Forum / Hendecasyllabic strophe + news you might likely not have heard or seen

• 
  strannikov

  Jan 31, 07:56pm

  The Darwinian Conceit misled us all:
  evolution’s no “theory of survival”—
  evolution’s our theory of extinction.
  We’ve not survived to become intelligent—
  our proto-intelligence persists, somewhat.
  We have never become “rational creatures”—
  we have mistaken “capacity” for “trait”:
  we are capable of reason, that alone,
  while we underestimate our known talents
  and habituations for stupidity
  and for endlessly repeating our follies.

  If doubts persist, examine NASA models of elevation and topography (derived from databases using NASA radar topography), groundwater recharge (NASA's GLDAS, which analyzes mean Variable Infiltration Capacity), seawater density (annual mean outputs), and consequent sea level rise projections (assembled by NASA's Sea Level Change team [Hamlington, et al., 2024]) using satellite altimetry data.

  The resulting models suggest that, by 2100 (2100, not 2200), approximately 77% of coastal watersheds globally will have experienced significant saltwater intrusions and encroachments. --which suggests that global rice production literally will have begun to sink within the next seventy-five years.

  --and not only does it begin to appear that rice cultivation and production will begin to collapse by the end of our present century: because organic chemistry is organic chemistry, rice that does manage to grow and be harvested across interim decades will begin steadily to acquire more and more arsenic content as arsenic natural to soils in major river deltas where rice is grown is displaced from soil by saltwater intrusions and encroachments and goes straight up into rice stalks (arsenic absorption in rice-growing regions is already occurring).

  Public intellectuals and unelected media discourse managers deserve much more credit for concealing these data and what they clearly suggest than we (collectively) have had the wit to accord them.

• 
  strannikov

  Jan 31, 09:20pm

  Link to Hamlington, et al., Oct. 2024:

  https://d-nb.info/1352699184/34

• 
  strannikov

  Feb 01, 10:31pm

  The JPL team led by Kyra Banks published its report "Climate-Induced Saltwater Intrusion by 2100" in November 2024:

  https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-dod-study-saltwater-to-widely-taint-coastal-groundwater-by-2100/

• 
  strannikov

  Feb 02, 12:42am

  Apologies: Kyra Adams, JPL.

• 
  strannikov

  Feb 05, 03:10pm

  Further requisite specificity: "Nearly 77% of global coastal areas below 60° north will undergo saltwater intrusion by 2100". --Not much consolation here, since most of the planet's major ports and agriculture-intense river deltas are well south of 60 degrees north.

  While elaboration or finessing of Adams' methodology may be warranted, it seems that her 2024 study's conclusions are being incorporated into analyses that will be featured in the IPCC's AR7 publications due by the end of 2029. Her conclusions are broadly consistent with the findings of Nerem, et al. (2018) and Hamlington, et al. (2024) on global mean sea level rise, as everyone's methodologies and measurements attain greater refinement and more data for more precise modeling.

  Meanwhile, global emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and sulfur hexafluoride continue, and atmospheric levels of all four pollutants continue to rise month-by-month and year-by-year.

  Ice mass loss in both Greenland and Antarctica continues at astounding rates: ice mass melt now accounts for almost two-thirds of total GMSL rise, surpassing contributions from thermal expansion, even though atmospheric and oceanic temperatures overall continue to rise.

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