A couple of weeks ago, back on the 14th, I posted a warning about leaving dogs in cars if there was the slightest risk of the car being left in the sun.
I feel no embarrassment whatsoever to repeat that warning. This time by republishing an item that was published on Monday on Care2 Causes.
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Firefighters Rescue Dogs Baking Alive in 160 Degree Car
In yet another outrageous case of neglect, three Sacramento, Calif., dogs were found baking alive inside a car that had reached 160 degrees Fahrenheit (71 C).
A Sacramento Fire Department crew circled the vehicle parked at a shopping mall. Using a thermometer designed to detect the car’s internal temperature, the crew quickly determined that the dogs weren’t just hot, they were literally cooking.
The dog seen here panting on the car’s dashboard was immediately taken from the vehicle, and the other two were removed by Animal Control because they were exhibiting aggressive behavior.
This is not the first time that firefighters in Sacramento have had to rescue dogs from a hot car. In fact, they filmed one such rescue last summer.
If you see a dog in a hot car, please take action. Remember, one phone call may not be enough. Wait and see it through to be sure authorities arrive.
Photo Credit: Sacramento Fire Department
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The original article includes a video that is on Facebook that I seem unable to include within this post. But please go here and view it for yourself. (It will require you to log in to your Facebook account.)
Also, please share the information on this post and the one on the 14th as far and wide as you can.
Not exclusively the domain of the male human species!
As most of you know yesterday was Father’s Day. But offering memorial pictures of our recently deceased Hazel was far more important.
Nonetheless, I had seen an item published over on the Care2 site that I wanted to share with you. Namely, that amazing dads are also a feature of the animal kingdom. Granted, not all animals but nevertheless of sufficient importance to attract the attention of The Smithsonian. Or in their words:
Most mammal dads wouldn’t exactly win the “Best Father of the Year” award.
Engaged fathers—those who care for their offspring or bring home the bacon so their female mates can focus on childcare—are present in only about 10 percent of mammal species. But for the rare few who do stick around, the rewards can be myriad: new research finds that parenting efforts pay big dividends for offspring and mates alike. Stay-at-home dads appear to boost reproductive success among their mates by enabling them to breed more frequently and produce larger litters, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature Communications.
Editor’s note: This post is a Care2 favorite, back by popular demand. It was originally posted on June 14, 2014. Enjoy!
Not all non-human animal dads are cut out for family life, but there are a number of species who have become known for their role as fathers who deserve a salute, from giant water bugs who carry dozens of eggs on their backs to males who actually get pregnant and dads who operate solo as single parents. This Father’s Day, it’s time to celebrate some of the amazing dads from the animal kingdom who go above and beyond when it comes raising and protecting their young.
Red Fox
Male red foxes aren’t just loving mates, but excited and protective fathers. They take on the task of providing food for their mates every few hours for about a month after she gives birth. Then they take on the role of teacher – but teachers who like to take time out to play. Even when it’s time to get serious and teach their young how to start finding their own food, fox dads help them out and make sure they don’t really go hungry by hiding it near their dens.
Emperor Penguin
After females lay a single precious egg, Emperor penguin dads take over the responsibility of incubating it by balancing it precariously on their feet and keeping it warm under their feathers in the frigid Antarctic weather while mothers go off to feed. Dads can go for about two months without eating until the egg hatches, at which point he will feed it before mother’s return to give them a break from baby-duty.
Emperor Penguin Protecting Offspring from the Cold
Sea Horse
Seahorses, who are also known to mate for life, have reverse roles; the females compete for males, and the males don’t just play a role in pregnancy, but actually get pregnant. Females deposit their eggs in the male’s pouch, where he fertilizes and carries them until tiny baby seahorses emerge fully developed. According to Science Daily, the process of male pregnancy is unique to the fish family Syngnathidae, which also includes pipefish and sea dragons.
Black seahorse among seaweed
Spotted Sandpiper
It doesn’t happen every time, but sandpipers have been found to reverse roles where female sandpipers establish and defend territory, while taking on multiple male partners. After luring a male to mate with and laying her eggs, she takes off to find another mate. Dad meanwhile stays to incubate the eggs and becomes the primary caregiver for the young for the first few weeks of their lives.
Spotted Sandpiper
Gray Wolf
Despite the myths surrounding wolves that make them out to be villains, alpha male are loving, loyal and protective mates, fathers and leaders. Also known to mate for life, males who breed will guard their partners and pups while they’re in the den and take on the responsibility of finding everyone food. Even as pups grow older, dads will take on the role of teacher, helping them learn their role in the pack and the world.
Mother and son
Great Horned Owl
Great horned owl dads are the stereotypical breadwinners in their families. After finding the perfect home with their mates, male great horned owls take on the role of provider by hunting enough to feed himself and his mate, who is bigger than he is, before taking on the added responsibility of hunting for their young when they hatch.
Grumpy Owl
North American Beaver
Beaver dads are devoted family men, handymen and providers in the animal world. They mate for life and take on a co-parenting role in raising their young until they’re about 2-years-old, while helping care for them and teaching them how to become successful ecosystem engineers before they go off and start families of their own.
In 2012, a beaver in Martinez, Calif., known as “Dad” raised fears about what would happen to his young after his mate died from an infection, but he showed us he could do it all as a single father of three.
Beaver Wearing Leaf
Titi Monkey
Male titi monkeys, who are known for monogamous relationships, are also known for the strong bond they build with their young as primary caregivers. Except for time spent with mom nursing, babies spend the rest of their time being carried around, cared for and protected by their fathers for the first few months of their lives.
Titi Monkey
Rhea
As members of a polygamous species, male rheas have a lot of partners, but when it comes to child-rearing these dads pull their weight and then some. Males can have up to a dozen or so female partners who all lay eggs in a nest he builds before they leave. Males then take on the role of incubating and guarding what can be more than 50 eggs for close to two months before taking on the role of a single parent after they hatch. Males have also been known to adopt orphaned chicks who have been separated from their brood.
Nandu Greater Rhea
Darwin’s Frog
Darwin’s frog dads, who are native to South America, have come up with a neat and bizarre way to protect their offspring from predators. While they breed like other amphibians, where females lay eggs in the water that are fertilized by males, the males of this species take the fertilized eggs into their mouths, store them in their vocal sacs and keep them there until they’re fully developed frogs — at which point he throws them up.
Except that the precise moment of the Summer Solstice is later today or Monday, June 20, 2016 at 3:34 PM PDT to be exact. In universal time (UTC) that is Monday, June 20, 2016 at 22:34 UTC.
However, it is a rather special solstice and all will be explained in tomorrow’s post, albeit a little under nine hours after the event!
Hot, fine weather does carry a risk – for our dogs.
A week today will see us celebrating the Summer Solstice and for much of the Northern Hemisphere the heat of the summer days soon will be upon us. Both we and our dogs love taking a bit of sunshine but equally for both species the danger of heat stroke is not to be underestimated.
So it seemed highly appropriate to republish an article that was presented over on Care2 a couple of weeks ago.
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Five Factors That Put a Dog at Risk for Heatstroke
Summer can be an incredibly fun season for dogs and their active owners. There are walks to go on, boat rides to take and beaches to explore!
But for all the fantastic opportunities summertime offers, there are also a number of seasonal dangers. A serious one that all dog owners should keep in mind is heatstroke. While all dogs are at risk of heatstroke, there are a few factors that can make your dog more vulnerable. From the genetic predisposition of certain breeds to the dangers some outdoor dogs face, here are five heatstroke risk factors to be aware of — and avoid.
Congenital Defects or Underlying Respiratory Problems
Upper-airway problems, as seen in flat-faced dogs like Pugs and Boxers, are some of the most common risk factors for heatstroke in dogs exposed to higher temperatures, according to Dr. Debbie Mandell, staff veterinarian and adjunct associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital. As dogs get hotter, they pant to cool down, and brachycephalic breeds have a difficult time breathing so hard in hot conditions.
Brachycephalic airway syndrome isn’t the only potential issue. Large and medium breeds, like Labs and Pit Bulls, can experience laryngeal paralysis, and collapsing trachea commonly affects small dogs like Pomeranians and Yorkies. With both conditions, the dogs’ airways swell as they pant, which causes them to pant harder. That in turn increases the swelling and can create a dangerous situation quite quickly.
Not Being Acclimated to Hot Weather
That sunny weather can be so inviting that it’s nearly impossible to remain indoors, especially if you — and your dog — have been stuck inside for months. But it’s important to remember that even if you’ve been hitting the gym during the cooler months, your dog might not have built up the same tolerance for activity. And if you take him out to run or play with you, he’s not going to know when to stop, even if he reaches the brink of collapse due to heat stress, Dr. Mandell says.
So what’s a responsible dog owner to do? First of all, start with a visit to your vet, so you’re sure your dog is healthy enough for increased exercise. Second, exercise restraint when it comes to, well, exercise. Start off slowly and build up your dog’s fitness very gradually. Third, make sure you know the signs of heat stress (like excessive panting and drooling, a fast pulse and gums that have changed in color from pink to bright red) and be prepared to help your dog cool down before it becomes an emergency. If your dog vomits or has bloody diarrhea, you should call your veterinarian immediately.
Being Kept Outdoors Without Access to Shade and Water
It’s not only indoor dogs who aren’t used to the heat who can find themselves at heatstroke risk — dogs who live primarily outdoors can land in trouble come summertime, too, if they’re left without shade and water. Of course, it’s best for dogs to be kept primarily indoors, but if a dog must be mostly outdoors, always provide a cool area out of the sun and plenty of fresh water.
Being Left In the Car
When it comes to ways to avoid heatstroke risk, never, ever leave a pet in a hot car. The temperature inside a car can reach over 120 degrees in minutes, Dr. Mandell says. And no, cracking the window doesn’t make enough of a difference to help.
Should you see an animal locked inside a hot car, there are ways to safely rescue it. The Humane Society of the United States and the ASPCA recommend that you write down the car’s make, model and license plate; attempt to locate the owner; and call animal control or your local police department for help.
Obesity and Thick Fur
Obesity can make dogs more susceptible to a whole host of health issues, including heatstroke. That’s because not all heat escapes dogs through the respiratory system; in fact, some heat loss occurs through the skin. But the layer of fat in obese pets can limit their ability to cool themselves that way.
That layer of fat under the skin serves as insulation and can prevent some of that heat from getting to the skin to be released. Thick fur can create the same problem, so furry dog breeds, like Newfoundlands and Great Pyrenees are at similar risk.
By Kristen Seymour | Vetstreet.com
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If any reader has further advice and tips to help others then please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.
These seem like times where very little makes sense.
Blogger Patrice Ayme posted an item on Wednesday under the title of Doomed Dems. It was, inevitably, a commentary on the recent news regarding Donald Trump. Here’s how Patrice’s post opens:
So Donald Trump will be the Republican committee ( 😉 ) for the presidency. And Trump will, probably, be elected US president. Why? Because people want change, and they did not get it. Instead they got more of the drift down, after the reign of the teleprompter reading president. Average family income is DOWN $4,000 since (“Bill”) Clinton’s last year as president. According to a FOX News poll, 64% of Americans blame Wall Street. Meanwhile in a vast report in the New York Times, Obama celebrates, in May 2016, the alliance he said he made with Wall Street in 2008.
Later on in that same post, Patrice goes on to write about the horrific fire in Alberta, Canada, and the damage to trees in Yosemite National Park in California. At first sight those two events would appear disconnected. But not according to Patrice:
Meanwhile a friend of mine went to Yosemite ten days ago. She told me she could not believe the devastation of the forest. Most of it is fiery red. It is devastated by the Pine Bark Beetle. To kill the Beetle, one needs twenty days well below freezing. However, this hard freeze is now a memory. So the Beetle invades, and kills forest. Treating tree by tree is hopelessly expensive, and futile. Yes, the forests will burn soon, adding to CO2 in the atmosphere. And it is all the way like that to Alaska.
Massive walls of flames prompted authorities to order the evacuation of all the city’s more than 80,000 residents last night. The blaze has been caused by un-naturally high temperatures. Such giant fires are our immediate future. Nobody said the Greenhouse crisis was going to be nice. More evacuations coming.
Anything to do with dogs? Well, yes!
For this coming Saturday I am giving a talk about my book, Learning from Dogs, to our local Rogue Valley Humanist and Freethinkers (both Jean and I are members) and it struck me that what Patrice wrote about and what we see all around us are part of the same big picture. That we need to be reminded of a few fundamentals. As I will be saying in my talk:
Dogs are creatures of integrity! Wow! Now you might see where this is leading to!
But more than that, much more than that, they offer us humans a model for a range of behavioural qualities that we ignore at our peril:
I then list the qualities that we see in our dogs, and continue:
Hold those values close to you for just a few moments. Imagine what would flow out across the world if those were the characteristics, the behavioural values, of us humans!
Finally, towards the end of that talk on Saturday I will be saying:
Nature will always have the last word regarding her natural world, to which we humans are so intricately linked. Standing alongside and respecting nature as the future comes to us will be so much wiser than pushing back against nature, and ultimately failing, trying to “convert” nature to some form of materialistic human resource. Because that route will only return those of us who survive to a life of hunting and gathering. Which, so many thousands of years previously, is where early dogs started humankind on the long journey leading to now.
Dogs have been the making of humans and a viable future for humankind on this beautiful planet depends on us never forgetting this oldest relationship of all, the one between dog and human.
Because if we, as a global society, don’t understand that when it comes to power all the plutocrats and all of their money come to naught in contrast to the power of nature then these present lands are going to become very strange indeed!
And nature is rapidly encroaching on these lands that we are now traversing.
Now for something very different to the Dog Tired photographs.
I can’t recall how I came across the following photographs but they were seen on the website of Humbert & Shirley Fernandez and recommended for sharing with others. I agree and you will see why!
The Grand Canyon of Arizona
Welcome to awesome Photos of the Grand Canyon.
There is a Grand Canyon of Yellowstone which is nice, but no comparison to the beauty and Grandeur of the Grand Canyon of Arizona.
Following, are real photos taken by Professionals that most visitors are unable to capture with their cameras. The Photos were received in an email, too good to delete, should be shared with others. They are posted here for people to see and enjoy.
Pueblo-like dwellings over the Colorado River at Nankoweap Creek.
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Horseshoe Bend
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Canyon Walls as viewed from the Colorado River.
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Grand Canyon Colors varies with the position of the Earth relative to the Sun.
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Bright Angel Trail
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Cheyava Falls
Another set of these stunning views of the Grand Canyon in a week’s time.
You all take care of yourselves and don’t stand too close to cliff edges!
A fabulous example of how we reach out to others across the internet!
A week-and-a-half ago in came an email to me:
Hi Paul,
Just came across a post of yours for Earth Day 2014.
Absolutely love the fact that you’ve written about a “Green” topic!
In fact, I wanted to reach out and let you know that in honor of this year’s Earth Day (April 22), I just finished designing an infographic about 14 easy ways dog owners can become more environmentally friendly people.
Would it be okay with you if I passed it along? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!
Best,
Mike
Mike was Mike Shannon, about which more at the bottom of this guest post. Of course, I was delighted to receive his lovely guest post and infographic. Over to Mike.
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In its 46th anniversary to date, Earth Day is bound to continue to do what it has always succeeded in doing, help raise awareness among† individuals from all across the globe about environmentally-friendly topics so they work together to make this† world a better place to live in for the future generations to come.
In honor of this year’s Earth Day, which happens to be on Friday, April the 22nd, Ultimate Home Life have designed an info-graphic† that explains the most important 14 steps you can take as of today to go green with your dog.
This topic is certainly nothing to be taken lightly, and most certainly nothing of the impossible. Just look at the statistic provided at the beginning of the info-graphic – nearly 50% of families in the United States alone have a dog at home, which makes for more than 70 million dogs!
Let’s kick off our “going green” mission this year by making our dogs greener, one dog at a time.
If you have any tips for going green with your dog, make yourself heard in the comments!
Bio: Michael is the creator, editor, webmaster – alright, let’s just say he runs the show over at UltimateHomeLife.Com! He regularly blogs about anything and everything dog related, with an emphasis on trying to cover all questions that dog owners tend to worry about. So, hop over and give him a bark!
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What a fabulous and highly pertinent post for these times.
Happy Earth Day to all of us and our wonderful dogs right across this magnificent planet.
The force of public opinion has never been more important; critically so!
As you all know this world of blogging: authors; followers; readers, is a great number of wonderful communities right across the planet. It is nothing like the traditional media, now owned and controlled by just a handful of large corporations, because the vast majority of blogging participants are free to say what they want, when they want.
Here’s an example.
Martin Lack is an Englishman who is the author of the blog Lack of Environment. As his home page quietly states:
Although scientificly trained (with degrees in Geology and Hydrogeology – see my About page), this blog arises from my having also got an MA in Environmental Politics and, as such, as the tagline indicates, is a blog on “the politics and psychology underlying the denial of all our environmental problems”… I hope you will take this on board; and enjoy the discussion.
“There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation” – Herman E. Daly (former World Bank economist).
The science about the chemistry of climate change especially the new danger of methane is clear. The commitment of our political leaders is less clear. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep shouting out loud.
The Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London, SW1A 2AA
Dear Prime Minister,
Whatever happened to the greenest government ever?
Given my experience of working in environmental consultancy or regulation, I understand the importance of making pragmatic, risk-based decisions (as opposed to dogmatic, opinion-based ones). I therefore believe that government policy should be formulated this way. Unfortunately, however, this does not always seem to be the case.
As a pragmatic scientist, I am not ideologically opposed to nuclear power. However, I do question the logic of pursuing ‘Hinkley Point C’ when equivalent investment in distributed renewable technologies – from domestic solar PV to submarine tidal stream – could probably generate more electricity faster. Indeed, as Greenpeace has recently pointed out, the UK could meet nearly all its electricity generation needs from renewable energy sources by 2030.[1]
With regard to risk, the scientific consensus is that, in order to minimise anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD), the World must now embark upon the fastest-possible transition to a zero carbon economy. Therefore, I also question the logic of simultaneously promoting investment in shale gas; discouraging investment in renewables; and cancelling investment in Carbon Capture and Storage research.
It is now over 50 years since scientists started warning of the climatic implications of continuing to burn fossil fuels;[2] and 50 years since fossil fuel company executives started spending huge sums of money on being “Merchants of Doubt”.[3] As such, along with their counterparts in the tobacco industry, they have clearly not acted in the long-term interest of humanity as a whole.
However, as with the individual health benefit of ceasing to smoke tobacco, the sooner we stop burning fossil fuels the greater the collective environmental benefit will be. Therefore, I am pragmatically opposed to shale gas exploration because burning it is not consistent with the need to transition away from fossil fuels as fast as possible.
I am certain that you would like to secure an enduring political legacy; and would therefore like to ask just one question:
What could be better than being remembered as the Prime Minister that committed the UK to meeting nearly all its electricity generation needs from renewable energy sources by 2030?
Let me finish today’s post by republishing an exchange between Patrice Ayme and Martin over on a recent PA essay, that I republished in full in this place: Runaway Antarctica.
Martin:
I know I am wasting my time writing letters to David Cameron; and I know my opinions are irrelevant. However, the facts of history are not; nor will they be in the future.
Patrice:
I know you are doing the right thing. Writing to Cameron is entirely correct. But of course, he is a guy with just a salary and a few “savings”, a few tens of millions dollars of savings, maybe, or maybe not, and knew nothing about his recently deceased father having a fund of around 50 million dollars sheltered by shell companies, out there, somewhere related to Panama, or the British Virgin Islands, or the Bahamas, or Bermuda, whatever…
OK, David’s wife, officially, has a fund of more than twenty million pounds….
Martin:
For the record: I am socially-conservative (i.e. as opposed to liberal) but under no illusion as to the folly of what has been called ‘money fetishism’ (Karl Marx); and ‘growthmania’ (Herman E. Daly).
Patrice:
Hi Martin, thanks for the comment. I spent a whole hour reading the hard cover version of the paper the electronic version of which I criticized above. It’s quite a bit different. They use RCPs (Reasonable Carbon Projections, or the like in meaning). Yet, they don’t explain what they consist of exactly. All I know is that we are around 500 ppmv, and they work with 400 ppmv, in the 130 K-115 K years BP, when orbital conditions were cooler than now.
Plus we are going to be at 550 ppmv within ten years, at the present rate. The earliest date they have for the failure of Larsen C in their worst RCP 8.5 is 2055 CE. I would be surprised if it did not fail within ten years.
However, the paper version is more insistent on the danger of AIR warming, not just subsurface.
Also the Hansen paper has a scenario, which is suitably apocalyptic, but not apocalyptic enough in my book. Temperatures over the Arctic were strikingly high this winter, of the order of 4 to 5 degrees Centigrade higher than normal, and sometimes more. Nobody expected this sort of jumps. Except for yours truly!
Martin:
Thanks for the explanation, Patrice. This is all very reminiscent of the position of (Arizona) Professor Guy McPherson, who believes most scientists are in denial about the consequences of multiple positive feedback mechanisms we can already see operating: http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/what-on-earth-are-we-doing/
You all have a wonderful weekend and keep hugging those dogs of yours!
Now one might argue that this has nothing whatsoever to do with Learning from Dogs but I would disagree. For as I declare in The Vision of this blog:
It seems to me that a Vision statement should encapsulate just why the owners of the enterprise are committed to that venture. The author of Learning from Dogs is committed to this project; here is the Vision.
Our children require a world that understands the importance of faith, integrity and honesty
Learning from Dogs will serve as a reminder of the values of life and the power of unconditional love – as so many, many dogs prove each and every day
Constantly trying to get to the truth …
The power of greater self-awareness and faith; faith that the only way forward for us is through the truth …
For in a very real and devastating way even a small rise in global sea level is going to cause tens of thousands of dogs, and their loving owners, to become homeless. We are long overdue a commitment from our global leaders and power-brokers to that, “.. faith, integrity and honesty.”
However, championing that greater self-awareness is what blogger Patrice Ayme does almost all of the time. With his kind permission, I republish his latest post on the state of the Antarctic Ice.
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Runaway Antarctica
I have written for years that a runaway Antarctica was certain, with half the icy continent melting rather spectacularly on an horizon of two centuries at most, and probably much less than that. This rested on the fact that half of Antarctica rests on nothing but bedrock at the bottom of the sea. At the bottom of what should naturally be the sea, in the present circumstances of significant greenhouse gas concentrations.
Visualize this: until sometimes in the Nineteenth Century, GreenHouse Gas (GHG) concentration was 280 ppm (280 parts per million), including the man-made sort. Now we are close to 500 ppm, using a variety of exotic gases we produce industrially, among them, CO2. In CO2 alone we are at: Week beginning on March 20, 2016: 405.62 ppm. Weekly value from 1 year ago: 401.43 ppm. Weekly value from 10 years ago: 382.76 ppm. So the CO2 alone is augmenting at a bit more than 1% a year. Thus we will be at an equivalent of 550 ppm in ten years (including the full panoply of all the other man-made greenhouse gases, not just CO2). There is evidence that, with just 400 ppm, disaster is guaranteed.
Now visualize this:
How Antarctica would appear if its ice melted: it’s half under the sea.
Why so watery? Because the enormous glaciers, up to nearly 5,000 meter thick, press down on the continent with their enormous weight. Since the end of the last glaciation, 10,000 years ago, Scandinavia has been rising, and is still rising (I long used a picture with a similar information about Antarctica’s bedrock.)
Polar temperatures over the last several million years have, at times, been slightly warmer than today, yet global mean sea level has been 6–9 metres higher as recently as the Last Interglacial (130,000 to 115,000 years ago) and possibly higher during the Pliocene epoch (about three million years ago). In both cases the Antarctic ice sheet has been implicated as the primary contributor, hinting at its future vulnerability. Here we use a model coupling ice sheet and climate dynamics—including previously underappreciated processes linking atmospheric warming with hydrofracturing of buttressing ice shelves and structural collapse of marine-terminating ice cliffs—that is calibrated against Pliocene and Last Interglacial sea-level estimates and applied to future greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Antarctica has the potential to contribute more than a metre of sea-level rise by 2100 and more than 15 metres by 2500, if emissions continue unabated. In this case atmospheric warming will soon become the dominant driver of ice loss, but prolonged ocean warming will delay its recovery for thousands of years.
Notice that the scenario evoked in the last sentence is different from my very old scenario, which is similar to the one advanced in November 2015 by the famous Hansen and Al. (I raised the alarm before Hansen, at least seven years ago). In my scenario, and Hansen’s the ice sheets melt from below, due to warm sea water intrusion.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is larger than Mexico.
Here is a taste of the paper (I have a Nature subscription):
“Reconstructions of the global mean sea level (GMSL) during past warm climate intervals including the Pliocene (about three million years ago)1 and late Pleistocene interglacials2,3,4,5 imply that the Antarctic ice sheet has considerable sensitivity. Pliocene atmospheric CO2 concentrations were comparable to today’s (~400 parts per million by volume, p.p.m.v.)6, but some sea-level reconstructions are 10–30 m higher1,7. In addition to the loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS)2, these high sea levels require the partial retreat of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), which is further supported by sedimentary evidence from the Antarctic margin8. During the more recent Last Interglacial (LIG, 130,000 to 115,000 years ago), GMSL was 6–9.3 m higher than it is today2,3,4, at a time when atmospheric CO2 concentrations were below 280 p.p.m.v. (ref.9) and global mean temperatures were only about 0–2 °C warmer10. This requires a substantial sea-level contribution from Antarctica of 3.6–7.4 m in addition to an estimated 1.5–2 m from Greenland11,12 and around 0.4 m from ocean steric effects10.”
So notice: when CO2 ppm per volume was at 280 130,000 to 115,000 years ago, sea level was up to ten meter higher than now. And now we are at 500 ppmv…
And notice again: When CO2 ppmv was at 400, sea level was up to 30 meters (100 feet) higher than today. And now we are at 500 ppm, and, in a blink, in ten years, at 550 ppm.
Here is another example from the paper. I said all of this before, but to have scientists paid to do research in this area write it black on white in the world’s most prestigious scientific magazine, will no doubt endow me with greater, and much desired, gravitas. So let me indulge, not so much for my greater glory, but because it should help taking what I have long said more seriously.
“Much of the WAIS sits on bedrock hundreds to thousands of metres below sea level (Fig. 1a)13. Today, extensive floating ice shelves in the Ross and Weddell Seas, and smaller ice shelves and ice tongues in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas (Fig. 1b) provide buttressing that impedes the seaward flow of ice and stabilizes marine grounding zones (Fig. 2a). Despite their thickness (typically about 1 km near the grounding line to a few hundred metres at the calving front), a warming ocean has the potential to quickly erode ice shelves from below, at rates exceeding 10 m yr−1 °C−1 (ref. 14). Ice-shelf thinning and reduced backstress enhance seaward ice flow, grounding-zone thinning, and retreat (Fig. 2b). Because the flux of ice across the grounding line increases strongly as a function of its thickness15, initial retreat onto a reverse-sloping bed (where the bed deepens and the ice thickens upstream) can trigger a runaway Marine Ice Sheet Instability (MISI; Fig. 2c)15, 16, 17. Many WAIS grounding zones sit precariously on the edge of such reverse-sloped beds, but the EAIS also contains deep subglacial basins with reverse-sloping, marine-terminating outlet troughs up to 1,500 m deep (Fig. 1). The ice above floatation in these East Antarctic basins is much thicker than in West Antarctica, with the potential to raise GMSL by around 20 m if the ice in those basins is lost13. Importantly, previous ice-sheet simulations accounting for migrating grounding lines and MISI dynamics have shown the potential for repeated WAIS retreats and readvances over the past few million years18, but could only account for GMSL rises of about 1 m during the LIG and 7 m in the warm Pliocene, which are substantially smaller than geological estimates.”
I said it before. Including the details. So the evidence was clear, and out there. The optimism (it will take 5 centuries for 50 feet of sea level rise) is not supported by evidence. Actually collapsing channels coming from inverted rivers running up on the bellies of ice sheets are now obvious on satellite pictures and collapse of major ice shelves is going to be a matter of years, not centuries.
But science is made by tribes and these tribes honor the gods (of plutocracy) who finance them, and their whims. So they don’t want to make their sponsors feel bad. So they say unsupported, optimistic stuff, contradicted by a first order analysis.
Science is good, metascience, better. Metascience includes the sociological reasons which explain why some scientists will take some “facts” for obvious (although, coming from another sociology, they are not).
Deep in the Nature paper, in the quote above, or in four drawings and graphs of future sea level rise, one can find projections according to what various models “predict”… 130,000 years ago (!) The “Old Physics” model predicts one meter rise of the sea (this is the official UN maximal prediction for 2100). The new model, again starting with the present conditions, predict more than a six meter rise (!) This is a case of metascience playing with sea level.
This way, the authors of the paper will be able to say, one day: we told you so. While at the same time not irritating their sponsors now (because to understand what they are really saying takes quite a while, and has to be understood as tongue in cheek, when they pretend to apply the analysis to 130,000 years ago… What they really mean is six meters now, not just one meter… Bye bye Wall Street. Punished by its own instruments…)
The question is not whether we will be able to avoid a twenty meter sea level rise: that’s, unbelievably, a given (barring unforeseeable, yet imaginable technological advances to extract quickly a lot of CO2 from the atmosphere). The question is whether we will avoid a 60 meter rise.
A stark warning from Institute researchers on the probability that ‘2°C capital stock’ will be reached in 2017
A new study from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School and the Smith School for Enterprise and Environment, University of Oxford, shows that we are uncomfortably close to the point where the world’s energy system commits the planet to exceeding 2°C.
In the paper, to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Applied Energy, the authors calculate the Two degree capital stock – the global stock of electricity infrastructure from which future emissions have a 50% probability of staying within 2°C of warming. The researchers estimate that the world will reach Two degree capital stock next year, in 2017.
By: Laura S. June 27, 2016
Learning from Dogs 