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reddolfo t1_j12u4rt wrote

Reply to comment by WalterWoodiaz in Greenland's glaciers are melting 100 times faster than estimated by strangeattractors

It's not sea level rise, it's the destruction of critical ocean currents, acidity changes, etc. The loss of these threaten the ocean's plankton, responsible for up to 80% of the planet's oxygen, as well as the foundation of the planet's food chain.

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Containedmultitudes t1_j146kdg wrote

> ocean currents

Including the Gulf Stream, which is what makes most of Western Europe habitable.

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lostindarkdays t1_j15cphv wrote

eh, Europe schmeurope. that David statute guy doesn't do it for me, anyway. too skinny.

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Yeuph t1_j13hrao wrote

Fortunately as more CO2 is dissolved into the ocean making it more acidic we have these huge glaciers that can keep melting forever injecting non-acidic water to balance things out.

Yay.

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NLwino t1_j13kjlw wrote

Combine that with the fact that we can counter global warming with nuclear winter, we really have nothing to worry about. All is fine, carry on.

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Gemini884 t1_j14hnw6 wrote

Information on marine biomass decline from recent ipcc report: "Global models also project a loss in marine biomass (the total weight of all animal and plant life in the ocean) of around -6% (±4%) under SSP1-2.6 by 2080-99, relative to 1995-2014. Under SSP5-8.5, this rises to a -16% (±9%) decline. In both cases, there is “significant regional variation” in both the magnitude of the change and the associated uncertainties, the report says." phytoplankton in particular is projected to decline by ~10% in worst-case emissions scenario.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-the-ipccs-sixth-assessment-on-how-climate-change-impacts-the-world/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01173-9/figures/3

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rixtil41 t1_j15cmkp wrote

There is enough air to last us a few hundred years so not that big of a deal if the air we breathe stoped being naturally recycled right now.

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Financial_Exercise88 t1_j1d56fh wrote

Are you sure? Do you know what hemoglobin is and how it works?

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rixtil41 t1_j1egecv wrote

So although I don't know the exact ways to on how this would work in every detail my point is that it's not impossible to survive and that any attempt at survival is doomed to fail even if only a small percentage of humanity was left.

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Financial_Exercise88 t1_j1fmyjj wrote

All humanity relies on a precise balance between O2 and CO2 in ambient air. Hemoglobin binds CO2 100x more than O2; it only works as an O2 delivery system because there's a hyper-abundance of O2 (declining currently, FYI). Genetic engineering or O2 supplementation mechanisms require extensive supply chains that won't exist if only a few survive.

And if we (humanity) survive but we (you & I) don't then the former matters little.

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rixtil41 t1_j1g8wnr wrote

But what about the future where genetic engineering requires less and does not rely on a large number of people? Unless you think humanity will die off before that becomes a reality.

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Financial_Exercise88 t1_j1hd2ce wrote

Can AI come up with an alternative to Hb that we can genetically engineer babies to have before the imbalance ambient air is lethal? Probably. But no one is working on it. It will probably affect behavior & intelligence in imperceptible ways long before humans see it as an issue worth pursuing. And then we depend on animals... we're going to replace the whole ecosystem with genetically engineered variants that can thrive in higher CO2/lower O2 environment (are we going to also change our dependence on the Krebs cycle which needs O2) ? No, I don't believe that is realistic. Supply chains will be long gone, humanity too, before then. Or, we could just tax the f out of fossil fuels. No. Brainer.

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