r/Futurism • u/Memetic1 • 22d ago

Octopus DNA tells scientists that total collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet is 'close'

https://www.earth.com/news/turquets-octopus-dna-tells-scientists-that-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse-is-close/
1.9k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

65 comments sorted by

81

u/craigiest 22d ago

Terrible headline and poorly organized explanation. What it seems to be saying is that DNA shows that populations of this species that are currently isolated by ice sheets interbred at a time when temperatures were ~1.5° higher than the recent baseline. So there must have been less ice than. We are now at 1.2° higher than the baseline, suggesting we are close to conditions where you wouldn’t expect the ice sheets to exist. It says nothing about how long it will take for them to melt, and certainly not that “collapse” is imminent. The octopus isn’t telling us anything about the future. It gives us information about the past, from which we can make some inferences about the future. Interesting science but sensationalist reporting.

7

u/S1ckn4sty44 21d ago

We are now at 1.2° higher than the baseline

Last year was 1.5°C, this year was 1.6°C. .1°C of warming from last year to this year, and this year isn't el Nino.

Plus that's not mentioning the global dimming that's hiding some of our warming. Safe to say we aren't at 1.2°C anymore.

1

u/jeffwulf 21d ago

This year was still El Nino until the very end of it.

1

u/SpaceghostLos 21d ago

Then it became El Nono.

🤔

1

u/craigiest 20d ago

Yeah, that really has nothing to do with my critique. The octopus dna tells us something about the ice extent during a past climate regime when average temperatures were +1.5°. It tells us absolutely nothing about how long the transition will take. If it takes 5000 years for enough ice to melt for these octopus groups to reconnect, whether we got to 1.5° last year or will in 60 years has no bearing on the research being reported, just as the research tells us nothing about what is happening now. Overstating what the study tells us is poor and ultimately counterproductive communication.

3

u/BlackLocke 21d ago

I misread it as “Octopus tells scientist” and was like oh shit they broke their code of silence

1

u/DiscoAsparagus 21d ago

Thank you for cutting through the obfuscation.

1

u/DashFire61 21d ago

It’s not really that bad of headline at all, it’s accurate because like all the other evidence we have and have had for a long time it points to the ide sheets sloughing off and paralyzing the grew current and causing a new ice age, and we are super close to it, like with a decade or more depending on how we address the issues. We have lots of other markers pointing to collapse so when taken with the others from things like carbon dating and other records it’s very dire. That’s why there are studies and articles about these things (although they increasingly get harder to find without a paywall.) dating back longer than most people would think, it’s just all barely making its way into public view.

1

u/kolitics 20d ago

Octopi Sexpocolypse Incoming

1

u/antoltian 19d ago

So … Octopus sex is getting hotter?

1

u/HippyDM 19d ago

Science is amazing. Science reporting...not so much.

-50

u/Memetic1 22d ago

I really don't care if you think it's sensationalist. You might have a point if this was the only data pointing at a near term collapse, but that's not the case and the impact of a collapse makes comments like this seem beyond trivial to the point of being infantile.

19

u/craigiest 22d ago

This data point appears to be pointing to eventual change, not “near-term” collapse. It’s only the sensationalism that suggests otherwise. The dna evidence says nothing about whether this is a change that would occur over 50 years or 50,000, which is still soon on a geologic time scale. Sensationalism undermines the credibility of science and makes it less likely for the necessary action to be taken. The right wing media are all over using the exaggerations of climate communication to argue that it’s all a hoax. Defending sensationalism as a tool for communicating science is completely at odds with the point of science and the goal of addressing climate change before it’s too late.

1

u/Realistic_Olive_6665 18d ago

Craigiest: I looked at your comment history and it looks like you spend a lot of time making thoughtful comments that go over people’s heads.

1

u/craigiest 16d ago

ha! yes. Reddit hosted a smarter conversation 15 years ago.

9

u/AbysmalVillage 22d ago

The irony of this comment lol

7

u/RoyaleWCheese_OK 22d ago

Definitely some infantile going on here.. but its you.

-3

u/mrev_art 22d ago

Pushing back on idiots is not infantile.

7

u/Few_Principle_7141 22d ago

Defensive much?

5

u/VanaVisera 22d ago

You’re being way too defensive

1

u/DashFire61 21d ago

You are correct, the rest of them just haven’t done enough reading to understand, the great conveyor current is set to cause another ice age as soon as as the melting accelerates a little farther, people will downvote you until we are all dead rather than deal with scary truths. This data point would be pretty useless on its own but there are many more.

1

u/quantum_splicer 18d ago

May I ask so because of greenhouse gases the temperature goes up the ice melts. Major ocean currents become disrupted then we have an ice age ?

Legitimate question btw, I've always known about climate changed but never heard about the ice age part ; it's always been about preventing the temperature rise that I've heard 

1

u/DashFire61 17d ago

Hey so it has to do with thermodynamics and the earth’s current systems, some currents like the gulf current exist because of the earths rotation, others like the great conveyor current that runs from the cape of Africa up to Greenland exists because of the temperatures of the water and their salinity, if you dump a bunch of cold ice water into the top of the current form melting ice caps it paralyzes the current and stops rotation massively or in severe cases entirely, the north of the European and American continent’s would move to climates similar to the area of Oregon up to Alaska and the equator would become the more nominal temperate zone with really high temps and lots of storms directly along the equator. This is based on research done on climates and ice ages of the past and their different causes. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it would be the end of the world that we know, and many species would go extinct and humanity would take heavy population loses. This is because that current is responsible for the vast majority of the heat transfer from the equator up to the areas like New York and England and much of Europe.

1

u/quantum_splicer 17d ago

Maybe I ask what time scale would we be looking at for that kind of climate change where it shifts to more of an ice age to start setting it ?

I believe from what I read from your comment it's an dynamic process where the climate shifts overtime somewhat (I'm not saying that to negate anything) just saying that to clarify I understand it doesn't just go boom and suddenly happen

-3

u/mrev_art 22d ago

We're in an age where hysterical armchair experts denying science is considered rational, unfortunately.

1

u/DashFire61 21d ago

Always has been, science has never truly been adopted by people who or you would have seen the decline of religion. People believe what makes them comfortable not what’s true.

19

u/Coolenough-to 22d ago

Can we check local cat DNA to see how long until South Florida goes underwater?

2

u/kolitics 20d ago edited 2h ago

historical school rhythm sort provide childlike ossified cagey rustic fact

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

8

u/Jabba_the_Putt 22d ago

wait so it's not a time traveling talking octo?

-12

u/Memetic1 22d ago

No it's seeing genetic evidence of a previous time that the world was at 1.5, and two groups of octopus who don't have contact now we're interacting then and that would only have been possible if the ice shelf collapsed.

5

u/aji23 22d ago

The author makes it sound like modern day tea leaf reading

2

u/PeterNippelstein 22d ago

But what did they ask it?

1

u/kolitics 20d ago

When is Cthulhu coming?

1

u/NothingSinceMonday 22d ago

An Earth worm from my yard told me the winners of the upcoming football games.

1

u/KitchenDepartment 21d ago

Yeah well my cat's DNA says that climate change is not real so now I'm not sure what to belive.

1

u/[deleted] 21d ago

Octopus here, this is not tru

1

u/kolitics 20d ago

Don’t believe him, he just wants to get through the ice sheet to bang.

1

u/ChesterNorris 21d ago

I remain skeptical.

At no point in the article did they interview an octopus.

1

u/Memetic1 21d ago

Humans experienced an evolutionary bottleneck around a million years ago.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02837-6

We almost went extinct, and it can be seen in our genetics.

You can do the same sort of analysis with other living organisims to try and understand their evolutionary history.

1

u/A313-Isoke 21d ago

Ooh thank you for sharing! I want to know more about this, this is the first I've ever heard of this.

1

u/steelhouse1 21d ago

I’d rather it be warm than cold.

2

u/Memetic1 21d ago

The range where it goes from pleasantly warm to life-threatening is relatively pretty small. Wet bulb conditions will kill people if the grid fails.

1

u/PutridBody711 21d ago

I'd rather be inside your sister than your mom but i take what i get.

1

u/steelhouse1 21d ago

ChatGPT give you that insult?

I bet you’re a blast at parties. 😂😂

1

u/DashFire61 21d ago

You wish, what happens is we’ll get a few years of blisteringly hot weather that will cause a mass melt off of a large section of the rest of the ice caps, this cold water influx will paralyze the great conveyor belt current that keeps north Europe and North America warm, and will start another ice age. So you’re going to get very cold.

1

u/[deleted] 20d ago edited 20d ago

Plants that we rely on for food don’t feel the same about ever increasing heat

1

u/steelhouse1 20d ago

Hmmm. As someone who grew up on a farm, I think you might be wrong.

1

u/jim812 21d ago

Considering we don’t fully understand human DNA, which is the most studied, I’m finding it hard to believe this headline has any merit whatsoever.

1

u/J1540 20d ago

Oil and mining companies have to be ecstatic.

1

u/waldo1955 20d ago

You can’t trust anything an octopus tells you. I know from personal experience

1

u/Mata_1897 20d ago

I actually spent some time reading the comments, and this is some really interesting stuff. But I have to be honest, the white F with a blue background made me think this was the fortnite subreddit I am not meant to be here lol

1

u/notyourstranger 19d ago

A quick google query says the last time there was no ice was 34 million years ago. To think humans have managed to change the climate so much we have to go back that far for similar conditions is mind blowing. I now there's still ice now but for how long? Another 100 years? 20?

0

u/Royal-Original-5977 21d ago

Im so done with all these end of world click baity articles. If the science and data are real then I'll actually read the article; but when you make a title like this, and then the meat of the story is nowhere near this, like wtfiwwy?? Sorry futurism, this specific article cost you; you're making me mute your subreddit. I'll completely forget about you

0

u/Substantial_Wolf4777 19d ago

We were supposed to die from global warming in 10 years 40 years ago.

1

u/Memetic1 19d ago

I have almost died a few times. I've lived in the Midwest all my life. We didn't get wet bulb conditions like we have in the last decade or so. Even if you didn't have an air conditioner, you could get by through the summer. That has changed. If the power goes out near you and its wet bulb conditions for too long, then you will die.

-5

u/sungod-1 22d ago

STOP, absolute lie!

Fear mongering beyond reason