The Arctic is burning in a whole new way:
"Zombie fires" and burning of fire-resistant vegetation are new features driving Arctic fires—with strong consequences for the global climate—warn international fire scientists in a commentary published in Nature Geoscience.
The 2020 Arctic wildfire season began two months early and was unprecedented in scope.
"It's not just the amount of burned area that is alarming," said Dr. Merritt Turetsky, a coauthor of the study who is a fire and permafrost ecologist at the University of Colorado Boulder. "There are other trends we noticed in the satellite data that tell us how the Arctic fire regime is changing and what this spells for our climate future."
[...] The commentary identifies two new features of recent Arctic fires. The first is the prevalence of holdover fires, also called zombie fires. Fire from a previous growing season can smolder in carbon-rich peat underground over the winter, then re-ignite on the surface as soon as the weather warms in spring.
[...] The second feature is the new occurrence of fire in fire-resistant landscapes. As tundra in the far north becomes hotter and drier under the influence of a warmer climate, vegetation types not typically thought of as fuels are starting to catch fire: dwarf shrubs, sedges, grass, moss, even surface peats. Wet landscapes like bogs, fens, and marshes are also becoming vulnerable to burning.
Journal Reference:
Jessica L. McCarty, Thomas E. L. Smith, Merritt R. Turetsky. Arctic fires re-emerging, Nature Geoscience (DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-00645-5)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 29 2020, @09:33AM (11 children)
Tundra stomping is a great pastime. It's lots of exercise, with a lot of beautiful scenery in the background. Young men should get in all the hiking on tundra possible.
There is a hazard associated with tundra though. Given time, the tundra tends to grow right out over rough ground. This makes "sink holes". The unsuspecting tundra stomper can walk right across a ravine - if he's lucky. If he's unlucky, he can walk out near the center of the ravine, and fall through the tundra, just like falling through breaking ice. Which will likely result in one more dead tundra stomping fool, drowned at the bottom of a hole in the ground.
The tundra stomper does one of several things. He learns the use of a walking stick, or he learns to "feel" when he is no longer on solid ground, or he eventually dies. Unless he decides to be safe and stop wandering the tundra.
The idea that all that lovely permafrost is thawing out, and drying out, is depressing. Worse, that it might be burning up.
We ought to build a huge power plant way up north, and start running a bunch of freezer units to cool it down again. /sarcasm - yeah I know, I know, introducing more energy into a closed system only make the temperature go UP.
Sucks. But,
“The only thing that never changes is that everything changes.” ― Louis L'Amour
(huh - I didn't know that witty-cism was attributed to Louis L'Amour!)
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @01:17PM (7 children)
you're speaking as if there's nothing we can do about this.
there is.
lobby the shipping industry to use sails in addition to their engines.
get companies and people to use AC only when strictly necessary.
tax electricity more, use the money to get off coal and oil.
get medical doctors to look into nutrition and come up with a reasonable healthy diet that also takes into account environmental costs of food (see https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714). [bbc.com]
etc.
ok. so it's probably too late for the permafrost. but don't act as if we can't do anything about the changes that are currently taking place. we can, and we should.
don't you have kids/grandkids?
to be honest, canibalism makes more sense to me than casually consuming resources that will be desperately needed in a few decades.
for some reason humanity got rid of cannibalism, but it won't do anything about old people saying "fuck you, I got mine" to young people.
I like things simple. if 20 years from now i have to choose, I will say "stop increasing pensions, take care of the environment instead. yeah, old people will starve. whatever".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @01:24PM (1 child)
Only a nuclear war that kills off a significant fraction of humanity can stop the *growth* in global warming. Though, then there is the radiation problem to deal with...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday September 29 2020, @01:38PM
Nonsense. We don't even have to reduce our per-capita energy consumption (though that would certainly help). We just need to stop burning fossil fuels to get it. Nuclear, solar, and wind power can easily provide for our current energy consumption, and could even do so at lower prices than fossil fuels if not for the need for storage systems to shift power from peak production times to peak consumption. For transportation some combination of electrification and synthetic or biofuels could do the job fine.
What's necessary is that we actually start taking the problem seriously, rather than just as a feel-good "environmentalist" action that barely costs (or accomplishes) anything. The alternative is nature will make it MUCH more expensive to avoid having large fractions of humanity die as agriculture takes a massive beating and coastal cities flood.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 29 2020, @01:33PM (3 children)
I'd take your proposals more seriously, if they actually did something positive about the problems we face. It's sad when the people supposedly for a better environment are more of a problem than the "fuck you" people. You can't sacrifice enough to get out of the hole we're in without killing a lot of people, and that's going to cause its own environmental problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @03:17PM (2 children)
how does it hurt?
the food thing is particularly easy: why the hell are we eating beef instead of chicken? chicken is cheaper to raise.
it's literally a case of "I think better tasting food is important enough to fuck up the environment".
ok. maybe you mean that the biggest thing we need to solve is energy production, and these other things are minor. I'm trying. half my time I am literally working on fusion. and we need to fix the public's perception of fission, but we also need to ensure any future fission plants are better guarded against corruption, otherwise we get more messes like fukushima.
but we need to do everything possible.
yes, it is perfectly possible for people living in the US+Canada+EU to be poorer, but still have happy and fulfilling lives.
it's gonna happen if they choose to make themselves poorer now, or if there is a world war three.
I would prefer that we don't end up with devastating wars, but if people refuse to give up on luxury willingly, devastating wars are coming.
the current migration thing is nothing.
you could argue that wars are inevitable, even if we give up on many creature comforts that we have now.
and then it makes sense to not care about the environment, but stock up on guns and make sure we are on the winning side after the wars.
I don't know.
that would be the only reasonable argument for not addressing climate change that I can think of.
and I don't think the wars are inevitable as of yet.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 30 2020, @12:27AM
While I do think that better tasting food is more important (keep in mind how much of our culture and society revolves around food and eating), let's consider this starting point from the point of view of cost/benefit. You start by proposing an operation that is extremely costly politically with little gain. Sorry, cows aren't that big a contributor.
How about putting out coal seam fires? Nobody loves those things like they do beef - almost no political cost, recent technology gains have improved our ability to fight these things cheaply, and it's a bigger environmental gain (I've read that they globally contribute about a fifth as much as the US does to green house gases emissions and there's no scrubbers on those fires). In other words, it's low-lying fruit that doesn't require a high cost sacrifice.
Odd to speak of regulating beef eating, but not do anything about coal seam fires.
We will get messes like Fukushima anyway because engineering isn't perfect. Corruption wasn't a significant factor in the accident.
But why find out when we don't have to?
I'd argue rather that they are more likely. For example, the same economic sacrifices that would cause reductions in creature comforts would cause increased conflict for the now more restricted resources, higher birthrate, and a lower regard for reality, humane behavior, and freedom from the top-down controllers who enforce that.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday September 30 2020, @04:42AM
Because cow manure has a (far) better nitrogen/phosphorus ratio, and you need that to grow vegetables efficiently (a feature conveniently overlooked by all those vegan extremists).
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Tuesday September 29 2020, @07:53PM
I hear the problem with cannibalisms is the young meat is tender and juicy while the old meat is chewy and dry.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @04:01PM
I accept your apology, I guess.
Now let's talk about your fascist political ideology.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @07:42PM (1 child)
Where are some good Tundra stomping locations?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 29 2020, @09:54PM
Anywhere north of the treeline, really. If it's too cold, and there is too little sunshine for trees to grow, you're probably looking at tundra.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @12:38PM (1 child)
But California is burning the same way as before, only stronger.
Because Antifa.
And 5G.
And the pedo cannibalistic deep state.
Help us, Donald Trump, you're the only hope.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @07:12PM
Be careful pretending to be a princess, you're liable to get grabbed!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @01:20PM (5 children)
Maybe we can stop the warming with a powerblast of virtue from Leftists yelling SCIENCE! Their moral superiority will surely be answered by Gaia.
Look, the Left isn't going to stop this process either. It is hapoening and will continue to happen. So please... shut up with the holier than thou. If you are a Leftist, you are part of the system. Realistically, you'd have to get Commie China to change its ways completely (devastate its economy) because they are the world's #1 emmitter of greenhouse gases.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @01:44PM (4 children)
*Whiny, self-entitled whimper when unable to justify one's own side*
It's your fault too!!!!11!!11
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @02:01PM (3 children)
If you buy the theory of AGW, then yes, "we" meaning civilization is at "fault".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @02:08PM
That's like saying a guy standing next to a child molester also is at "fault" for the child getting screwed because he didn't do anything about it, when the molester looks dangerous and has a knife.
(Score: 3, Informative) by https on Tuesday September 29 2020, @02:54PM (1 child)
AGW [wikipedia.org] is an observation. Namely, the percentage of atmospheric C-14 CO2 has been dropping, and the percentage of atmospheric C-12 CO2 has been rising, ever since humans started burning C-14 deficient/C-12 rich fossil fuels.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @03:12PM
Oh, see, there's your problem right there. C14 is heavier, so if we would burn C14 stuff, it'd sink to the ground and we could scoop it right up. :)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 30 2020, @07:30AM
The greatest president we've ever had will make sure our Tundra is the best Tundra the world has ever seen -- like you wouldn't believe how beautiful it will be!
And he's the greatest president because he's done more for America and Americans than any other President. Especially with the blacks. He's done more to help the blacks than any other president. Some crazy people say that Lincoln did more, but that's ridiculous!
So yeah. Don't worry. He's got us covered and he's going to make America and its tundra so good. You wouldn't believe how good. It's amazing!