Arctic 21: Atmospheric Rivers and the Antarctic Ice Sheet

[@a.randomjack6661]

Thank you! Captivating presentation. I will watch a second time.

[@fbkintanar]

Amazingly informative and lucid presentation. I am glad that there are 54 scientists working on this study, may your tribe increase. Public money for climate research is well spent on studies like this. The speculation towards the end about the prospect of a similar atmospheric river and heat wave hitting the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has me thinking about the actuarial risk of such a black swan event. My understanding is that scientists will only make a statement when the error bars are narrow enough, and the IPCC even has a standard set of plain English terms to correspond to the level of confidence. However, actuaries working for insurance companies know they will have to pay out in case of these big impact black swan events, and need to allocate resources to cover those eventualities. Perhaps the messaging towards policy makers and the general public needs to take a more actuarial perspective on risk and uncertainty. The cost of contingency funds to deal with these extreme events might make the cost of funding the carbon transition look more like a good bargain, considering that renewables already have a lower levelized cost of energy that fossil fuels. The world needs to make the initial investments in renewables that will enable turning off all operating and pipeline fossil energy plants within the decade, long before the anticipated lifetime of the plants. The investors in those fossil energy plants made a bad choice when they made those investments, they need to take their lumps in the light of the large externalities and human impacts of letting their carbon emissions continue.

[@harveytheparaglidingchaser7039]

Interesting, did I understand this correctly: current models do not capture current temperature and weather extremes?

[@a.randomjack6661]

To capture those correctly, models with much finer resolution are needed aka much better super-computers.

[@reuireuiop0]

Models are just that, models. You get out what you put in. I just checked on the increase of cloud cover in Arctic regions. Hardly a word on it, clouds are notoriously hard to research and model, capricious swirly things as they are. But increasing cloud cover in the Arctic will prevent the Blue Ocean event from taking full effect - clouds easily form over cold humid open sea, while the air over ice fields is far drier, giving less rise to clouding. Clouds reflect sunlight just as well as white ice does, but the cloud cover also isolates the layers beneath m from cooling. The net effect is hardly looked at, there's only the odd paper. A climate explanation website based its info on 2003 (!!) report Without sufficient cloud development data, models have a big hole in m - and that's just one subject. I'd reckon there be at least five more major issues which are absent from models, or just calculated with patchy data. What the outcome would be with a more complete data and calculation set, anyone's guess. My inkling - things will be moving the wrong way far quicker than models project - plus the extremes will be way more extreme than calculated.

[@cityofwelland634]

That was excellent, thank you

[@europaeuropa3673]

Been monitoring South Africa temps which appear to be below normal so far this year. Must look at the volcano below the Antarctic.

[@martiansoon9092]

Most climate models misses most tipping elements, so it is not so weird that they won't show atmospheric rivers with tropical heat over Antarctica. It is pretty hard to make reality based climate model that has these found extreme events, but are still projecting a stable climate in more normal situations.

[@martiansoon9092]

If these atmospheric rivers brings down loads of rain instead of snow, the melting rate accerates at extreme speeds. And after that the area may have its average temperature risen by 0,06-0,6C due to lowered elevation (10-100m drop). Similarly extreme snowfall may lower regional temperatures, dpending on how long snow stays on the top of the ice sheet.

[@martiansoon9092]

@grindupBaker It is not only the rain, but what it does to albedo and to the ice afterwards. Surface gets much darker (ie. snow comes gray when water is added) and takes more heat from sunlight. And it ruins the surface with melt lakes (albedo absorbtion nearing 90%) and makes ice pourous. And even a small layer of water allows more heat to penetrate the surface more easily. And melt water runs down the moulins to the bedrock and acts as an lubricant speeding up the ice flow to the sea. (Some melt water stays inside ice sheet, not enough data for calc's...) Also cracks are more likely with higher speeds and other water made changes. Cracks adds even more speed and makes calving more likely. Higher flow speed also drops the surface specially near the outlets. ... It is not as simple calculation as you want it to be. And these local 10 meter per year melts have been recorded already. Some equipments and even research stations have found themselves melted away from the last years surface. 100m worth of melting is a multiyear event. But don't worry about your calc, models does not have all known things in them (scaling problem plus funding ends too soon... And there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns too... Most of these just makes melting faster.).

[@QuaaludeCharlie]

Thank you! wonderful presentation. Liked , Subbed and Shared :) QC

[@vthilton]

Save Our Planet Now!

[@a.randomjack6661]

Who said it's "ours". Can you show the paperwork?

[@chinookvalley]

@@a.randomjack6661 Ha! It USED to be Nature's. The Garden of Eden. Where the deer and antelope play. Too often the concept of Nature is humanism, not the ones who are bearing the greatest burden. I live in a part of Colorado that USED to be a haven for elk, eagles, and every kind of bird, bug, and mammal. Those days are long gone, due to human overpopulation.

[@porqupine-ridge]

It will be fine once we are gone.

[@a.randomjack6661]

@@chinookvalley It's not over population, it's over consumption We consume 1,4 of the planet's renewable resources per year If everyone lived like us (average Americans, we'd consume more than 4 of those per year. One example "8 men own as much wealth as half of humans" OXFAM and they all got o Davos. "Inverted society: we put the people with most severe antisocial behavior psychopathy/narcissism/sociopathy in charge, because they care about profits, not people " Saying s't overpopulation makes us think it's because of some "them" not us.

[@jonr1138]

Sadly I think we are a day late and a dollar short. KZbin still has droves of climate change deniers. We don’t even have a consensus to take actions that are aggressive and substantial to mitigate the problems. So things will just get worse.

[@joannecarter8191]

You're either mad or a genius. No idea what this means but let's hope it is a potential solution as something needs to be done 😊