Using Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) tide gauge record data makes the task of synchronizing decades and centuries of tide gauge records with newbie satellite data (only collected since 1993) much easier.
That PSMSL data is already synchronized by the "REVISED LOCAL REFERENCE" technique which aligns values to a common reference (RLR).
Thus, one only has to synchronize the Gloabal Mean Satellite Data (GMSD) to the already synchronized PSMSL RLR data gathered from tide gauge stations around the world (Fig. 1).
Fig. 2
Both can then be included in sea level change data in computer generated CSV files, then easily converted into graphs.
Fig. 3
Such as in Fig. 2 where the contrast shows that the "Golden 23" Zones had more sea level rise than the global mean average.
Fig. 4
In Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 the graphs show that the satellite record is less comprehensive, having only been active since 1993.
The main thing to remember is that the tide gauge station records and the satellite records are designed for different purposes.
The satellite record is designed to show a global mean average, a generally fictitious notion, which does little to help local port jurisdictions design their particular song and dance with which they hope to cope with the incessantly rising seas.
The satellite record does next to nothing to tell them how much they individually will have to do to react to the amount of sea level change in their part of the world.
Billions are spent on the satellite records, but very little by comparison is spent on the tide gauge station systems.
Modern technology is fine and dandy, however, in the context of sea level history and future in particular locations, it is not as good as the tide gauge station system IMO.
The HUAC virus has escaped from the dusty minds of those who have been ravaged by its toxoplasma gondii type of symptoms again (The Germ Theory of Government, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).
In the first post of this series I pointed out a hypothesis about a dynamic which I called "the cultural amygdala", then considered the physical amygdala, and also asked readers about their reactions:
Does fear bubble up inside of you, emanating from your subconscious
amygdala, to automate a reaction when you see photo of the President of Russia?
Or does it prevent you from reading an op-ed in the New York Times which he penned?
If so, that is your cultural amygdala, an extension of your physical amydala which develops as your "birth amygdala" before it has been "customized" by your society, the culture around you (The Cultural Amygdala).
We are studied all the time so those who govern us can get their way:
If you have a patient in a doctor's office who's just been told they have terminal cancer but there's this operation they could perform right now that might save their lives. ... They have a 90 percent chance of surviving the operation — if you tell them that, they respond one way. If you tell them ... that they have a 10 percent chance of being killed by the operation, they are about three times less likely to have the operation.
If you frame something as a loss — 10 percent chance of dying — as opposed to as a gain — 90 percent chance of living — people respond entirely differently. They make a different decision.
(Are You Of Two Minds?). The studies go deeper, and sometimes have a commercial purpose:
A group of US marketing researchers claim that brand owners can make their customers believe they had a better experience of a product or service than they really did by bombarding them with positive messages after the event. Advocates of the technique, known as "memory morphing", claim it can be used to improve customers' perceptions of products and encourage them to repeat their purchases and recommend brands to friends.
"When asked, many consumers insist that they rely primarily on their own first-hand experience with products – not advertising – in making purchasing decisions. Yet, clearly, advertising can strongly alter whatconsumers remember about their past, and thus influence their behaviours," he writes in his book, How Customers Think. He says that memories are malleable, changing every time they come to mind, and that brands can use this to their advantage. "What consumers recall about prior product or shopping experiences will differ from their actual experiences if marketers refer to those past experiences in positive ways," he continues.
Now to the point, the nitty gritty of today's post:
We are besieged, readers. As the archives of this magazine make perfectly plain, the spasm of Russophobia now threatening to overcome us is but a variant of the anti-Soviet paranoia that defined the 1950s and early 1960s. “We’re in the most dangerous confrontation with Russia since the Cuban missile crisis,” Stephen Cohen, the noted Russianist (and Nation contributor), said on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! earlier this month. This is just the point—the reality we must now consider with utmost seriousness. ... The corporate press, from the government-supervised New York Times on over, now hastens to obscure the same shameful collaboration with power that it displayed in the Cold War’s depths. On a shocking website called PropOrNot.com, Salem witch-hunters who refuse to identify themselves list hundreds of media that they assert are manipulated by the Kremlin. Read these, too, as danger signs. Anyone too young to remember the House Un-American Activities Committee and Red Channels and all the destruction they wrought ought to study up: We are a few short steps away from both. Russia is not destroying (what remains of) American democracy. “Patriotic Americans” are. It is essential, as I suggest, to understand our moment in historical context. Then each of us must decide, just as those called before the HUAC had to: Do I acquiesce or participate in this freakish exercise in crowd control and fear-mongering, or do I repudiate a propaganda campaign as irrational and morally wrong as any concocted during the McCarthy years? At last the question confronts us, and it is especially acute this time for those self-described as progressives: Is one a descendant of that muddled, gutless lot known as Cold War liberals, or does one insist on clear sight and principle even in the face of the ideological blasts our corporate media deliver daily? Think it through: This is the imperative of our moment—a significant moment, because the American propaganda machine is now unusually challenged. Its efficacy is no longer the certainty it was during the Cold War decades. My own view, to be clear straightaway, is without ambivalence. It is our minds that are the objects of this onslaught: They are finally what is at issue. Surrender yours to this most flagrant case of scapegoating—hatred and anxiety conjured from thin air—and your place in the history books will be with the ghosts of all the shrill Cold Warriors and cowering chumps of decades past.
(The Perils of Russophobia, emphasis added). Free thinkers of every nation on Earth unite, because in that context there is nothing better than knowing the natural history of government:
“Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson
Comprehensive results covering several topics show up when one takes a look at "The NEGIS" (North East Greenland Ice Stream).
We hear the terms "ice sheet" and "ice shelf" often, but rarely do we hear the term "ice stream."
NEGIS is one such "ice river" which travels some 700 km. from the central Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) highlands, northeast to then empty into the Fram Strait.
It contains about 16% of Greenland's Ice (Fig. 2).
I have written previously that we should keep an eye on the ice shelves, because they are the only impediment to acceleration of ice sheet and ice stream flow into the oceans (Watch The Ice Shelves, 2, 3, 4).
The one ice stream we are talking about is a significant factor in the invasion:
"Understanding the impacts of climate change on ice sheets and the subsequent changes to global sea-level over 100 – 1000yr timescales are fundamental scientific and societal challenges. This project will focus on ... NEGIS ...; a key sector of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) because it controls ice flux into the NE Atlantic (an area sensitive to freshwater input) and it holds a sea-level equivalent (SLE) of ~1.4m [4.6 ft.]."
(Greenland @ Warmer Climate, emphasis added; cf. AGU on NEGIS). Add to that the fact that the Arctic's largest ice shelf is now the resident resistance to the NEGIS:
"The largest Greenland and Arctic ice shelf is now at the front of the North East Greenland Ice Stream."
(Jason Box). Not to mention that it is breaking up even as we speak, because of among other things, the warming of the Arctic (ibid).
We hear a lot from Paleoclimatology about ancient sea level (see Fig. 1 sea level marks in rock deposits), but we really do not need to know that to know what is coming (the attendees of the Moody Blues concert are focused on the world as it is now).
So, the existing sea level change of "~1.4m[4.6 ft.]" which is moving toward the ocean around Greenland is of utmost importance, especially since a fellow soldier in that invasion is doing the same thing in Antarctica (Don't Believe In Abrupt Sea Level Change - Know About It - 3).
The Red Rock ancient sea level lines (Fig. 1) of the past hovers over our paleounderstanding of what was.
But our understanding of the future is incomplete unless we factor in ice sheets, ice streams, and ice shelves.
The government is ignoring the invasion by approving export of fossil fuels from a port area that is increasingly an endangered species because of sea level rise in the Gulf of Mexico (Fig. 3, Fig. 4).
In this series I have discussed the slow-moving coup in the remaining branch of government, the Judiciary.
The coup of the judiciary has been taking place for a decade or so.
We saw "the alt-right" take off their clothes to become quite "naked" (obvious) in the unprecedented Republican obstructionism events around the Obama appointment of the leading judge from the Federal Appellate Court for the District of Columbia to the U.S. Supreme Court (Judge Merrick Garland).
I mention the alt-right becoming obvious (or naked), because the coup (like the gerrymandering coup, the taking over of state legislatures, and governorships coups) have until now all been underground, well planned out, and executed surreptitiously.
As I wrote in a previous post:
"Here's the core constitutional fact: a progressive president and Congress now face a conservative judiciary, for the first time since 1937. Obama's ambitious agenda, if enacted, must go before federal courts—where judges can rewrite or strike down key provisions."
(Here Come De Conservative Judges, 2009 quoting Newsweek, emphasis added). In other words, not much was said of it back then because the "clothing" was still on.
That will change beginning in January of 2017, 80 years after the judiciary became more liberal in 1937 (the New Deal era).
To begin with, a critical Supreme Court Justice, and about a hundred federal judges need to be appointed (CBS News, WaPo, Newser).
That is twice what Obama started out with.
As I said in another series that looked at this ongoing judiciary coup:
This case is brought at a time when the scenario described by Col. Wilkerson (even before he knew of the election results) is "extremely dangerous" (see first video below !).
Add to that the intention of the Republican Party to load the Supreme Court with climate change deniers, and it adds up to an increased likelihood of a constitutional crisis in our near future.
Unless the W Direction is changed, The American Children will eventually lose this case in the alt-right supreme court, and who knows what else.
Substantial discoveries in Antarctica which will impact the U.S. East Coast are currently becoming more of a part of reality.
As regular readers know, from time to time Dredd Blog has uncovered this under-the-cover ice sheet reality which, as usual, is a reality that is considered by the timid to be more like science fiction than the science fact that it really, really is:
"UCL Professor Duncan Wingham, who led the team, said: "Previously, it was thought water moves underneath the ice by very slow seepage. But this new data shows that, every so often, the lakes beneath the ice pop off like champagne corks, releasing floods that travel very long distances."
"... the new picture—gradually revealed by space and airborne instruments, ground-based GPS and increasingly sophisticated computer models—is one of intricate and dynamic hydrology. Rapidly flowing subglacial streams channel water from one hidden lake to another, sudden drainage causes massive collapse, and the meltwater speeds the slide of mighty glaciers toward the sea. The big picture was put together by a group of researchers specializing in oceans and ice and published in The Royal Society of London’s “Philosophical Transactions A” in August 2016. It shows significant progress in the understanding of Antarctica’s under-ice lake systems ... “Ten years ago, we didn’t realize subglacial lakes were so active,” said Helen Fricker of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a member of NASA’s Sea Level Change Team and lead author of the research group’s review article. “We didn’t realize water moves so quickly from one lake to another. We didn’t know it was a dynamic system, where water could transfer so quickly ... Previous studies using other techniques estimated the average melting rates at the bottom of Dotson and Crosson ice shelves to be about 40 feet per year (12 meters per year). Khazendar and his team, using their direct radar measurements, found stunning rates of ice loss from the glaciers' undersides on the ocean sides of their grounding lines. The fastest-melting glacier, Smith, lost between 984 and 1,607 feet (300 and 490 meters) in thickness from 2002 to 2009 near its grounding line, or up to 230 feet per year (70 meters per year) ...
"If I had been using data from only one instrument, I wouldn't have believed what I was looking at, because the thinning was so large," Khazendar added. However, the two IceBridge instruments, which use different observational techniques, both measured the same rapid ice loss.”
(Beneath Antarctic ice: lakes, floods and flowing water, 2016, emphasis added). Yes, startling surprises caused by these phenomena are characterized as "850 year events" when they finally reach "the homeland" these days:
Our analysis of multi-decadal tide gauge records along the North American east coast identified an extreme sea-level rise event during 2009–2010. Within this relatively brief two-year period, coastal sea level north of New York City jumped by up to 128 mm.This magnitude of inter-annual sea level rise is unprecedented in the tide gauge records, with statistical methods suggesting that it was a 1-in-850 year event.
For decades they have been thinking in terms of the "it will never melt because it is so stable" myth:
"I suspect the existence of what I call the `John Mercer effect'. Mercer (1978) suggested that global warming from burning of fossil fuels could lead to disastrous disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet, with a sea level rise of several meters worldwide. This was during the era when global warming was beginning to get attention from the United States Department of Energy and other science agencies. I noticed that scientists who disputed Mercer, suggesting that his paper was alarmist, were treated as being more authoritative. ... I believe there is a pressure on scientists to be conservative. Papers are accepted for publication more readily if they do not push too far and are larded with caveats. Caveats are essential to science, being born in skepticism, which is essential to the process of investigation and verification. But there is a question of degree. A tendency for `gradualism' as new evidence comes to light may be ill-suited for communication, when an issue with a short time fuse is concerned."
Think of the Agnotology generators as educational system neutralizers, invoked to cover the trail of murderous Oil-Qaeda (Humble Oil-Qaeda).
If the denier cabal, which is currently drooling over their newfound governmental powers, gets its way the science textbooks will become Voynich manuscripts (Ancient Ecocosmology?).
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
Fig. 1
(Most active quake zones: Japan, Black Sea)
Based on about 50,000 earthquake records in my SQL database, two areas stand out, in terms of number of earthquakes (outlined in red in Fig. 1) where faults exist.
The area around Japan (between latitude 30-50N, longitude 130-150E) is the top quake-count area with 16,547 quakes having taken place in that area between 1772 and 2013.
Fig. 2 Quakes per year
The annual distribution of those quakes over the years is shown in Fig. 2.
The totals for the three individual WOD zones in the Japan area are: Zone 1313 had 11,081 quakes; Zone 1314 had 2,435 quakes; and Zone 1414 had 3,031 quakes.
Fig. 3
The area with the second-most number of quakes is located near the Black Sea (between latitude 30-50N, longitude 40-50E).
Fig. 4 Black Sea area sea level change
Total quake-count for the two zones was 4,904 quakes having taken place in that area between 1785 and 2012.
Of that, Zone 1304 had 2,537 quakes and Zone 1404 had 2,367 quakes.
The yearly distribution of those quakes in those zones is shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 5 Japan area sea level change
I discussed the Black Sea area in a previous post or two.
Additionally, the context in those posts did not include earthquakes as the current series on "pressures put on the Earth's crust" does.
Those posts also focused in on a more narrow geographical area than the current post does.
Fig. 7 Ocean Temperatures
A very high sea level rise has taken place in that smaller area, about a half a foot higher than the area we are focusing on today.
Thus, the sea level rise graph at Fig. 4 does not show as intense of an amount of sea level rise as the more narrow focus did (about 4.1 ft. compared to about 3.6 ft.).
Even more strange in a sense, the sea level rise in the Japan area, where the most quakes took place, experienced even less sea level rise (Fig. 5).
This observation does show that there is no direct relation between the number of earthquakes and the amount of sea level rise in a given geographical area.
But it does show that as sea level changes increase over time, it can impact the number of quakes even if not in a mathematically exact way.
As it turns out, we can say that sea level rise and fall can change the degree of pressure being put on the Earth's crust, and further, that those changing pressures can trigger quakes in hair-trigger areas.
The same can be said for quakes taking place away from oceans and coastlines:
The number of earthquakes has increased dramatically over the past few years within the central and eastern United States. Nearly 450 earthquakes magnitude 3.0 and larger occurred in the four years from 2010-2013, over 100 per year on average, compared with an average rate of 20 earthquakes per year observed from 1970-2000.
This increase in earthquakes prompts two important questions: Are they natural, or man-made? And what should be done in the future as we address the causes and consequences of these events to reduce associated risks? USGS scientists have been analyzing the changes in the rate of earthquakes as well as the likely causes, and they have some answers.
USGS scientists have found that at some locations the increase in seismicity coincides with the injection of wastewater in deep disposal wells. Much of this wastewater is a byproduct of oil and gas production and is routinely disposed of by injection into wells specifically designed for this purpose.
...
Although it may seem like science fiction, man-made earthquakes have been a reality for decades. It has long been understood that earthquakes can be induced by impoundment of water in reservoirs, surface and underground mining, withdrawal of fluids and gas from the subsurface, and injection of fluids into underground formations.
(USGS, "Man-Made Earthquakes Update"; cf. this). Some forms of changing the volume and mass of water in an area is known, but not well understood:
The column of water in a large and deep artificial lake alters in-situ stress along an existing fault or fracture. In these reservoirs, the weight of the water column can significantly change the stress on an underlying fault or fracture by increasing the total stress through direct loading, or decreasing the effective stress through the increased pore water pressure. This significant change in stress can lead to sudden movement along the fault or fracture, resulting in an earthquake. Reservoir-induced seismic events can be relatively large compared to other forms of induced seismicity. Though understanding of reservoir-induced seismic activity is very limited, it has been noted that seismicity appears to occur on dams with heights larger than 330 feet (100 m). The extra water pressure created by large reservoirs is the most accepted explanation for the seismic activity. When the reservoirs are filled or drained, induced seismicity can occur immediately or with a small time lag.
(Wikipedia, "Seismicity"). The key is whether or not an earthquake fault line is being affected, which is more likely in the far-and-wide reaching reality of all of the world's oceans being changed in terms of depth, mass, and volume (1 m3 of water weighs 2,204.623 lbs. --about 1 compact car).
But seismic science is not fine-tuned enough to say exactly where quakes will take place as a result of sea level change.
No, it is at this time only a general observation about general eventualities, which are clear (see graphs in this series).
In the future this might improve to become as accurate as one scientist who predicted a specific volcano would erupt as the ice melted in the cryosphere of Iceland (Is A New Age Of Pressure Upon Us? - 4).
In closing, I added the water temperature records from the World Ocean Database (WOD) as shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7.
Those two graphs are added just to reiterate that ocean water temperature is not a major factor in sea level change, as has been discussed at length on Dredd Blog (On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
Steppin' In A Slide Zone ...
The first post in this series focused on a lawsuit by climate scientists in a federal court in the state of Oregon.
They had broken through the first obstacles thrown at them by climate change deniers in cahoots with the Obama Administration.
At some coming phase, they will have to face the Trumposphere denialism, in a sicker, less kind, nation.
II. Foreground
In today's post, I want to talk about another lawsuit brought by another climate scientist that was not brought in a federal court, but rather was filed in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia (Complaint).
That libel complaint was filed by plaintiff Dr. Michael Mann against defendants The National Review, Inc., The Competitive Enterprise Institute, bloggers Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn.
Oh how, when served with the complaint, they scorned the case at The Lettuce & Bacon Talk (BLT) and The Volkswagen Conspiracy blogs (VW I, VW II).
The defendants, evidently encouraged by the blogging bloviators' refusal to retract their libelous writings, moved to dismiss the complaint as an infringement of their First Amendment rights.
They evidently do not understand that, outside the Trumposphere, the First Amendment does not protect low energy brain waves that take the form of libel or slander.
When the appellate court ruled yesterday, it said that Dr. Mann can take his case to the jury:
Dr. Mann has supplied sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that statements in the articles written by Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn were false, defamatory, and published by appellants to third parties, and, by clear and convincing evidence, that appellants did so with actual malice. We, therefore, affirm the trial court’s denial of the special motions to dismiss the defamation claims based on those articles and remand the case for additional proceedings in the trial court with respect to these claims.
(Appellate Court Decision, p. 105). First will be the discovery phase of the litigation, which will bring their libelous brain waves into the under oath zone, which changes one's countenance.
IV. Conclusion
Congratulations to Dr. Mann and his competent lawyers, and may the jury sock it to the bloviating climate change deniers !
I have updated the earthquake database to now include 49,718 quakes.
Fig. 2 4.5 - 5.5
Fig. 3 5.5 - 6.5
It is still lite on the end (2016 is not all in yet, and the past few years also seem somewhat lacking in some categories).
Fig. 4 6.5 - 8.0
I am still seeking recent data.
The video at the bottom of the post indicates that more data from recent years is available, but evidently I haven't found it all yet.
So, in the graphs I went up to the year 2015 with what I had so far.
The hypothesis that sea level change is causing some quakes to take place in areas where there are "hair triggers" at some fault lines seems quite plausible now, especially with the confirmation by Dr. McGuire in the previous post of this series (Is A New Age Of Pressure Upon Us? - 10).
After the year-end, I will seek the remaining 2016 data, as well as any other recent years (e.g. 2000 on).
Other datasets will also be updated, such as the WOD database and the PSMSL database.
One thing I want to do is map the fault zones shown in the video to WOD and PSMSL zones so as to compare ocean water activities above and below the ocean surface with Earthquake activity.
That is, unless the anti-science brigade of the Trumposphere destroys it all first.
U.S. scientists might do well to locate their data with scientists in other countries where Ludites and Know-nothings are still the fringe rather than having widespread power as they now have in the U.S.eh?
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
Once upon a time the Earth was flat,
causing the stars and planets to orbit
around it,
because it was also
the center of the universe.
Weather on the flat Earth was stable,
in that,
it was always either
winter,
summer,
fall,
or spring at the same time on the vast flatness.
Then the Earth was changed
into a globe
by librul scientists.
So, all those planets
went into orbit around stars
like our Sun,
and now
even the stars
are no longer orbiting
the Earth.
Additionally,
ever since
the Earth became no longer flat,
instead becoming a globe
orbiting the Sun,
there has been both
summer and winter at the same time
on Earth.
For example, now
as we speak
“it” has been threatening
to become 122 deg. F. (50 deg. C)
in Australia,
while “it” is super cold at the very same time
in the flat lands
of the U.S. Midwest,
which is the country
Bob Dylan comes from.
Libruls have made it
difficult for some
to “get it” now,
because “it” is summer near Antarctica
and “it” is winter
in Kansas
at the same time.
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
In some respects, ours is not a unique case of this social phenomenon:
"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."
Our uniqueness is also because our resulting social dementia infection threatens to murder many other species, as we collectively commit suicide.
It is so bad that, to a degree which no other civilization has or even could, ours fits the description of a one-of-a-kind mass-murder-suicide (MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact, 2, 3, 4, 5).
Since civilizations (ours included) have tended to be suicidal, the children of civilizations are given strong doses of propaganda, which not only alters cognition, but even alters brain and cranial structures (Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala, 2, 4; The Skulls They Are A Changin').
One of the major signs of 'losing it' is that we treat the propensity for cultural suicide as a political problem, instead of treating it as a psychological problem:
If the evolution of civilization has such a far reaching similarity with the development of an individual, and if the same methods are employed in both, would not the diagnosis be justified that many systems of civilization——or epochs of it——possibly even the whole of humanity——have become neurotic under the pressure of the civilizing trends? To analytic dissection of these neuroses, therapeutic recommendations might follow which could claim a great practical interest. I would not say that such an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to civilized society would be fanciful or doomed to fruitlessness. But it behooves us to be very careful, not to forget that after all we are dealing only with analogies, and that it is dangerous, not only with men but also with concepts, to drag them out of the region where they originated and have matured. The diagnosis of collective neuroses, moreover, will be confronted by a special difficulty. In the neurosis of an individual we can use as a starting point the contrast presented to us between the patient and his environment which we assume to be normal. No such background as this would be available for any society similarly affected; it would have to be supplied in some other way. And with regard to any therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most acute analysis of social neuroses, since no one possesses power to compel the community to adopt the therapy?In spite of all these difficulties, we may expect that one day someone will venture upon this research into the pathology of civilized communities. [p. 39] ...
Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature
to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They know this——hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension. [p. 40]
"In less than two weeks, 2016 will officially be the hottest year on the books in more than 120 years of record keeping by U.S. agencies. It will be the third straight record-setting year — and of the 17 hottest years, 16 have been [during 2000 - 2016]" -
[photo missing here is the caption: "What was the real danger then and still is now?
When a nation is invaded by an exterior force, there are areas which tend to be invaded first."]
That is also true when our civilization invades the natural global climate system by damaging it with pollution; it inevitably turns on us (The Damaged Global Climate System, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
Concerning the reaction to our attack on it, one subsystem which we call "the Cryosphere" (the realm of ice) in the polar regions, in effect is automatically turned against us in response the growing anthropogenic warming.
So, in this series I have been pointing out that the first wave of the counter-invasion will be caused by the impact on the ice shelves (Watch The Ice Shelves, 2, 3).
The ice shelves are robust impediments to the ice sheets' ability to freely flow into the oceans unabated.
But, once those ice shelves are weakened during attacks by warmer waters and warmer winds, they will melt to the point of becoming structurally unsound.
Eventually, in addition to melting, they will also break up into icebergs which will float away to later melt elsewhere.
The main invasion damage then abruptly takes place, which is that the ice sheets will then accelerate their invasive flow into the oceans.
Typically, there are no class preferences to such invasions,
which tends to be equal-opportunity destruction taking place first in coastal regions (The 1% May Face The Wrath of Sea Level Rise First).
We do see cognitive "defenses" developing, however, (as a response to the global climate system's counter-invasion) such as the spread of mass denial:
"In 1973, Ernest Becker, a cultural anthropologist cross-trained in philosophy, sociology, and psychiatry, invoked consciousness of self and the inevitability of death as the primary sources of human anxiety and repression. He proposed that the psychological basis of cooperation, competition, and emotional and mental health is a tendency to hold tightly to anxiety-buffering cultural world views or "immortality projects" that serve as the basis for self-esteem and meaning. Although he focused mainly on social and political outcomes like war, torture, and genocide, he was increasingly aware that materialism, denial of nature, and immortality-striving efforts to control, rather than sanctify, the natural world were problems whose severity was increasing. In this paper I review Becker's ideas and suggest ways in which they illuminate human response to global climate change. Because immortality projects range from belief in technology and materialism to reverence for nature or belief in a celestial god, they act both as barriers to and facilitators of sustainable practices. I propose that Becker’s cross-disciplinary "science of man," and the predictions it generates for proximate-level determinants of social behavior, add significantly to our understanding of and potential for managing the people paradox, i.e., that the very things that bring us symbolic immortality often conflict with our prospects for survival. Analysis of immortality projects as one of the proximate barriers to addressing climate change is both cautionary and hopeful, providing insights that should be included in the cross-disciplinary quest to uncover new pathways toward rational, social change."
Ironically, our invasion against nature began with the belief that an industrial revolution was a savior of sorts, but that has ended up being the beginning of The 6th Mass Extinction, an extinction scenario that now includes human vertebrates (Vertebrate Extinction Began @ Industrial Revolution).
BTW, Dr. McGuire's Waking The Sleeping Giant, made #5 on one journalist's top-10-best eco-books list:
5. Waking the Giant by Bill McGuire
Just out, and dreadfully alarming. Bill McGuire, a distinguished geologist and brilliant science writer, charts how changing climate may trigger not just wild weather but also volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis. Perhaps it already is. The last time that ice caps were melting and sea levels were rising, geology was in overdrive. Faults shuddered, magma melted and mayhem followed. As McGuire persuasively shows, it could be kicking off again. This is science so scary that even the climate scientists widely dismissed as alarmists do not dare speak of it.
If that is not enough evidence for you, also check out "The biggest threat to the world is still ourselves", also by Prof. McGuire, which reminds us that we are the alien aggressors who invaded the Earth' Global Climate System first.
The state of the global climate system's counter-invasion, as it turns out, is getting more and more dire, even as the denial does the same (When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 6).
For example:
The Totten Glacier drains more ice than any other glacier in the EAIS and contains a volume of marine-based ice above flotation equivalent to at least 3.5 m [equivalent to ~11.5 ft.] of global sea-level rise. ...
Several approaches have been used to estimate basal melt rates at the Totten Glacier. Flux gate calculations using satellite data indicated steady-state net basal melt rates ... equivalent to area-average melt rates of 10.5 ± 0.7 and 9.89 ± 1.92 m year−1, respectively [9 - 10.5 m yr is equivalent to about 29 - 34 ft. of ice shelf height melting away each year].
(Totten Glacier Ice Shelf Melting, Science Advances, 12/16/2016). That would seem to be a clear signal for civilization to get with the program.
If nothing else, just to see just what our civilization and all the nations within it really are facing now.
This official denialism may very well further threaten the fate and future of scientists who are already under siege:
My Penn State colleagues looked with horror at the police tape across my office door.
I had been opening mail at my desk that afternoon in August 2010 when a dusting of white powder fell from the folds of a letter. I dropped the letter, held my breath and slipped out the door as swiftly as I could, shutting it behind me. First I went to the bathroom to scrub my hands. Then I called the police.
It turned out to be only cornstarch. And it was just one in a long series of threats I've received since the late 1990s, when my research illustrated the unprecedented nature of global warming, producing an upward-trending temperature
I've faced hostile investigations by politicians, demands for me to be fired from my job, threats against my life and even threats against my family. Those threats have diminished in recent years, as man-made climate change has become recognized as the overwhelming scientific consensus and as climate science has received the support of the federal government. But with the coming Trump administration, my colleagues and I are bracing for a renewed onslaught of intimidation, from inside and outside government. It would be bad for our work and bad for our planet.
(Scientific Freedom). Denial can be a deadly disease, yes, an extinction-event causing disease.
To conclude this episode with a surprise, this attitude of civilization is shocking --but typical of those civilizations that went down prior to ours (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).
The previous post in this series is here.
This is not fringe science that I am talking about ... - Dr. Rob Davies
On the popular front inhabited by the masses, whether or not a slice of science is interpreted as an 'exaggeration' or even an 'underestimate' to us, turns out to be, for the most part anyway, an emotional, subconscious feeling masking itself as intellect.
That feeling, to be sure, is produced with the ingredients of various segments of information, however, when that information happens to invade our 'comfort zone', i.e. a number of feelings in a subconscious inner-group of feelings, produced by our 'world view,' we are prone to consider that disturbing information to be an 'exaggeration' or something similar to that.
A word for those who engender the feeling we call 'exaggeration' is the word 'alarmist'.
Those descriptive words vary from place to place, and from person to person, but the deep down-under-the-hood reality is that we are substantially composed of fear circuitry that has a profound influence on what we call consciousness:
A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about
global warming makes it difficult for people to repress thoughts of death, and that they might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival. There is already experimental evidence suggesting that some people respond to reminders of death by increasing consumption. Dickinson proposes that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists. Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central immortality project of Western society: perpetual economic growth, supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.
We see this reality coming to life now in the minds of the president elect and his followers, because of their denialist world views (Hey! PEOTUS, Fig. 1, Fig. 2).
Another world view in play in Port Authorities, cities, counties, and other segments of everyday-reality officialdom, is pragmatism:
"A growing number of public and private entities, including port authorities, are evaluating potential impacts from climate change and are developing procedures to incorporate the financial and other risks into their investment decision making processes. ...
Based on the Port’s location, operational activity, and on planning work conducted to date, SLR is the primary climate change impact which will affect the Port."
The gist of it is that when fear-based denial renders us unable to analyze a threat with the full power of intellect and knowledge, all we have remaining is emotional "thinking" which we use to run from the problem.
In the U.S.eh? our divided government mirrors the subconscious struggle, within us all, between fear and awareness of reality.
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
A panel with various social backgrounds discusses the denial issue:
