1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Climate Change? Nahhh ...

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Riptide, Oct 23, 2015.

  1. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

  2. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

  3. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

    That article deserves exploration in greater detail. (If you’re on an Apple device, this one is free on Apple News.)

    Scientists have documented an abnormal and dramatic surge in sea levels along the U.S. gulf and southeastern coastlines since about 2010, raising new questions about whether New Orleans, Miami, Houston and other coastal communities might be even more at risk from rising seas than once predicted.

    The acceleration, while relatively short-lived so far, could have far-reaching consequences in an area of the United States that has seen massive development as the wetlands, mangroves and shorelines that once protected it are shrinking. An already vulnerable landscape that is home to millions of people is growing more vulnerable, more quickly, potentially putting a large swath of America at greater risk from severe storms and flooding.

    The increase has already had major effects, researchers found. One study suggests that recent devastating hurricanes, including Michael in 2018 and Ian last year, were made considerably worse by a faster-rising ocean. Federal tide gauge data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggest that the sea level, as measured by tide gauge at Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, is eight inches higher than it was in 2006, just after Hurricane Katrina.

    “The entire Southeast coast and the Gulf Coast is feeling the impact of the sea level rise acceleration,” said Jianjun Yin, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona and the author of one of two academic studies published in recent weeks that describe the changes.

    Yin’s study, published in the Journal of Climate, calculates the rate of sea level rise since 2010 at over 10 millimeters — or one centimeter — per year in the region, or nearly 5 inches in total through 2022. That is more than double the global average rate of about 4.5 millimeters per year since 2010, based on satellite observations of sea level from experts at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

    While the annual totals might sound minor, even small changes in sea levels over time can have destructive consequences. Yin’s study suggested that Hurricanes Michael and Ian, two of the strongest storms ever to hit the United States, were made considerably worse in part from additional sea level rise.

    “It turns out that the water level associated with Hurricane Ian was the highest on record due to the combined effect of sea level rise and storm surge,” Yin said.

    A second study by a long list of sea level experts, led by Sönke Dangendorf of Tulane University and published in Nature Communications, finds the same trend since 2010 across the U.S. Gulf Coast and southeastern coastlines, calling the rise “unprecedented in at least 120 years.”

    “It’s a window into the future,” said Dangendorf, who collaborated with experts at multiple U.S. institutions and Britain’s National Oceanography Center. The rates are so high in recent years, Dangendorf said, that they’re similar to what would be expected at the end of the century in a very high greenhouse gas emissions scenario.

    An additional two studies on rapid sea level rise and how it is affecting the region have been released by scientists in preprint form but have not yet passed through peer review, suggesting a swell of scientific attention on the subject.

    The new findings are striking in part because the rapid rise appears to be caused by profound changes in the ocean. In parts of Texas and Louisiana, sinking land has long been a factor that contributes to sea levels growing relatively higher over time. But in the latest studies, scientists show a rapid rise of sea levels in places such as Pensacola and Cedar Key, Fla., where the land is not sinking as rapidly as it is in places such as Grand Isle, La., or Galveston, Tex.

    In general, higher seas in the Gulf of Mexico and around Florida mean that hurricane risks in some of the most exposed and storm-prone parts of the United States are growing only more acute.

    In addition, as seas rise and people continue to move to high-risk areas along the coasts, scientists say that millions of acres of U.S. land and hundreds of thousands of homes and offices could slip below swelling tide lines. Experts from the nonprofit First Street Foundation also projected recently that properties in many coastal areas could lose value as flooding intensifies, a shift that could harm homeowners and erode local tax bases.

    Scientists are not entirely on the same page about the causes driving the phenomenon, or whether the recent acceleration in rising seas will continue at such a rapid clip. Researchers typically prefer to rely on decades of data to be more certain of trends in the climate system, and their causes. In that context, the recent sea level rise has happened over a relatively short time period. That makes the trend as ambiguous as it is worrying.

    Still, this much seems clear: The rapid sea level rise appears to start in the Gulf of Mexico, which has been warming far faster than the global ocean. Warm water naturally expands, causing sea levels to rise. That warm water also gets carried by currents out of the gulf and along the East Coast, affecting places such as Georgia and the Carolinas.​

    But it’s probably more like a religion. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
     
    Neutral Corner and Azrael like this.
  4. goalmouth

    goalmouth Well-Known Member

    There are tropical plant species along the southern coast of England, from the current of warm Gulf waters.
     
  5. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

  6. wicked

    wicked Well-Known Member

    A couple months ago they busted a school department's deputy IT guy for running a crypto mining operation at one of the schools. He stationed computers in the office ceiling and they were running 24-7.
     
    justgladtobehere likes this.
  7. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

  8. Hermes

    Hermes Well-Known Member

    My daddy was a Bitcoin miner. His daddy was a Bitcoin miner. This is our heritage.
     
    Azrael likes this.
  9. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Would have been a bit more honest if that New York Times story had compared the energy use of bitcoin mining to other COMMERCIAL entreprises rather than the repeated residential use comparison (they are screwing people!). I have no idea how it would look, but it would at least be honest. ... even if it still isn't the case for the luddite idea of limiting industries based on who some people deem virtuous and who they deem unnecessray.

    It's worth pointing out htat everyone is operating in the same market for that electricity. Those bitcoin miners are not given any advantage.

    Also, from what I have seen throughout the day. ... the bitcoin evangelicals (who I am usually not a huge fan of) are saying that the numbers in that article are garbage. ... overstating the actual use of fossil fuels by those miners, and then overstating the emmissions. ... by a huge factor. If they are correct, part of it was the writer not understanding the data he tried to shoehorn to fit what he was saying, and the other part was due to some serious cherry-picking, which suggests a hit piece.

    I don't care enough about it to try to try to evaluate what they are saying, but the writer used marginal emissions accounting when it made bitcoin look good and attributional accounting when it made bitcoin look bad.

    I think that evenhandness just for the sake of appearing even handed is an exercise in masturbation a lot of the time. ... but also, if you do a piece like that, shouldn't yu have someone (anyone) from the industry explain to readers what bitcoin is and what it does. ... people making their pitch for its value to the world. That wouldn't have worked, however, because that was written to kind of state that it has absolutely zero value and its energy consumption is a waste, and he didn't want to muck it up with anyone challenging that assertion. Again, not that what the loudest voices deem good versus bad should be the arbiter of anything.

    One thing that is curious to me, just on the face of what he wrote. ... if bitcoin is using that much fossil fuel energy production, wouldn't it be spurring a build out of the more expensive marginal renewable energy sources? Not by decree. ... but by giving the market price signals (how novel) and price determining where the market goes? Because that article describes huge power use (as much as all the homes in NYC!), but somehow it has not incentized any renewable buildout, which at the higher prices all of that bitcoin mining is supposedly the sole cause of with all of its demand, would make marginal renewable sources very competitive.

     
  10. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

  11. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    This thinking is where the trend's goin...
     
  12. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Why banking uses at least 56 times more energy than Bitcoin

    Decentralized blockchain-based solutions could not only replace banks with the benefits of faster transactions, much greater security and lower fees. ... but are they actually even more environmentally friendly, to boot?

    The bitcoin freaks would say you just need to "reimagine" things.

    BTW. ... The energy wasted by plugged-in but inactive home devices in the US alone could power bitcoin mining for close to two years (according to one of your links and it was written several years ago when there was way more bitcoin mining than there is currently because bitcoin prices had run up and were drawing a lot of miners).
     
    Azrael likes this.
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page