sheet than Antarctica's. But it's basically down to those two.
It's not gonna happen overnight. Best guesses are that melting all of Antarctica is a centuries-long issue. We could easily be on a path that will inevitably bring that about, but it's not gonna happen in our lifetimes. Maybe 500 years or so. That melting is a long-term problem, not a short-term, but it's the kind of thing you'd want to make long-term planning with that taken into account, especially since that'd be centuries of slowly rising sea levels. Remember, even if it takes 500 years, that's 5-6 inches or so of sea level rise every year.If it kicks in overnight I believe we'd be fucked, as a civilization. 200+ foot sea level rise would be the end of most things civilized. For the United States, we'd lose Hawaii and Alaska (collapse because no shipping). We'd lose more than 1/3 of the population's housing, all of our shipping. We'd see riots, famine, and more than likely the collapse of government.
Found an interesting tool that show sea level rise, but it only goes up to 10 feet.
The short-term worry is calving. There's some massive ice sheets that are landborne (and Antarctica has some floating ice sheets, which are the ones calving off icebergs the size of Rhode Island or whatever that sometimes hit the paper; not direct contributers to sea level rise because it's sea ice), and those landborne sheets are cracking. They're also starting to melt from below. That melt tends to "grease" the landscape, so to speak, and if one of those sheets splits off enough and starts to slide, it could hit the oceans, and that would lead to sudden catastrophic sea level rise. We know a massive chunk the size of Arizona broke off the East Antarctic Ice Sheet about 400k years ago, and that it raised sea levels globally by about three meters basically overnight; https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...sea-level-rise
That could easily happen again; conditions are comparable and we're accelerating in warming much faster. If it happened, picture a tidal wave 9 feet high rushing around the entire world and then never retreating, and you get an idea of what it would be like.
As stated Antarctica melting is a more remote possibility than Greenland melting; and if it happens it will be even later.
You are wrong. There are two polar ice caps: the Artic one doesn't matter for the sea level. It will have some impact on further warming and be bad for the local wildlife (and good for shipping).
And then the Antarctica one that actually will be responsible for more than 80% of those 230 feet in sea level increase - if it melts, and that will happen after Greenland.
3 degrees doesn't sound like much, but that's plenty on a global scale. I mean, a few degrees change near the poles, and you've got tons of water entering the oceans. 3 degrees will be an issue for folks in 2100. Good thing we'll mostly be long gone by then lol.
You're still going on about this strip mine issue off the back of your incorrect assertion that lithium ion batteries cause more pollution than internal combustion cars?
Also, that is not just "literally a crater", it's used for scientific research - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homest...(South_Dakota)
But it's not a strip-mine.
People often incorrectly use strip-mining for all kinds of surface mining, since it sounds bad. Note that one reason Homestake is not being restored is that it is converted to a science center (primarily solar neutrinos, yes actual science), and it seems that Homestake isn't even a surface mine - as there are a number of deep underground tunnels.
Similarly people use "melting of polar ice caps" to confuse the melting of the Artic (which is happening) with the melting of Antarctica (which would be problematic if it happens, but that's hundreds or thousands of years in the future).
Last edited by Forogil; 2021-06-24 at 06:26 AM.
Nitpick; melting in Antarctica is increasing. I believe the most recent data till has deposition outpacing melting, but the Antarctic icecap has been the result of millions of years of deposition outpacing melting. And once that balance tips, it's "only" going to take centuries for it to vanish. And we're on the cusp of that; it's likely the underlying balance has already tipped, and melting simply hasn't increased sufficiently to outpace deposition yet.
That point being passed is something that could happen basically any time now.
That seems unlikely to be that fast, as east Antarctica seem to take a long time to melt.
It took me some time to find someone who had studied it, but - https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17145.epdf "Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rise" has some reliable data - and even in the "worst case" RCP8.5 the sea level rise after 400 years is "just" 13+/-3 m; and peaks at 20 m in the year 3500; whereas if everything melted (including Greenland - which is included already in 13 m) it would be 80 m.
However, there are obviously uncertainties (including what we will do so far in the future).