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17342
From: Alan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Arctic time capsule from 2018 washes up in Ireland as polar ice melts
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Cylinder left in ice by 50 Years of Victory ship travelled 2,300 miles to county Donegal When the crew and passengers of the nuclear-powered icebreaker ship 50 Years of Victory reached the north pole in 2018, they placed a time capsule in the ice floe. The metal cylinder contained letters, poems, photographs, badges, beer mats, a menu, wine corks – ephemera from the early 21st century for whomever might discover it in the future. The future came pretty swiftly. The cylinder was found this week on the north-western tip of Ireland after floating an estimated 2,300 miles from the Arctic Circle, where global heating is melting a record amount of ice. Conor McClory and Sophie Curran, surfers from the village of Gweedore in county Donegal, were checking sea conditions when they spotted the tube on the shore at Bloody Foreland, a beauty spot named for the red hue of the rocks at sunset. “When I saw it, first I thought it was a steel pipe of a ship, then I lifted it and saw there was engraving on it. I thought it was a bomb then,” McClory told the Donegal Daily. “When I saw the date on it I thought it could be somebody’s ashes, so I didn’t open it.” A Russian friend of a friend translated the engraving and told McClory it was a time capsule, so he opened it and discovered messages in Russian and English from the 50 Years of Victory’s polar expedition. One letter in English, dated 4 August 2018, said: “Everything around is covered by ice. We think that by the time this letter will be found there is no more ice in Arctic unfortunately.” McClory tracked down one of the letter’s authors, a Russian Instagram blogger in St Petersburg known as Sveta. In a Zoom call, Sveta said the crew and passengers had thought the cylinder might be discovered in 30 or 50 years and expressed shock it was found so quickly, McClory said. In the past decade, Arctic temperatures have increased by nearly 1C. Arctic sea ice has reached its second-lowest extent in the 41-year satellite record. Last year the Greenland ice sheet lost a record amount of ice, equivalent to 1 million tonnes every minute. With annual snowfall no longer enough to replenish snow and ice lost during summer melting, scientists fear it has passed the point of no return. A Nature Climate Change study predicts that summer sea ice floating on the surface of the Arctic Ocean could disappear entirely by 2035. For €29,600 (£26,740) the Russian-owned 50 Years of Victory takes passengers on 14-day expeditions to the north pole, calling it a “magical destination”. |
17343
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Arctic time capsule from 2018 washes up in Ireland as polar ice...
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Hi Alan, "McClory tracked down one of the letter’s authors, a Russian Instagramblogger in St Petersburg known as Sveta. In a Zoom call, Sveta said the crew and passengers had thought the cylinder might be discovered in 30 or 50 years and expressed shock it was found so quickly, McClory said." I wonder why the Russians took people on that Arctic expedition that didn't know anything about ice floes? I thought everyone knew there was no land at the north pole and the sea ice there was constantly moving. A quick search found this animation from Fowler and Maslanik at the NSIDC. It was built to show the decrease in multiyear ice but also shows how the sea ice over the pole moves rapidly. Do you think they were actually dumb enough to plant a time capsule thinking it wouldn't be freed and found until all the ice melted? The skeptic in me wants to say they knew the the ice floe would free the capsule rather quickly... but I supposed they could have been that dumb. One would think someone would have pointed out the futility of placing a time capsule there. I do think the media would be better to use what the scientists say about sea ice instead of using dumb stunts like this. For example from the NSIDC: "Sea ice extent for October 2020 was 5.28 million square kilometers (2.04 million square miles), placing it lowest in the satellite record for the month. This was 3.07 million square kilometers (1.19 million square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 October average and 450,000 square kilometers (173,700 square miles) below the record low mark for October set in 2019. October 2020 is the largest departure from average conditions seen in any month thus far in the satellite record, falling 3.69 standard deviations below the 1981 to 2010 mean. Ice extent is far below average in all of sectors of the Eurasian side of the Arctic Ocean and in Baffin Bay. " But the media typically does a poor job on climate change. Cheers Jim |
17346
From: Alan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Arctic time capsule from 2018 washes up in Ireland as polar ice...
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Goodness JTRIV who pissed in your cornflakes... Looking at the map at your link with North pole indicated it looks a pretty long way to sea from the ice cap extent. And the nuclear-powered 50 Years of Victory ship does seem to traverse all the way to the pole "I thought everyone knew there was no land at the north pole" What leads you to conclude to think they dumbly thought there was land the North Pole? I can see a quote in the article “Everything around is covered by ice." where they left the capsule and as they travelled by ice breaker where does land come into it? Sveta said the crew and passengers had thought the cylinder might be discovered in 30 or 50 years and expressed shock it was found so quickly, McClory said. Shame you weren't onboard at the time to correct them - when would you have said they could expect it to float free if you were onboard the cruise in 2018? National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder follows the development by studying satellite data. As the Arctic sea ice was at its maximum extent in March, the center concluded that 2018 saw the second lowest extent in the 39-year satellite record, falling just behind 2017. Worse: The four lowest seasonal maxima have all occurred during the last four years. April 18, 2018 'But the media typically does a poor job on climate change.' I can't recall - but aren't you into climate change denial? it seems anything relatiing to it in the media get your heckles up. |
17347
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Arctic time capsule from 2018 washes up in Ireland as polar ice...
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Hi Alan, > What leads you to conclude to think they dumbly thought there was land the North Pole? The fact that they thought a time capsule left there would stay there for decades. > Shame you weren't onboard at the time to correct them - when would you have said they could expect it to float free if you were onboard the cruise in 2018? I'd have wanted more information. And if I was part of a team that was leaving a time capsule at the North Pole I'd definitely studied the patterns of the ice floes before giving out any estimate. Didn't that seem odd to you? A team takes a time capsule on an ice breaker to the North Pole yet they didn't seem to have any idea of the ice movements. This really has the feel of another climate "stunt" that happen often. Or who knows... maybe a team of clueless people were sent on an expedition to place a time capsule at the North Pole and my bullshit detector is giving a false positive. > I can't recall - but aren't you into climate change denial? it seems anything relatiing to it in the media get your heckles up. Not in denial of anything, I just tend to take on the climate alarmism that is often promoted by sleazy media outlets such as ryan's favorite CounterPunch. But climate change is real and we need to replace fossil fuels as the primary source of our energy. I am against the treaties and limits that have been happening for the past 30 years without any impact on rising CO2. It isn't a problem that treaties or limits will ever solve, this is an energy problem that has to be solved. So what are your positions on the topic? Cheers Jim |
17348
From: Alan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Arctic time capsule from 2018 washes up in Ireland as polar ice...
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I think they knew they weren't any where near land to have clambered off the ice-breaker and buried in the ice their time capsule. But your animation does demonstrate the slush puppy nature of the arctic ice cap as it rotates aroung the pole. And thinning of the ice sheet and decreasing age of ice made it more than easy for the capsule to make its escape. "Sea ice thickness and sea ice age are not the same thing, but sea ice age provides a proxy for thickness. A study published in 2007 found a dramatic change in the age of sea ice in the central Arctic Basin since the mid-1980s. In 1987, 57 percent of the ice pack was at least five years old, and a quarter of that ice was at least nine years old. By 2007, only 7 percent of the ice pack was at least five years old, and virtually none of the ice was at least nine years old (Maslanik et al, 2007). Multiyear ice coverage actually increased between March 2013 and March 2014, thanks to more ice surviving the summer melt season than had survived in the record-breaking summer of 2012. But overall, multiyear sea ice continues to decline in the Arctic (Perovich et al. 2014)." https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/sea_ice.html My thinking has been for climate change is that it's happening - how much so between natural / manmade up in air - however which way I slant it still is happening and as mankind has done has and will need to somehow adapt to the consequences - as the momentum of change will make it hard to slow - stop / keep to normal (what is normal?) as the cause has been many years/decades/centuries in the making. Pace of change likely faster than even our hunter . gather ancestors had to. As it did for them it led to opening up of opportunities as lands transformed to their benefit following the last ice age as climate fluctuated to what we percieve as normal - but they were were free to wander up coast lines and up river valleys to follow or retreat as opportunities presented or wilted . With people locked more tightly to nation states and borders we can already see flows of migrating people hitting and overwhelming geo-political impediments in their path. So I wonder if even with investment that many more will suffer in these times of fast change than generations can adapt within or migrate over established borders. I believe there'll need to be a downshift achieved somehow in population growth, along with alternative means of energy production - but I think it will be forced more by circumstance after noticable significant events rather than before (like transition away from ME oil) - see our and other nations preparedness with the pandemic. Still in 50 years or so or less I expect some seeds of humanity to depart to estblish off world seetlements if Musk and any others inc. the Chinese can possibly scrape it together if allocated special priority even hurling over any barrier of any major economic reshaping/downshifting, And it'll be hard to become fully self-sustaining to a way off of cutting dependency from Earth's umbilical supply lines. So nuke, wind, tidal anything but oil (except some for classic IC motorcycles) and hope planet wide every couple keeps it to less than 2 sprogs! |
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17349
From: JTRIV, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Arctic time capsule from 2018 washes up in Ireland as polar ice...
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Hi Alan > My thinking has been for climate change is that it's happening - how > much so between natural / manmade up in air I can tell you from 20 years of discussing global warming/climate change that many would call you a "denier" based on your statement above. Even being open to the possibility that a small, tiny portion of climate change is natural is blasphemy to some. > So nuke, wind, tidal anything but oil (except some for classic IC > motorcycles) and hope planet wide every couple keeps it to less than > 2 sprogs! Again you are on path that would upset most environmentalists. A lot of environmentalists are against nuclear and replacing nuclear with wind/solar would be quite a task by itself. I agree the globe needs to work on population control. Currently fertility rates are highest in the so called developing nations and lowest in the developing nations. But the treaties to date, Kyoto and Paris exempt developing nations. The graphic above shows global emissions. Since 1970 the industrial nations have not shown any real growth in emissions. US emissions are slightly above 1970 levels, the EU is slightly below 1970 levels, Russian and Japanese emissions are very slightly above their 1970 emissions level. What is obviously left out is China, India and "other countries". China passed the US to become the global leader in CO2 emissions in about 2005 and now has more than double US emissions and is still rapidly increasing. In the Paris Agreement they pledged to peak their emissions by 2030, something energy experts already predicted. India, the world's 3rd largest emitters committed to goals even more distant in the future. And the "other nations" are all the small nations with high fertility rates and rapidly increasing emissions. You thought I was "into climate change denial" because you've seen me talking about how the treaties (Kyoto, Paris) were a huge wasted effort yet the graphic above backs up my position. Billions have been spent and much time and effort wasted, along with a HUGE amount of CO2 emissions from the thousands of people traveling to yearly climate conferences. And their solution is to get the few nations without increasing emissions to make slight cuts while not addressing those nations with rapidly rising emissions that are driving global emissions ever higher. They usually say something stupid like "oh, you are blaming China instead of blaming ourselves". But the data doesn't lie. The nations driving global emissions ever higher have been exempted from the treaties meaning if every nation adhered to the letter to the Paris Climate agreement we are guaranteed to have rapidly rising emissions. I doubt we could even measure the difference in CO2 ppmv. Cheers Jim |
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17344
From: pamela, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Arctic time capsule from 2018 washes up in Ireland as polar ice...
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