Melting Antarctica, Did They Say When?

Scientists confirm there’s enough fossil fuel on Earth to entirely melt Antarctica - The Washington Post:

Wow, ALL OF ANTARCTICA! But one needs to remember the issue of TIME ... the sun is predicted go out as well! If you don't list the time, that also makes a good headline .. except the current estimate is 5 billion years in the future.

If you go to a bit more detailed source, you find this.

But he's a scientist, and like all proper scientists he's willing to admit inconvenient truths. In this case, the truth in question is his own prediction that no matter what humans do in the way of carbon emissions, sea levels are not going to rise by more than 8cm this century due to melting Antarctic ice. For context, the seas have been rising faster than that for thousands of years. They rose 17cm just during the 20th century, and the Antarctic cap is far and away the biggest body of ice on the planet.

Just for "startling effect", there is 8cm ... by 2100! Think future technology MIGHT be able to handle that? Consider that the Wright Brothers first flew in 1903 and we landed on the moon in 1969 ... 66 years. We have 85 until 2100. Admittedly, we SUCK compared to progress in the 20th century so far in the 21st, but really. 8cm?

Want the get a meter of rise? Even according to their rather extreme burn rates and calculations -- 2200AD. I'm betting you don't make it. Your kids don't make it either.  Maybe you will have a really old grandchild? Oh, and that assumes that the models are a whole lot more accurate than the current "on pause and holding" for 18 years models -- let alone potential fluctuations in solar, less than precise calculations on atmospheric sensitivity to carbon, etc, etc.?

People that make predictions 100s and thousands of years in the future really ought to do what I did yesterday once in awhile. Sight in a new scope on a S&W .460 magnum pistol.

You boresight it with a laser in your basement. Then you try 10 yds -- good, pretty damned close. Then 25 yards, hmm ... need a few adjustments. Then 50 ... hmm, back to 25, then 50 again ... looking better, OOPS, ran out of ammo. This is off a bench rest -- so much for the cheap .45 long colt ammo, can't even keep a tight group at 25 yds ... gotta do the buck a round Hornady! Damn, just small variation gets BIGGER at just 50 yards with a pistol. I've had it hitting dinner plate groups at 100 before with good ammo, hitting a poster size "group" at 200 yds ... going to take a while to get back to there, and I may just end up going back to open sights. Scope eye relief on a pistol is REALLY a PAIN! Makes me wonder if I'm too old for this and just put open sights back on it!

Oh, BTW, a poster sized "group" is in no way "good", but if you were being shot at by a .460 mag at 200 yds with that accuracy, it would not be a good day!

I wonder what being off by a few thousandths does at a predictive range of 1000 years? I guess the nice part is that you KNOW that nobody that has ANY remote remembrance of anything about you or your "science" is going to be looking at your groupings!

Yet another case where how information is REPORTED makes ALL the difference!

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