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GoBlueHiker 
Obsessive Island Hopper...
Group: Members
Posts: 14069
Joined: Jul. 2006
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Posted on: Oct. 04 2012, 10:27 am |
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Let me be the first to say "Well, duh." Those who look at the science have been saying it for some time now. The fact that the model projections are bearing themselves out in the global trends is no surprise to anyone who's been paying attention.
Although--that doesn't make it any less alarming to see it happening in front of you.
On a side note, my instruments buried in the snow up in Greenland this Spring melted out completely in an area they never should've... The summer temps in that part of Greenland were 4-5 standard deviations above normal. Freakishly warm. I have to redesign them and try it again.
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Wealth needs more. Happiness needs less. Simplify.
www.RainForestTreks.com
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| Post Number: 3
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High_Sierra_Fan
Group: Members
Posts: 39589
Joined: Aug. 2005
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Posted on: Oct. 04 2012, 11:44 am |
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Ah the vagaries joys of field work.
There was actually a lunch time course for that at Scripps: informally titled "what can and will go wrong when you get out of the lab into the real world" or some such. Rather an eye opener for the lab/theory types they tended to bring in as grad students. 
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GoBlueHiker
Obsessive Island Hopper...
Group: Members
Posts: 14069
Joined: Jul. 2006
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Posted on: Oct. 04 2012, 12:21 pm |
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It's not all for a loss. Our team took very detailed measurements there on the surface layers, and saw what we're pretty sure was a dramatic change in recent years (the last 10 years' looking very different than the deeper stuff, although we couldn't drill deep enough to make the conclusion definitively). This year being such a big melt year there, we can go back this next spring and quantify--in great detail--just what one big melt summer like 2012 did to the surface stratigraphy, and how many more such summers it'd take to begin changing the ice flow characteristics in the deeper ice up in the accumulation zone. That'll likely prove a bigger result than anything I was gonna get from those instruments this year. However, I do need to re-design and try again. It's not easy designing new instruments from scratch (not off-the-shelf) and having everything work perfectly. I had profs with decades of field experience help me design them. Even the guys who've been up there many years had their GPS station melt out and topple over in our camp. 5 standard deviations is 0.00003% probability of it being that warm in a given year. I'm not sure I shoulda been expected to plan for that. 
FWIW, I'm not one of the "lab/theory types" brought in as a grad student. I had a helluva lot more field experience than a number the folks there, even being a first-timer in Greenland. Although it was definitely a learning experience.
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Wealth needs more. Happiness needs less. Simplify.
www.RainForestTreks.com
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N2theWild
Group: Members
Posts: 1641
Joined: Feb. 2008
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Posted on: Oct. 04 2012, 3:35 pm |
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Quick! Pass a bunch of taxes and regulations to combat Climate Change! That should fix it!
Never mind the fact that there have always been weather patterns on the Earth.
Buncha fearmongers.
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For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, (2 Timothy 4:3)
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GoBlueHiker
Obsessive Island Hopper...
Group: Members
Posts: 14069
Joined: Jul. 2006
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Posted on: Oct. 04 2012, 3:49 pm |
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^ Thanks. That was intelligent.
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Wealth needs more. Happiness needs less. Simplify.
www.RainForestTreks.com
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| Post Number: 7
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Ecocentric
Group: Members
Posts: 3846
Joined: Jun. 2009
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Posted on: Oct. 04 2012, 7:40 pm |
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Perhaps N2theWild recently thawed from a glacier where he has been trapped for 10,000 years. It might be the only thing that would make him valuable to science.
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"Travel suggestions from strangers are like dancing lessons from God." -Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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Drake
Group: Members
Posts: 1068
Joined: Jul. 2007
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Posted on: Oct. 06 2012, 9:05 am |
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Seems that stone-age man is in a hurry to get back there. Good thing he ain't drivin' the bus.
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Drake
Group: Members
Posts: 1068
Joined: Jul. 2007
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Posted on: Oct. 06 2012, 10:02 am |
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Your question should be "why won't so many people think, period?"
The thoughtless are always in ample supply, regardless their political and/or economic philosophies, their rights not to be infringed, because rigorous thinking, what used to be referred to as contemplation and not practiced by many, is a lot of work, attended by uncertainty, with any and all conclusions derived therethrough always subject to revision.
Truth is not out there. It is not anywhere else either.
Which makes a lot of folks very uncomfortable. Bummer. Tough noogies. Doesn't change the reality. My advice is to my kids was and is to suck it up and start thinking.
They're pretty good at it now.
HYOH
Drake
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| Post Number: 11
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OldKansan
Group: Members
Posts: 72
Joined: Aug. 2011
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Posted on: Oct. 06 2012, 11:00 am |
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The debate on "Climate Change" will be settled in a hundred years or so when we can look back. The real question is: "Is it bad?". Obviously it has negative effects in specific areas. Any change has impact.
However, at periods in the past when the earth was much warmer, life proliferated profoundly. Both plant & animal life was bigger & more diverse. Siberia & northern Canada may become the new "Bread Basket" for the word.
It is a fact that change is the only constant. It is only bad if you can't or won't adapt.
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| Post Number: 12
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Ecocentric
Group: Members
Posts: 3846
Joined: Jun. 2009
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Posted on: Oct. 07 2012, 8:43 pm |
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OldKansan, that perspective is fine when thinking of change where the cause is anything but the cumulative product of short sighted choices. We are making choices that have a negative impact on global systems, with millions of species becoming extinct as a result of those choices. I suspect that you are someone that thinks that people should take responsibility for their choices. Why would that not apply to nature?
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"Travel suggestions from strangers are like dancing lessons from God." -Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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Survival Skills 101 • Eat Better
