from the even-Siberia-goes-through-the-motions dept.
Only ambitious climate protection measures can still save a third of the tundra:
The climate crisis can especially be felt in the Arctic: in the High North, the average air temperature has risen by more than two degrees Celsius over the past 50 years – far more than anywhere else. And this trend will only continue. [...]
"For the Arctic Ocean and the sea ice, the current and future warming will have serious consequences," says Prof Ulrike Herzschuh, Head of the Polar Terrestrial Environmental Systems Division at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). "But the environment on land will also change drastically. The broad expanses of tundra in Siberia and North America will be massively reduced, as the treeline, which is already slowly changing, rapidly advances northward in the near future. In the worst-case scenario, there will be virtually no tundra left by the middle of the millennium." [...]
The tundra is home to a unique community of plants, roughly five percent of which are endemic, i.e., can only be found in the Arctic. Typical species include the mountain avens, Arctic poppy and prostrate shrubs like willows and birches, all of which have adapted to the harsh local conditions: brief summers and long, arduous winters. It also offers a home for rare species like reindeer, lemmings and insects like the Arctic bumblebee.
The findings speak for themselves: [...] In the majority of scenarios, by mid-millennium less than six percent of today's tundra would remain; saving roughly 30 percent would only be possible with the aid of ambitious greenhouse-gas reduction measures. Otherwise, Siberia's once 4,000-kilometre-long, unbroken tundra belt would shrink to two patches, 2,500 kilometres apart, on the Taimyr Peninsula to the west and Chukotka Peninsula to the east. Interestingly, even if the atmosphere cooled again in the course of the millennium, the forests would not completely release the former tundra areas.
"At this point, it's a matter of life and death for the Siberian tundra," says Eva Klebelsberg, Project Manager Protected Areas and Climate Change / Russian Arctic at the WWF Germany, with regard to the study. [...] "After all, one thing is clear: if we continue with business as usual, this ecosystem will gradually disappear."
Journal Reference:
Stefan Kruse, Ulrike Herzschuh. Regional opportunities for tundra conservation in the next 1000 years [open], eLife, 2022. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.75163
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 02 2022, @09:40PM (1 child)
I so enjoy the rare treat of wearing a shaved scrotum on my bald head with one testicle over each eye and the penis taped down my nose.
It's so cozy.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 03 2022, @03:20PM
Coming soon to the Tucker Carlson online store!
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by HammeredGlass on Thursday June 02 2022, @09:49PM (9 children)
I don't care.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 02 2022, @10:15PM (2 children)
Being in a welfare state you should care! Don't want our supple teat pulled away from your greedy lazy mouthes now do you?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 02 2022, @10:27PM (1 child)
Uh oh, offtopic mod! It is as off-topic as the OP but obviously it is a politically motivated moderation trying to skirt around that fact by using off topic. Snowflake republicans, so hilarious how reliable your insecurities are ;^)
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 02 2022, @11:58PM
Now on flamebait. It is all perfectly accurate, thanks for playing rightwing nutjobs! The truth shall set you free, but only if you have the courage to face it. Being assholes and then throwing tantrums when people point out the ignorance of your assholery is a special kind of special.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 02 2022, @10:16PM
I also don't care. Good riddance tundra. Good riddance humans.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 02 2022, @10:42PM (4 children)
You're too goddamn dumb to know why you should care. No one exists in a vacuum, dipshit. And the AC above you who snarked about removing the government teat is spot on; the red states take much more than they give in terms of federal funds and revenue.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 02 2022, @10:52PM
They also sacrifice more of their sons to fight the silly wars of billionaires. *slow clap*
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @01:07AM (2 children)
You parasites are who need be removed from government teat. Your propaganda jobs are paid from taxes squeezed from people doing honest work; it is past time you go and learn to do something besides lying for hire.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 03 2022, @05:50PM (1 child)
I work in healthcare. What do YOU do for a living? When was the last time you got out of your mother's basement and saw the sun?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @12:24AM
The last time I collected your rent check. PAY ME!!11
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 02 2022, @09:56PM
I taught my pit bull how to fetch by covering my steaming penis with peanut butter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @12:17AM (2 children)
But let's save them bumblebees, they are cool. Ok, reindeers, too, they are ok.
Lemmings can go fuck right off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @01:08AM (1 child)
What about Eskimos? Bjork is kind of cool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @01:41AM
Depends. Is Bjork a bumblebee or lemming?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @12:22AM (2 children)
She will get a lot of much better land and a short sea route to Asia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @10:06AM
Than she can GTFO of the Ukraine and let the people there live in peace.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @02:38PM
Better land? I doubt it. It's the equivalent of marshy bog. Great for drying out and burning as peat in about 1000 years.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @01:22AM (9 children)
...that when the ice packs melt and the glaciers retreat, they find remains of humans, human activity, an human settlements. That implies that in the span of human history, the ice coverage was much less than it is today. That's even after coming out of an ice age 20000 years ago when the planet's temp was much cooler. I mean, if climate is static and glacier size was always at maximum and ice packs always existed at current or greater thickness for 500 million years or more, as the faith and doctrine teachings in the Church of Climate Change bible states, how did those anthropological discoveries get there in the first place? I doubt cavemen in 4000BC dug down 50 meters to start a village.
Things that makes you go hmmmmm.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @02:09AM
Yeah, and how about those pyramids in Egypt, all buried in sand? I mean, if sand is static and the size of the beach was always at maximum and sand dunes always existed at current or greater thickness for 500 million years or more, how did those anthropological discoveries get there in the first place? I doubt that the Assyrians dug down 50 meters to start a village.
Things that make you go hmmmmm. (well, not really, because I'm not a dumbass)
The warnings of a sand shortage is just an alarmist hoax perpetuated by Big Sand.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @03:57AM (3 children)
If there's anything science has shown, it's that any deviation from present conditions means life will cease. If our planet and its lifeforms have shown us anything, it's that they are both static.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @02:44PM (2 children)
Good point, so let's fuck everything up because change durr. Why do all these fucking pricks sound like they're making excuses not to tidy their bedroom? GO AND TIDY YOUR BEDROOM, YOU LITTLE PRICK.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 03 2022, @05:36PM (1 child)
We keep having these arguments about global warming where the FUD side keeps ignoring the low risk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @12:26AM
> ignoring the low risk to me.
FTFY. La la la I can't hear you.
(Score: 4, Touché) by ilsa on Friday June 03 2022, @12:27PM (3 children)
No, anyone who has been paying attention is not going hmmmm.
We know beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt that it used to be a significantly warmer than it is now. The problem is that these swings are supposed to take thousands of years to complete drastic changes. Thanks to human greed, we've compressed that to ~100 years. Ecologies cannot adapt that fast and we are watching a world wide mass extinction event unfolding before our very eyes. It is also causing massive and increasing destructive changes to our climate.
It is exhausting to have to explain this over and over and over and over and over again, all because stupid people would rather listen to those with a vested interest in the current status quo, than the people that actually want us to have a better lives, and to leave a better world for our children.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @01:45PM
Is that you A-Turd? Did your dog step on another bee?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @12:30AM
If we didn't do it, the Russkies or the Chinkies would have done it. And we'd not be speaking the Greatest Language in The World in a hot house gulag forced to gay-marry eachother and have abortions. No thanks, Stalin.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 05 2022, @01:07AM
The story was talking about something 500 years from now. It's a little faster than thousands of years, but not that fast by human standards. And human greed doesn't explain the almost eight billion people on Earth.
It's already un-unfolding in the developed world. And as usual, the enormous role of habitat destruction is being downplayed. Ecologies do better, if they have space to adapt to things like 500 year long climate change.
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Friday June 03 2022, @03:50AM (1 child)
Sounds like the lumber business is gonna be booming in about 30 years.
Easy money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @02:46PM
Thanks for the investment tip, anonymous internet poster! +1
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday June 03 2022, @02:56PM (1 child)
You're trying to convince people who live 120 years at the upper end of things, to fix a problem that won't be a problem for 480 years? That's longer than the United States of America has existed. In fact, that's pre-colonial America time. That's nearly as far back as when Columbus actually "discovered" America.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @12:33AM
Florida is already trying to get the rest of us to prop up their sinking marshland. Yeah Mr. President, the check's coming in 480 years. For some reason they're not happy with that.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 03 2022, @06:41PM (11 children)
More forest would be a good thing. Trees soak up a lot more carbon than swathes of kinnikinnick do. Trees also have established value. If the fad in timber highrises continues we'll have the material to build them.
A milder climate in Siberia might also make for more and better farming there. With the size of the human population we're gonna need it.
That is doubtful. There are lots of islands and penninsula around the Arctic Ocean. At least some of them are sure to retain the ecology and provide habitat for fauna.
A lot of the doomsday thinking and messaging about the environment was couched so to get attention from an indifferent public and to get them to move. Well, now they're moving and that's a good thing. But it's time to shift the messaging from apocalyptica to phlegmatic pragmatism about the risks and opportunities in shifting to a more sustainable economy (and really that's what we're talking about here, ie., the effect of climate change on human civilization. Nature will look after herself...).
A warmer Siberia (and Canada) are a good thing.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @08:21PM (1 child)
"A milder climate in Siberia might also make for more and better farming there. With the size of the human population we're gonna need it."
We have less land under cultivation than before but produce more.
Just about all parts of the world are below reproduction replacement rate except sub-Saharan Africa.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday June 05 2022, @10:49PM
That's a good thing, isn't it? Theoretically if we can move to living in arcologies instead of 20th-century high-rises and sprawl then we'd need less land to house the humans, too.
Is that so? I had most recently read the developed world was that way, but the 3rd world was burgeoning. It's been a decade since that was, so maybe things have changed (?)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 04 2022, @04:23AM (8 children)
And you want Russia to become the world's breadbasket? Think about the geopolitical implications.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @09:49AM
Only big problems are if you start nuking each other. And that could happen whether there's climate change or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2022, @07:04PM (3 children)
Won't someone think of the Russia-hating Jews!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 04 2022, @11:45PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 05 2022, @12:43AM (1 child)
Jews and Nazis make up approximately 0.1% of the population through all time, yet 75% of the history taught in American (aka the History Channel). Occult secrets of the Nazis makes up the remaining 25%.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 05 2022, @01:13AM
Maybe you should take it up with the History Channel? That argument is completely irrelevant to actual history.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday June 05 2022, @01:10AM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday June 05 2022, @10:53PM (1 child)
I predict it's going to be a moot point because Beijing will swallow Moscow. How can they not? They have 1 billion+ people hungering for the massive resources in Siberia that they could help themselves to if only there wasn't an invisible line keeping them from them.
It's gonna be the second coming of the Golden Horde, except that they'll be riding scooters and miandi [duckduckgo.com] instead of horses and wagons.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday June 06 2022, @04:04AM
Even if that numerical advantage can survive both convention Russian forces and the enormously long supply lines, there's still the very visible line of nuclear weapons. Russia can with some effort eliminate the vast majority of those billion plus people. Maybe that will change in a few decades, but it's the reality now.