Before reading, iron dissolving due to higher reactivity (including bacterial action) because temperatures are higher
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After reading:
> "Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that the ultimate cause is climate change. Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for any other national park. The heat may already have begun to thaw 40 percent of the park's permafrost"
> "Some researchers think acid from minerals is leaching iron out of bedrock that has been exposed to water for the first time in millennia. Others think bacteria are mobilizing iron from the soil in thawing wetlands."
___
Other thoughts: iron bearing silicates often contain gold. New gold rush?
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Things like this have surely happened before but not while there were so many people around
Extinctions have happened before too, but that doesn't make them good
> Other thoughts: iron bearing silicates often contain gold. New gold rush?
Could a significant amount of gold be extracted from the water that way? It would likely be a much more environmentally friendly way to mine gold given that there would be no digging required.
If they could make it work at scale, they'd have done it with ocean water by now.
That's the sci-fi dream: all the elements you could want end up dissolved in varying amounts in seawater. It's unfortunately a hard engineering problem.
They focused on the water color, acidity, and the effect on the fishes, but they are not putting enough stress in the elephants in the room, the 2.4+ºC increase of average temperature northern regions over very few years (not since preindustrial times) and the massive permafrost thawing that is happening there.
Yes, it is causing this. And many more things in those regions and all the world, for more time than a single framed picture.
As a sibling pointed out, they state that as the cause.
Further, right under the image at the top of the article: "Tukpahlearik Creek in northwestern Alaska's Brooks Range runs bright orange where permafrost is thawing".
It doesn't help climate's cause to be hysterical without actually reading things you want to critique.
Yep, climate change is coming very fast across the North. It's already very noticeably different up there since I lived there from 2011-2015. Way, way warmer temperatures in the winter, the glaciers have retreated and shrunk drastically to the point I don't recognize photos of places I've spent a lot of time.
Heck, I live 2000 miles south now, and we can see our local glacier retreating yearly with our own eyes. Also it's raining today. In the middle of winter. Not good.
They literally say exactly all of that at the start of the article:
> Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that the ultimate cause is climate change. Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for any other national park. The heat may already have begun to thaw 40 percent of the park's permafrost, the layer of earth just under the topsoil that normally remains frozen year-round. McPhee wanted to protect the Salmon River because humans had “not yet begun to change it.” Now, less than 50 years later, we have done just that. The last great wilderness in America, which by law is supposed to be “untrammeled by man,” is being trammeled from afar by our global emissions.
This line of argument tends to be a delaying tactic by those that don't want the West to do anything substantial domestically. Also China's not the country that pulled out of global climate accords.
What nobody ever talks about is that some of the old organic stuff (roots, leaves) in the thawing permafrost did not grow there in recent times because that stuff won't grow in permafrost. This means the thawing of the permafrost is not new and that the area used to have more stuff growing there than it does now. We should expect a greening of parts of Alaska if the warming continues and growth resumes.
There is a narrative that melting permafrost is new and some kind of global catastrophe. That narrative falls apart if we point out that there's really nothing new going on.
Sea levels have risen more than present levels in prior interglacial periods too, but that's another related catastrophe.
I have no idea above this, but aren't there plants growing on permafrost? As permafrost only starts in a depth of a few inches, those plants may well enter permafrost if they are in the ground above and slowly get submerged more and more.
It might, but the first time I heard it (put differently) it blew my mind. The way I heard it was: There is no such thing as equilibrium in nature. It's more about constant imbalances.
It made me re-think our whole approach to environmentalism. When we attempt to restore something, what are we restoring it to?
> Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for any other national park.
Holy shit. 10°C is currently the difference between NY and DC, or Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico, or Montana and Southern California...
This is what people don’t realize when we talk about “average” global temperature rise. 2 Celsius average doesn’t mean 2 Celsius everywhere - it means some regions are going to be much higher than that.
I suspect the borders will be very different. Much of Russia's population was taken from China. Siberia if warmed would probably be fought over. It's currently closer to china but the transportation was designed to only benefits the Russian government.
Before reading, iron dissolving due to higher reactivity (including bacterial action) because temperatures are higher
___
After reading:
> "Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that the ultimate cause is climate change. Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for any other national park. The heat may already have begun to thaw 40 percent of the park's permafrost"
> "Some researchers think acid from minerals is leaching iron out of bedrock that has been exposed to water for the first time in millennia. Others think bacteria are mobilizing iron from the soil in thawing wetlands."
___
Other thoughts: iron bearing silicates often contain gold. New gold rush?
-
Things like this have surely happened before but not while there were so many people around
Extinctions have happened before too, but that doesn't make them good
> Other thoughts: iron bearing silicates often contain gold. New gold rush?
Could a significant amount of gold be extracted from the water that way? It would likely be a much more environmentally friendly way to mine gold given that there would be no digging required.
If they could make it work at scale, they'd have done it with ocean water by now.
That's the sci-fi dream: all the elements you could want end up dissolved in varying amounts in seawater. It's unfortunately a hard engineering problem.
1 reply →
They focused on the water color, acidity, and the effect on the fishes, but they are not putting enough stress in the elephants in the room, the 2.4+ºC increase of average temperature northern regions over very few years (not since preindustrial times) and the massive permafrost thawing that is happening there.
Yes, it is causing this. And many more things in those regions and all the world, for more time than a single framed picture.
As a sibling pointed out, they state that as the cause.
Further, right under the image at the top of the article: "Tukpahlearik Creek in northwestern Alaska's Brooks Range runs bright orange where permafrost is thawing".
It doesn't help climate's cause to be hysterical without actually reading things you want to critique.
Yep, climate change is coming very fast across the North. It's already very noticeably different up there since I lived there from 2011-2015. Way, way warmer temperatures in the winter, the glaciers have retreated and shrunk drastically to the point I don't recognize photos of places I've spent a lot of time.
Heck, I live 2000 miles south now, and we can see our local glacier retreating yearly with our own eyes. Also it's raining today. In the middle of winter. Not good.
They literally say exactly all of that at the start of the article:
> Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that the ultimate cause is climate change. Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for any other national park. The heat may already have begun to thaw 40 percent of the park's permafrost, the layer of earth just under the topsoil that normally remains frozen year-round. McPhee wanted to protect the Salmon River because humans had “not yet begun to change it.” Now, less than 50 years later, we have done just that. The last great wilderness in America, which by law is supposed to be “untrammeled by man,” is being trammeled from afar by our global emissions.
Are you suggesting that there is some kind of global warming going on?! Someone should really say something.
We got a snow storm last week, how would that be possible if the globe was warm?
No, it snowed.
Man if only we knew about it a few decades ago....
Oh wait.
Good news is it's not because of what happened to the Rio Tinto in Spain... This is ecology running its course.
Is it time that we finally addressed the massive escalation of fossil fuels by countries like china?
This line of argument tends to be a delaying tactic by those that don't want the West to do anything substantial domestically. Also China's not the country that pulled out of global climate accords.
1 reply →
I would settle for cleaning our own house and setting a good example
9 replies →
Why do you want to go force China to do things when we have a ton of improvement to do ourselves?
14 replies →
I don't think there are elephants in Alaska, let alone indoors, in rooms or otherwise.
we have mammoths and mastodons, but most of them are not available until thawed from the permafrost
What nobody ever talks about is that some of the old organic stuff (roots, leaves) in the thawing permafrost did not grow there in recent times because that stuff won't grow in permafrost. This means the thawing of the permafrost is not new and that the area used to have more stuff growing there than it does now. We should expect a greening of parts of Alaska if the warming continues and growth resumes.
Why do you think people should be talking about that more? I would think people aren't talking about it much because, well, it's kind of obvious.
There is a narrative that melting permafrost is new and some kind of global catastrophe. That narrative falls apart if we point out that there's really nothing new going on.
Sea levels have risen more than present levels in prior interglacial periods too, but that's another related catastrophe.
7 replies →
I have no idea above this, but aren't there plants growing on permafrost? As permafrost only starts in a depth of a few inches, those plants may well enter permafrost if they are in the ground above and slowly get submerged more and more.
Wonder if anything might still be alive in there?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/21/arctic-zombi...
You're welcome.
https://archive.is/2024.01.10-221938/https://www.scientifica...
https://web.archive.org/web/20240125064804/https://www.scien...
> Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that the ultimate cause is climate change.
quelle surprise
>"The only constant in the Universe is change..."
Seems obvious now, doesn't it.
It might, but the first time I heard it (put differently) it blew my mind. The way I heard it was: There is no such thing as equilibrium in nature. It's more about constant imbalances.
It made me re-think our whole approach to environmentalism. When we attempt to restore something, what are we restoring it to?
7 replies →
I don’t get it.
5 replies →
> Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for any other national park.
Holy shit. 10°C is currently the difference between NY and DC, or Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico, or Montana and Southern California...
This is what people don’t realize when we talk about “average” global temperature rise. 2 Celsius average doesn’t mean 2 Celsius everywhere - it means some regions are going to be much higher than that.
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Permafrost melts mean more habitable land for humans! This is wonderful for humanity. Russian and Canada will be way more populated in the future.
Yeah, especially Russia, at the rate it's collapsing demographically.
I suspect the borders will be very different. Much of Russia's population was taken from China. Siberia if warmed would probably be fought over. It's currently closer to china but the transportation was designed to only benefits the Russian government.