Burning remaining fossil fuels would eradicate Antarctic ice

[L. Coyote]

Source: sciencenews.org by Thomas Sumner

Exhausting all attainable fossil fuels would annihilate the Antarctic ice sheet and raise global sea levels by as much as 58 meters, more than the height of Niagara Falls, new research calculates.

Enough fossil fuels remain to release around 10,000 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. The future of Antarctic ice depends on how much of that stockpile society burns through, researchers report September 11 in Science Advances. Simulating how Antarctic ice will respond to rising temperatures and a changing environment, the team estimates that 600 billion to 800 billion tons of further carbon emissions would destabilize the West Antarctic ice sheet. Humans emitted an estimated 545 billion tons of carbon from 1870 through 2014, with approximately 10 billion tons released in 2013. Burning all remaining fossil fuels would result in a nearly ice-free Antarctic.

Even though the simulated emissions were released in fewer than 500 years, the effects of elevated carbon dioxide lingered for more than 10,000 years, the researchers say.

Read more: https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/burning-remaining-fossil-fuels-would-eradicate-antarctic-ice

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[xocet]

1. Interesting... n/t

[7wo7rees]

2. Only one word I can find, "shit". Really scary, frightening.

At what point will humans realize that we are susceptible to being extinct along with everything else we are wiping out on this little biosphere we call Earth?

[progree]

4. "we are susceptible to being extinct along with everything else"

All of Antarctica Might Melt, Drowning Major Cities, Newsweek, 9/11/15

The global average temperature, at that point ((when all the fossil fuels have been burned)), will be around 9 degrees Celsius (roughly 16 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than it is today. That is not a climate scenario under which many things would survive.

Experts have already called the possibility of exceeding 2 degrees Celsius warming “dangerous,” and 4 degrees Celsius warming a “catastrophic” scenario. A world that is 9 degrees Celsius hotter would likely be unrecognizable and perhaps even uninhabitable.

http://news.yahoo.com/antarctica-might-melt-drowning-major-182728299.html

[mak3cats]

3. I think really important threads like this sink...

...because this site does seem to be populated by very intelligent people. As such, we know what studies like this mean, and no one wants to really think about it. At least I don't. I'm middle-aged, and remember this:

http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63

I hate fucking SUV's, and they're all around me every day. Gotta fuel 'em! Can't make the owners pay extra for taking more than their share of the planet's resources! Wouldn't be prudent!

Glad I don't have any children...

[L. Coyote]

5. Wow, the world as we know it is ending and you focus on slamming DU?

Maybe we could focus on the problem instead.

I do want to think about it instead of dismissing it. That's why I posted it. I'm not as worried about SUVs as I am the US military and aircraft carriers. Or the Big Oil interests controlling US public policy and Congress critters. There are solutions to the situation and thinking about it is essential. It wouldn't be very intelligent to not think about a problem when confronted by it. In fact, that is what I would expect of not very intelligent people, unlike the people here who do address these issues daily.

[mak3cats]

15. Where was I slamming DU?

I agree with you completely. Last night's post was late; I was already feeling rather depressed and my words were pretty much just anger and despair. The world as we know it is indeed ending.

[McCamy Taylor]

6. Al Gore for president!

[Wilms]

9. Gore should have known better.

NAFTA Report Warns Of Trade Deal Environmental Disasters

A report due to be released Tuesday aims to offer an object lesson to President Barack Obama: Free trade deals have high costs in unintended consequences for the environment, people's way of life, and local sovereignty.

The report by the Sierra Club and other groups in Canada and Mexico, released on the 20th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement, summarizes more than 100 nonprofit, government and scholarly studies of NAFTA, and draws a damning picture.

snip

“Nearly 20 years into NAFTA and the evidence is in," Ilana Solomon, director of the Sierra Club’s Responsible Trade Program, said in a statement. "NAFTA led to an expansion of deforestation and unsustainable water use in order to support export-oriented agriculture. It gave massive rights to corporations to challenge environmental and climate safeguards in private trade tribunals. It expanded exports in dirty fossil fuels in a time when we should be moving beyond these outdated fuels and investing in clean energy. Governments must take a page out of the history books and stop negotiating trade pacts that gut protections for our air, water, land, workers, and communities.”

snip

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/11/nafta-environment_n_4938556.html

[McCamy Taylor]

7. Forget the zombie apocalypse! It's gonna be the Tentacle Monster apocalypse instead.

[Duppers]

8. K & R

[Javaman]

10. good bye ice. nt

[Sunlei]

11. 9 degrees hotter, I want to get out of Texas and find cooler & higher land.

It's already bad with the 8-10 inch rains in a day near Houston. If I didn't put in a drainage plan to move that water out fast, I would have flooded twice this year alone. On property that has never flooded before.

[tclambert]

12. Yes, but from the point of view of oil companies:

No further emissions: 0¢
500 gigatons of carbon: $$$$$
1,000 gigatons: $$$$$$$$$$
2,500 gigatons: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
5,000 gigatons: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
10,000 gigatons: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[L. Coyote]

13. They will soon be shifting their investments into the most profitable sector, wind and solar

as the economic landscape shifts. You can count on corporations going after the best bottom line.

[WheelWalker]

14. Kick

[paleotn]

16. Permian Extenction 2.0 (nt)

[NickB79]

17. The good news is we'll never get the chance to burn all the planet's fossil fuels

We'll see a planetary collapse of civilization, Mad Max style, as climate change destroys our farmlands, forests and ocean life, and the survivors reverting back to a Medieval level of technology, long before we zero in on the last coal, oil and gas reserves.

See! Optimism!

[Mr.Squirreleo]

18. What would be the course of action here

How to people purpose that civilization as it currently carry on without the use of fossil fuels?

-Electric cars are a long way from being practical for all people as they currently exists. Even if they where the amount of time it would take to phase out the petrol based car would be on a scale of decades. When you factor in the facts that a large percentage of people do not have the money to buy new electric cars coupled with the longevity of the car being in question (the batteries range will dissipate with age making used cars useless) it could take even longer.

-Electric trucks (long haul) won't become viable for a long long time. The benefits drivers would archive from not having to pay gas would be completely destroyed by the inconvenience of having to what long stretches of time off the road recharging their batteries. This is important as practically all goods sold in any every store around the world have been in the back of a truck for at least some period of time after leaving the factory.

-Electric vehicles are simply not an option for many around the world. They require well maintained roads and a reliable electric grid. There are also issues for those in cold climates where the range of the vehicles is severely reduced due to the cold.

Im just not seeing a solution to this problem, at least not on a time scale of less than 50-75 years (even that being a stretch)

[L. Coyote]

20. Simple, convert to clean energy instead of combustion energy.

[Uncle Joe]

19. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, L. Coyote.

[L. Coyote]

21. Europe past and present.

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/maps/doggerland/