Iceland is Planning For the Possibility That Its Climate Could Become Uninhabitable (msn.com) 81
Iceland in October classified the potential collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation -- the ocean current system that ferries warm water northward from the tropics and essentially functions as the country's central heating -- as a national security risk, a designation that amounts to a formal reckoning with the possibility that climate change could render the island nation uninhabitable.
Several recent studies have found the AMOC far more vulnerable to breakdown than scientists had long assumed. One, analyzing nine models under high-emission scenarios, saw the current weaken and collapse in every single instance; even under the Paris agreement's emission targets, the researchers estimated a 25% chance of shutdown. Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanographer at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a co-author of that study, said it was "wrong to assume this was low probability." Simulations of a post-collapse world project Icelandic winter extremes plunging to minus-50 degrees Celsius, and sea ice surrounding the country for the first time since Viking settlement.
Iceland's national strategy for dealing with AMOC risks is scheduled to be finalized by 2028. The country has also flagged that NASA Goddard, a key source of AMOC modeling, has been targeted for significant staff and budget cuts under the current U.S. administration.
Several recent studies have found the AMOC far more vulnerable to breakdown than scientists had long assumed. One, analyzing nine models under high-emission scenarios, saw the current weaken and collapse in every single instance; even under the Paris agreement's emission targets, the researchers estimated a 25% chance of shutdown. Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceanographer at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a co-author of that study, said it was "wrong to assume this was low probability." Simulations of a post-collapse world project Icelandic winter extremes plunging to minus-50 degrees Celsius, and sea ice surrounding the country for the first time since Viking settlement.
Iceland's national strategy for dealing with AMOC risks is scheduled to be finalized by 2028. The country has also flagged that NASA Goddard, a key source of AMOC modeling, has been targeted for significant staff and budget cuts under the current U.S. administration.
"Okay Donny, you can (Score:2)
...have it." [bloop bloop]
Re:US bases probably in uninhabitable regions anyw (Score:4, Interesting)
There's already a NATO base here, at Keflavík (conjoining the international airport). It was abandoned in 2006 but it's been moving toward increased usage. That would surely be the primary base if the US invaded us.
I take talk of potential US invasions of us deadly seriously. Defending Greenland against European counters - and in general excluding European control of the North Atlantic as a whole - would be vastly easier if the US captured Iceland. Maintaining a major airbase in Iceland is *far* easier than in Greenland - much more infrastructure, much more population, milder climate, and most importantly, year-round ice-free waters for supply deliveries. And since we all know Trump wants Greenland for its mineral resources, what you generally need to refine resources is *energy*, which is what Iceland is rich in.
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I don't think la Presidenta thinks that far ahead. And there's little chance of piping Iceland's geothermal energy to Greenland. It would make more sense to ship the crap to Iceland and refine it there. So that asshole has to invade two islands.
la Presidenta also hasn't figured out Greenland is covered in ice, lots of it. He sees the word "Greenland" and is imagining a tropical paradise. Any mineral recovery would be expensive and very damaging to the environment. Of course, he might go for it just for the
Re:US bases probably in uninhabitable regions anyw (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not about what he thinks, it's about what his advisors think.
For a long time, he consistently referred to Greenland as Greenland. Then suddenly, in a press conference out of the blue, he kept calling it Iceland. Lead theory in the press here is that some of his advisors were discussing Iceland during a meeting about Greenland, and thus caused his confusion.
That's not how it works. For example, our biggest energy consumer is alumium refining. There is zero alumium ore production in Iceland. Rather, the ore is shipped to Iceland (along with the graphite electrodes, etc), we refine it here with local energy, then ship out the finished alumium. Even the smallest of our smelters uses more power than all homes and businesses here combined. We also do the same sort of thing with ferrosilicon. It's effectively a way to export power without having to physically export the power.
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He tosses out one idea after another in order to feed the news cycle. Positive news, negative news, it doesn't matter. To him, all news is good. As soon as one idea stops generating media attention, he drops the idea and adds another one. He's averaging about one wackjob statement per day
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He's tried pursuing too much of the absurd stuff he talks about for anyone in Iceland or Greenland to be assured by your post.
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On the other hand, the only thing where he's getting major traction is immigration. On most other things, if you ignore his all-caps social media posts about what he *claims* to be doing, and actually look at what's actually happening, it's mostly fairly small stuff. Example: he pulls back intel sharing to Ukraine and talks big in all caps about it on social media. 72 hours later, the info sharing resumes
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On the other hand, the only thing where he's getting major traction is immigration. On most other things, if you ignore his all-caps social media posts about what he *claims* to be doing, and actually look at what's actually happening, it's mostly fairly small stuff. Example: he pulls back intel sharing to Ukraine and talks big in all caps about it on social media. 72 hours later, the info sharing resumes, but it's done quietly. No big news announcements about that second thing, because it's boring. This kind of thing plays out over and over.
You characterize that as encouraging while I see it as indicative of how problematic this administration is. They're constantly testing the limits on constitutionality and what the public will accept and only rescind their constantly problematic policy when it meets certain thresholds for outrage. Notice Trump trying recently to dial down stuff with ICE. What they're doing is wearing everyone out and pushing current outrages out of site with new ones.
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I take talk of potential US invasions of us deadly seriously.
I don't think the US invasion talks are serious. If you think TACO is a real thing, saber rattling about Greenland is orders of magnitude beyond TACO. Trump likes to talk without thinking things through, and his yes-men have no choice but to amplify his non-thought out thoughts.
The previous slight saber rattling about Greenland already led to visible opposition, even from Republicans. The Republicans are already facing the real possibility of losing the House. If real moves toward a Greenland invasion a
Trump is no strategist (Score:2)
Iceland's energy is not coal or oil, so I doubt he recognizes that Iceland has energy. And his staff probably would be exhausted trying to explain it to him.
I think preparing for actions from the US that bring about global economic decline is what we should be doing. The key supporters of the current administration are openly preparing for raiding the wealth of the world during an economic collapse. And have been caught discussing as much in the Epstein files.
Greenland, Iceland, NATO, Venezuela, Ukraine...
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Ah, would that be Greenland you're thinking of?
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Trump did mix them up (Score:3, Informative)
Trump did mix up Greenland and Iceland multiple times. If you believe Biden should have been tested before running again, you should agree Donald needs public tests. Their symptoms might be different, but Donald is discombobulated way too often.
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My take on this story is that Iceland is predicted to be less of a green land, whereas Greenland is probably going to be even more of an ice land.
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The problem is that most of those 400,000 people don't have citizenship in any other country. The problem isn't a raw numbers people moving problem, it's a "where to move the people to" problem. Never mind all the hardship relocation will create.
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They are all citizens in a Nordic country, and are free to move to any of the other 4 Nordic countries; they are also a Schengen member giving them another 24 countries they could move to.
Re: Timescale (Score:2)
are also a Schengen member giving them another 24 countries they could move to.
Travel to without a visa - yes.
Move to - I don't think so!
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Huh, I wasn't aware the Nordic countries had their own arrangement for something like this. I knew Iceland wasn't an EU member so figured that was that. Thanks for the info.
Geothermal will save Iceland (Score:2)
Even if their island becomes 100% hostile to all life, the Icelanders can always power artificial life with the free energy they're blessed with: the uninterrupted source of heat coming from the bowels of the Earth.
They're in a quasi-unique position of not really having to worry about climate change, if worse comes to worst.
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Right. Meanwhile down in the tropics they could just use the free energy from the sun to power the A/C if the heat becomes too extreme.
Were you born this stupid or do you have to practice at it?
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Right. Meanwhile down in the tropics they could just use the free energy from the sun to power the A/C if the heat becomes too extreme.
Because people just love being inside all the time.
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"For decades the Icelandic economy depended heavily on fisheries, but tourism has now surpassed fishing and aluminum as Iceland’s main export industry."
https://www.forbes.com/places/iceland/
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No one is going to want to vacation there either with weather like that.
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Re:Geothermal will save Iceland (Score:4, Interesting)
It depends on how fast it happens. Our buildings are not built for temperatures that low. A typical January day has a high just above freezing and a low just below it.
If change happens at the same sort of speed that housing is replaced / new infrastructure is built, yes, we can adapt. But I'm not sure how we're supposed to bear the cost of renovating every building in the country at once and dramatically expanding our energy production, if it were to happen quickly. There's also what it would do to our economy beyond those costs. Two of the main pillars of our economy are fishing and tourism. Shutting down of the North Atlantic circulation would likely crush both of those. Agriculture is also a growing industry, and livestock raising has long been critical here; the former would be crushed by drops in temperatures (it's already marginal), and the latter would significantly drop in yield.
I don't think people understand how vulnerable Iceland is to significant drops in temperatures. During glacial periods, Iceland undergoes mass extinctions of plants (for example, when humans arrived, there were only 3 (small-tree sized) tree species left in Iceland (downy birch, rowan, common aspen), with only the first common and the latter extremely rare). This happens because virtually the whole island ends up under thick glaciers.
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I'm pretty sure you'd have at least a decade before things got THAT extreme. Urgent planning needed, but the construction should be doable. Food seems a more difficult problem. Also, most geothermal plants have a relatively short lifetime. (I'm not sure about the ones based around volcanoes. I don't think those have a track record.)
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Where are they going to get the money to replace all of their housing in a decade? Remember, their tax base is only 400,000 people strong too.
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The planning starts NOW. That will include rules governing construction. The AMOC stopping hasn't happened yet, and there's no firm estimate of when or even whether it will happen. If they start planning NOW, including changes in the rules governing construction, then handling the housing should be doable.
Also, doable doesn't mean easy or convenient. But the food supply is critical. So is the durability of their power generators. If they can't live there, they'll need some other way to adapt.
(Actually
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Building buildings is a large portion of all human resource consumption, and they're generally designed to last for a good chunk of a century or so. Your plan is to change something that already consumes a large portion of our entire spending and accelerate it by an order of magnitude?
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Sure, just 5x our GDP and we're all set to do that.
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Re:So let me get this right... (Score:5, Informative)
Global warming is going to make things colder?
In some areas, yes. Global warming will destabilize existing wind, weather, and ocean currents into new patterns. Some places will loose their current heating and cooling sources.
Drain the Chesapeake Bay and see what happens to the weather around Washington DC and Baltimore. Drain Puget Sound and see what happens to Seattle. Flowing ocean water can have a stabilizing effect on the land area near them.
Stop the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the warm water that keeps Iceland temperate will stop and no longer be a stabilizing source. Iceland would get colder and the AMOC current would turn to new locations. There are several models that show the best guess of what would happen but suffice it to say it would change weather patterns for numerous locations.
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_And_ other places will get hotter, as less heat is transported away by the AMOC. So those places may become uninhabitable by being so hot and humid that humans will just overheat and die from heat stroke.
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I don't think it's going to shut down the thermal conveying outside of the North Atlantic. The AMOC is just a part of a much larger system. But my *guess* is much of the heat would end up in Antarctica rather than the North Atlantic. Europe would get extremely cold, and Antarctica would melt faster than predicted. (Once upon a time there were forests in Antarctica. Of course, the other continents have moved since then.)
Re: So let me get this right... (Score:2)
Those much larger systems aren't magic, they have causes which are being perturbed.
Look for the conveyor to shut down since it's powered by sea ice.
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The reason the AMOC would shut down is because meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet makes the water less salty and therefore more buoyant. It's a temporary effect while the ice sheet is melting.
While it's stopped, Iceland and western Europe get colder, more befitting their latitude. Places like Florida, where the warm water comes from, get hotter. Of course, that doesn't matter that much because a lot of it is under water.
Once the melting slows down, in a thousand years or so, it starts up again.
There are climate models that have ... (Score:3)
... northern Europe and the northern Atlantic in the unique position of becoming the earths new coldest point on earth. Iceland would be affected, as would Scandinavia, Germany and some other regions. Given that Germany enjoys a relatively moderate climate considering its latitude position on the globe these assumptions are plausible. If the gulf stream goes away, Germany will get colder.
As mentioned, that is pretty unique, globally speaking.
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Global warming is going to make things colder?
Yes, potentially. The effects of global warming on AMOC and the consequences have been explored in the scientific literature since the 1970s.
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Isn't that why they changed the narrative label from "global warming" to "climate change"? After all these record cold winters we have been having
Imagine that! (Score:5, Insightful)
A country looks into the future and sees something bleak. Then they begin to plan for it.
Imagine how stupid they would be if they just denied it, turned a blind eye, and then actively attempted to accelerate directly toward it.
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Amurricans would call that "winning"
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To be fair, Iceland sees its future as bleak. America does not as it has the land mass and range of climates to weather potential disaster. Global warming doesn't really pose an existential threat to huge countries unless you start looking in the very fine details of potential supply chain crisis.
Or... (Score:2)
.. they could get wiped out by a volcano
Re:Or... (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, to be fair, Denmark nearly did order Iceland evacuated during the Mist Hardships after the eruption of Laki.
We tend not to get "geologically-catastrophic" eruptions here like, say, Yellowstone. But we get "historically-catastrophic" eruptions surprisingly often, once every 100-200 years or so. For example, the largest lava flow on Earth in the entire Holocene is in Iceland, the jórsárhraun, from Bárðarbunga.
Take Laki for example. A 25 kilometer long fissure "unzipped". Lava fountains peaked at 800-1400m high. The eruption lasted for 9 months. The worst problem was the gas. To give some perspective: Pinatubo was the gassiest eruption of the 20th century, emitting a very high ~20 MT of sulfur dioxide (Mount Saint Helens by contrast was only ~1,5MT). Well, Laki emitted *120 MT* of sulfur dioxide. And 8-15MT of hydrogen fluoride, which is vastly worse. Normally polar volcanoes have little impact on global climate (volcanic climate impacts tend to be strongest poleward of the volcano), but Laki was so intense that the Mississippi River froze at New Orleans and there was ice in the Gulf of Mexico. It disrupted rain cycles around the world and caused famines that killed millions (Egypt suffered particularly badly). Tens of thousands of deaths were reported directly from the gas in the UK (one presumes the sick and elderly who are vulnerable to air pollution). Weak harvests and the poor government response to it aggravated tensions in France, and probably contributed to the French Revolution five years later.
Regarding the latter... it's funny how things can come full circle. Because the French Revolution ultimately led to Napoleon, and thus the Napoleonic Wars, which led to Denmark losing Norway to Sweden, which led to Denmark clamping down on its remaining colonies (including Iceland), which created the local anger in Iceland that led to the Icelandic independence movement that ultimately led to Iceland's freedom.
But Laki is hardly the only one. Another good example is Hekla. If you look at old maps of Iceland, they commonly draw Hekla hugely prominently, erupting, using the scariest drawing style they can. Hekla became quite famous in the Middle Ages in Europe as being the entrance to Hell. It was written as being the prison of Judas, people claimed to see souls flying into it during an eruption, etc. It seems to have gotten its fame during the 1104 eruption, which dusted Europe with ash.
But there's so many more [eldgos.is].
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Ísland very much does literally mean "Ice-Land" :) Well, kind of. Ís is sort of a formal word for ice, a bit old fashioned, more common in compound words than on its own. If you're at a restaurant and you want ice, you order "klaki". If you order "ís", you'll get rjómaís, aka "cream-ice", aka ice cream. So in modern parlance, it's "Ice Cream Land" ;)
As for the name origin: it was named by Flóki "Raven" Vilger(th)arson, who found Iceland by releasing ravens from his boats (as
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Also, FYI, the Icelandic word for island is "Ey" (common genitive joining form "Eyja"). You can still see it a lot in place names in the UK where it's accidentally morphed into "-sea" (stealing the S from the genitive of the prior word) - for example, "Swansea" was "Sveinsey" - Sveinn being a man's name, so "Sveinn's Island". Probably the most famous place you probably are familiar with the volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which shut down air traffic - lit, "Of-Islands Of-Mountains Glacier", or "Glacier of
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Doesn't 65% of Iceland's population live in the vicinity of Reykjavik? So as long as the volcano is nowhere near there, they just have to manage the other 35%
So, it'll be as cold as when they moved in? (Score:2)
Vikings. Iron age technology. They didn't even have chimneys in their halls. And yet, they built a nation in that cold.
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Yeah, that was a poor analogy. It's more like "since the last ice age". If the AMOC collapses, expect Iceland to become completely surrounded by sea ice, without gaps. It'll take awhile, but that's what to expect. (But you probably won't be able to ski from Iceland to Greenland.)
OTOH, expect this to eventually cause the Bering Strait to freeze solid. (I said "eventually". This would take awhile.) Also the US east coast would get a lot colder, though nothing like Europe. There's no really good histor
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Have you ever read "Fallen Angels" by Niven, Pournelle, and Flynn? Radical environmentalists take over, and all their work causes that ice age to happen.
Like the one-eyed man said: (Score:2)
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Sure it is, it's just north of Bústa(th)avegur, between Tunguvegur and Réttarhóltsvegur ;)
Ha Ha! (Score:2)
Uninhabitable! That's ridiculous, there are people living up above the artic circle. If the current moves is likely that lifestyle will change and become more like the artic. I call this climate alarmism.
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Iceland is already right on the edge of the arctic circle. Most of the people living above the arctic circle can only do so because of these ocean currents that make the climate much more mild than they otherwise would at the latitude (i.e. Northern Norway). Yes, a small number people live in the most extreme parts of the arctic, but very very few. There's a reason why the Reykjavik metro area is home to ~250k people while the East Coast of Greenland at the same latitude has no settlements with more than a
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worry warts (Score:2)
Iceland has enormous geothermal resources. Whether the ocean warms them or not, they will be fine as long as they plan.