Climate Change Made This Summer's Drought 20 Times More Likely, Study Finds 174
Rising global temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels made this summer's brutal droughts across the Northern Hemisphere -- which dried up rivers, sparked unprecedented wildfires and led to widespread crop failure -- 20 times more likely, according to a new study. Yahoo News reports: Climate change is rewriting normal weather patterns in real time, said the study by World Weather Attribution, a consortium of international scientists who examine the link between rising average global temperatures and extreme weather. The droughts that affected North America, Europe and Asia this summer were so extreme that they would normally be considered a 1-in-400-year event, the study found, but due to climate change, the planet can now expect a repeat of those conditions every 20 years. Individual daily temperature records in Europe were repeatedly broken over the summer of 2022, and the extreme heat was blamed for 24,000 deaths on the continent. Higher average temperatures also dramatically increase evaporation rates, drying out soils and vegetation and leading to a heightened wildfire risk, all of which negatively impact farming.
"In Europe, drought conditions led to reduced harvests. This was particularly worrying, as it followed a climate-change-fueled heat wave in South Asia that also destroyed crops, and happened at a time when global food prices were already extremely high due to the war in Ukraine," Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at Grantham Institute in the U.K. and one of the authors of the study, said in a statement. But as the summer of 2022 showed, climate change amplifies seemingly contradictory effects, worsening drought while also dramatically increasing the risks of extreme precipitation events. In addition to drying out soil, increased evaporation rates due to higher temperatures result in higher levels of atmospheric moisture. "Our analysis shows that last summer's severe drought conditions across large parts of the Northern Hemisphere were fueled by human-induced climate change. The result also gives us an insight on what is looming ahead. With further global warming we can expect stronger and more frequent droughts in the future," Dominik Schumacher, researcher at ETH Zurich and one of the authors of the study, said in a statement.
"In Europe, drought conditions led to reduced harvests. This was particularly worrying, as it followed a climate-change-fueled heat wave in South Asia that also destroyed crops, and happened at a time when global food prices were already extremely high due to the war in Ukraine," Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at Grantham Institute in the U.K. and one of the authors of the study, said in a statement. But as the summer of 2022 showed, climate change amplifies seemingly contradictory effects, worsening drought while also dramatically increasing the risks of extreme precipitation events. In addition to drying out soil, increased evaporation rates due to higher temperatures result in higher levels of atmospheric moisture. "Our analysis shows that last summer's severe drought conditions across large parts of the Northern Hemisphere were fueled by human-induced climate change. The result also gives us an insight on what is looming ahead. With further global warming we can expect stronger and more frequent droughts in the future," Dominik Schumacher, researcher at ETH Zurich and one of the authors of the study, said in a statement.
And remember, this is just the _beginning_ (Score:2, Informative)
I.e. these are the first small and (relatively speaking) benign effects. It will now get worse for the next 100 years or so, maybe longer.
Re:And remember, this is just the _beginning_ (Score:5, Informative)
Drought in Southern China is causing their hydro-power output to diminish greatly. Warming in the Himalayas is causing their glaciers to melt. Glaciers in the Alps are melting. Greenland is melting. Drought in Africa, the Mid-East, Europe, and N. America. La Nina now scheduled for a very rare third year running.
Nope, no global warming for anyone to see regardless of whether they have a crystal ball or not. If it were one of these issues, you could claim it was variability of climate. All them simultaneously is trend.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. But there are too many fuckups that think ignoring reality actually changes it. If the human race in general were rational, there would not be a problem. Instead we have greed, denial, arrogance and general stupidity. The outcome is not really a surprise and may handily explain the Fermi-Paradox, that is if the average quality of people is about as pathetically low as on this dirtball.
Re: (Score:2)
I wish I had a crystal ball, too.
No need. Just stick your head in some scientific results which all modelled and predicted it. Your head will thank you, it's a better place for it than up your own arse.
Re:And remember, this is just the _beginning_ (Score:4, Insightful)
The doom and gloom is boring. It's been 40 years of that. Your not convincing anyone anymore
There is this, then there is the stupidity and hypocrisy found in the leaders of the current enviromental movement.
Silly little tools like Greta Thunberg up there on the world stage screaming about how her childhood was lost. Making a complete fool of herself. Fooling nobody into believing it wasn't her parent that put her up there. The sad part about Ms Thurnberg is she is correct, just nobody will hear it. Nobody will be lectured to by a screaming child.
Then we have the stunningly stupid Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Out there saying things like cow farts are going to destroy the world while pushing through a "green new deal" that experts say will cost trillions and in the end do nothing to affect the climate. At the same time screaming about how the world will end in 12 years while not being able to prove one shred of evidence to back up her claims.
Then that wonderful environmental leader, Albert Arnold Gore Jr. The hypocrisy of this one knows no bounds. Lecturing people on he evils they do to the climate; calling them "Climate Deniers." While a the same time he supports the carbon foot print of a small town. Telling people they need to cut down on their energy uses while he has houses that use more power than a dozen normal homes. Trying to shame people in to cutting down their fossil fuel use while he jets around the world in private jets that spew more carbon into the air every hour than the average car uses in a year.
These three are apart of the face of the modern environmental movement. A movement that nobody takes seriously any more because nobody takes these three seriously.
Re: (Score:2)
We need Walter Cronkite again. If he said on the news "it seems a bit warm today" the entire country would believe and start walking to work, Oil barons would say "if we lost Cronkite then we lost the market!" But no, these days we have a few generations of cynics who refuse to believe anything except conspiracy theories. Politicians claim they can't accept the research according to their polling numbers. All the hunters come out of the forest claiming there are wolves coming, and the townspeople say "w
Re: (Score:3)
Well I'm of the option that we are sending people the wrong message. You keep telling people that the world is going to end because they are driving their gasoline cars to visit grandmaw and see how many people believe you.
But you tell them that we are running out of gasoline because they are using their cars to visit grandmaw so each trip will cost them more money. See how long it takes them to change their ways.
Re: (Score:2)
But you tell them that we are running out of gasoline because they are using their cars to visit grandmaw so each trip will cost them more money. See how long it takes them to change their ways.
Your clever idea will fail. You see, we have been told we are almost out of oil for fifty years now. However, we have so much oil that we can afford to thumb our nose at Russia. And Biden has tried to destroy domestic production since the day he took office. It strains credulity.
You need a fresh new lie if you want to try to trick the public. The problem is that sooner or later they will start becoming skeptical and you're back in the same boat. It's best to just be honest and lead by example for a
Re: (Score:2)
That we do! Not many people now remember that Cronkite [wikipedia.org] was considered the most trusted man in America, they don't know why. He earned that reputation because he told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, unlike so many of today's "journalists" who twist the facts and manufacture evidence to support their politics. Now, more than ever before, we need somebody who can be trusted to tell us what happened, not what they wish had happened.
Re: (Score:2)
These three are apart of the face of the modern environmental movement.
These three are your lovely cherry picked examples of people doing the wrong things. That doesn't mean they reflect the modern climate movement. But there's one stupid thing in your post:
Trying to shame people in to cutting down their fossil fuel use while he jets around the world in private jets that spew more carbon into the air every hour than the average car uses in a year.
So what you're saying is it just takes one person to not drive his car for his trip to be carbon neutral. If 2 people listen to them then it's also a 100% net benefit? People who shit on politicians flying to summits should spend less time raging on the internet, and more time outside enjoying the better environment created
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I cherry picked the most prominent examples because these are the ones that people see. There are plenty of good people doing good work behind the scenes. The problem is the normals see these yahoos and dismiss the entire environmental movement based on them. These clowns have done more damage to the environmental movement than all of Trump's ramblings on the subject.
I'm explicitly illustrating Al Gore not the politicians flying to to summits. Al Gore is not a politician, he is a nobody. He makes
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it is fascinating how the people in denial about upcoming disaster are trying to put the blame anywhere but themselves. Now it is "The ones pointing out what is actually happening have some ridiculous figures among them!" Yeah, that is a valid reason to ignore the scientific facts, sure! No fault on your side, if the environmental movement were just a bit more convincing, we _could_ safe our future, but since these people are clowns, it is their fault everything will go to shit.
This must be the most s
Re: (Score:3)
This must be the most stupid, pathetic and dishonest attempt to shift the blame that I have ever seen.
I honestly don't give a shit what you think. I determined that you where a idiot a while back. So yeah. When your option matters, I'll let you know.
Re: (Score:2)
not in southwest (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Lake Mead's bathtub ring [google.com] begs to differ.
Re: (Score:2)
Locally.. (Score:3)
Here in Victoria, BC, Canada (the 'damp' Pacific NW) we just recorded our 90th day with less than 1mm of rain.
The previous record was 60 days, then 54, and continues to drop.
It's unheard of here. 30 days past the previous *record*.
Previously the driest two month period was 4mm. Now it's less than 1mm with this dry spell.
One consequence that hasn't gotten much coverage: since the rivers are so dry, salmon can't actually swim upstream.
This is going to be catastrophic.
Re: (Score:2)
One consequence that hasn't gotten much coverage: since the rivers are so dry, salmon can't actually swim upstream.
Because a few fish were overshaddowed by the potential collapse of European inland shipping. Farming, industry, heck even coal power (back in vogue due to the lack of gas) is insanely reliant on river shipping which came within inches of water height of grinding to a complete stop as barges already running around with only 30% of their normal payload were at risk of running aground.
The world depends on rivers far more than people understand.
Re: (Score:2)
You aren't talking about the same thing as the study.
The study found that the ground dries up faster with warmer temperatures, as a result of global warming.
You are talking about rainfall. The study looked at rainfall, but didn't report anything with high confidence.
In fairness, the summary does conflate the two.
Warmest NZ Winter records broken for last 3 years (Score:3)
Here in New Zealand we've just had the warmest and wettest Winter on record, it's also been the third year in a row that the record for the warmest Winter has been broken. https://niwa.co.nz/news/nzs-wa... [niwa.co.nz] https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/nat... [rnz.co.nz]
Re: (Score:2)
So what you're saying is that records are broken all the time. This isn't climate change then, just business as usual.
[yes I AM being sarcastic, for the love of god, but I realized typing it that this is actually slightly less stupid than some of the things I have read typed in earnest about climate change so I yet again fall victim to Poe's law]
Re: (Score:2)
Have a great weekend. - Not sarcasm :-)
Thanks, I think I will, and you too.
Thank the Hunga Tunga Volcano (Score:5, Interesting)
Not persuaded (Score:2)
The following is what it would take to be persuasive, and I don't see the case having been made. The default assumption is that every few hundred years at irregular intervals there are extremes of weather in Europe (and elsewhere for that matter). The default assumption must be that this is one of them. We know that such droughts have occurred before by the historical records, including the medieval inscriptions on stones below modern water levels.
We also know the mechanism. Its that you get at the same
Re: (Score:2)
They're not trying to persuade you. They're trying to persuade others who are willing to force you to do what they say.
Your buy in is not necessary.
Climate change made... (Score:2)
...everything 20 times more likely.
It makes floods 20 times more likely.
It makes droughts 20 times more likely.
It makes heat waves 20 times more likely.
It makes cold snaps 20 times more likely.
It makes peace 20 times more likely.
It makes war 20 times more likely.
The only thing that can stop these things is climate stability. Let's get to work.
Study finds (Score:2)
Unfortunately, this issue is so politicized that all "studies" should be ignored. Nothing is going to change the rate at which CO_2 is going into the atmosphere, politicians' promises notwithstanding, so I say let's wait 80 years or so, and see if things really changed as predicted. Meanwhile, I've got other fish to fry.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I thought it was common knowledge that the hurricane was god punishing conservatives for overturning abortion rights and trying to overthrow American democracy.
Re: (Score:2)
around 2 to 5 people died from air pollution while you were typing this post, but you can't carbon credit away from those so it's not as popular
Re: (Score:3)
I know, hurricanes in Florida were almost unheard of until Ian. /s
Re: (Score:2)
The parent post is, I think, intended to be either sarcastic or trolling. The troll is trying to provoke the response "weather is not climate," which is a correct statement.
No single hurricane, even a severe one, is "proof" of climate change.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Even 90% of the rain would have had the same effect. Florida's problem is more about the vast numbers of people moving in and living close to the water. All these new communities shed their water, instead of letting it seep into the ground. They might have some retention ponds, but those fill up and flow out when you get any significant amount of rain. They are typically sized to handle a few days worth of the everyday thunderstorm, not the sky tsunami that happened.
Where does it flow to? To those older com
Re: (Score:2)
There is no proof that summer exists you know. No one can prove it without relying on disputed science or government edicts. All we know is that there are scattered reports of exceptionally warm days in late spring and early autumn. Prove me wrong (while also proving Finland exists and that the mud flood never happened and Trump did not get 98.6% of the popular vote).
Re: (Score:2)
You have to follow the science. And the science is whatever they tell us it is.
You cannot just believe in the premise, you must believe in the conclusion, otherwise, you're a holocaust denier.
Re: (Score:2)
What would it take to change your mind?
Accurate Weather Prediction (Score:5, Informative)
What would it take to change your mind?
Easy: a weather model accurate enough to predict single weather events. Climate change is real and we do need to take it seriously but I find it hard to believe these incredibly precise probability numbers for single weather events. There is a ton of evidence showing that climate change is real: there is no need for sensational and highly dubious claims about single weather events. We can't afford to tarnish the central message that is about climate, not weather, with claims like this.
Re:Accurate Weather Prediction (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Accurate Weather Prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
For decades we have been told "weather is not climate".
This is just setting reality up to fail. Told by whom and why?
Why because it's a simple (and therefore not 100% accurate because reality is never simple) response to things like:
* You can't predict weather therefore you can't predict climate
* It was cold yesterday so global warming is a lie
sometimes in ignorance, but often from maliciously motivated people who have a strong financial interest in convincing the population at large that climate change is not real.
And the "who" is not climate scientists discussing climate science with other knowledgeable people in the field. Anything outside that is going to be a simplification, and the further you get the more simplified it must become.
It is easy and simple to lie. Reality is complex and nuanced. But you can't convince people listening to simple, easy lies that they want to hear bu hitting them with the full weight of everything with all the details, nuance, and complexity. Blaming for people in reality's corner for not hitting on *precisely* the level of detail back then that you want right now is setting up a situation where they cannot win.
Climate is the AVERAGE of weather. It's statistical, and that means you can make weather predictions based on climate. I can predict with a very high degree of certainty that it won't snow in London next August. I can also predict with a very high degree of certainty that 2025 won't see more than 2000mm of rain in London as well.
Beyond simple things people have been making statistical models for a long time about weather. Again, that IS climate. Engineers use those in order to build infrastructure to resist the 1000 year storm etc. No one objects because "yOu SaId ClImAtE iSnT wEaThEr".
And as for your generalised "we have been told"... That includes everything from scientists to pundits to internet kooks and you're lumping them entirely in the same bucket. Who told you? "they" did of course. They. Them. You know, those people. Very easy to mush together just the right people to blame some specific group, e.g. climate scientists, when you're actually mostly thinking of pundits or people on twitter.
Re: (Score:2)
It was cold yesterday so global warming is a lie
Is exactly the same as it was hot yesterday so it is a sign of global warming. It is stupid when either side does it. And it is the alarmists, not the skeptics, who do most of it these days.
I can predict with a very high degree of certainty that it won't snow in London next August. I can also predict with a very high degree of certainty that 2025 won't see more than 2000mm of rain in London as well.
Forecasting what won't happen is much easier than forecasting what will. Anyone can do that.
Now if you could forecast things like droughts well ahead of time you could be very, very rich. But everyone keeps pointing out how climate scientists are not getting rich, so yeah.
Re: (Score:3)
Forecasting what won't happen is much easier than forecasting what will. Anyone can do that.
I can also confidently forecast things that will happen, e.g. that the weather will be above 0 degrees C in London in August and the rainfall in 2025 will be above 100mm.
Now if you could forecast things like droughts well ahead of time you could be very, very rich. But everyone keeps pointing out how climate scientists are not getting rich, so yeah.
Yeah climate scientists, not weather scientists. They can predict th
Re: (Score:2)
I can also confidently forecast things that will happen, e.g. that the weather will be above 0 degrees C in London in August and the rainfall in 2025 will be above 100mm.
The sun will also rise tomorrow. Wow, you are right, that is easy! We don't even need scientists.
Re: (Score:2)
The sun will also rise tomorrow.
Indeed and climate change denialism is nearly as absurd sunrise denialism.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh and forgot to mention. There aren't any climate skeptics. There are people who accept reality and fuckwits. Skepticism implies some sort of rational thought, you see.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Denialism isn't skepticism, it's stupidity.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Virtually nobody denies that climate changes.
Sadly, this is not true.
There are various considered positions on how much we should do or care
That's not scepticism about climate change.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Easy: a weather model accurate enough to predict single weather events.
It's almost as if you've never heard of the butterfly effect.
"Weather" is a chaotic system.
"Climate" is a statistical one.
Re: (Score:2)
The story is about a weather event, in case you didn't notice.
You seem to agree... (Score:2)
It's almost as if you've never heard of the butterfly effect.
It's almost like you did not understand my post at all. What you are saying is in complete agreement with what I wrote: we cannot predict weather accurately but we can see changes in the climate. That's how we can say that climate change is real and also why I have real trouble believing claims about single weather events.
Re: (Score:2)
I predict if I keep rising the voltage difference between these two metal rods next to each other that there will be a spark. I can't predict exactly when that spark will happen, or what shape that spark will take though, that's very difficult and a lot of variables. What is the humidity of the air, is there dust in the air, is someone walking past to cause the rods to vibrate, etc. But the spark is going to happen, that's basic elementary school physics.
With weather it is similar. I can predict with 10
Re: (Score:2)
It is mathematically true to say that chaos is an emegent property of order. To claim that order is an emergent property of chaos, which seems to be your implication ("weather is chaotic so cannot be predicted but climate is statistical and can be predicted *with high granularity and accuracy*"), is a much stronger claim that requires empirical validation.
It is not a stronger claim, but a weaker one.
The textbook example of chaos is a dripping faucet. You can't predict the size or cadence of the drops in the future. But you can still predict that, on the average, you get so many gallons of leaked water per hour.
You don't know the kinetic energy of a single air molecule, but you can know the average energy of the molecules (=3/2 kT). Averaging will average out chaos.
This is well known. Unfortunately, chaos and statistics are both poorly understood by amateurs
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes statistics are operationally useful. Like temperature. But sometimes they are irrelevant: like quoting a global mean temperature when you really care about the temperature on the marathon race course next week, specifically.
I've never heard of anybody doing that, or anything like that.
("Will the weather be hot for the marathon tomorrow?" "Yes, global temperatures have risen 1.5 degrees since the 1950s.")
In any case, though, prediction of averages is much easier than predicting details at one place or time. The statement "weather is chaotic so cannot be predicted but climate is statistical and can be predicted" is a reasonable statement of how statistical averaging works.
(and I don't even know what the phrase "with high granul
Re: (Score:2)
When people say "weather is not climate," this is what they are referring to.
Re: (Score:2)
I find it hard to believe these incredibly precise probability numbers for single weather events.
How much do you worry about key infrastructure, e.g. dams, collapsing because the engineers built to drastically wrong probabilities?
We can't afford to tarnish the central message that is about climate, not weather, with claims like this.
Climate is the weather in aggregate. No one event is provably "climate" as opposed to "weather", but extreme events are climate change. 40 degrees in London was essentially unth
Re: (Score:2)
How much do you worry about key infrastructure, e.g. dams, collapsing because the engineers built to drastically wrong probabilities?
If key infrastructure had catastrophic failures at the same rate that weather forecasts were wrong I'd be terrified of going near any major structure.
extreme events are climate change. 40 degrees in London was essentially unthinkable given an unchanging climate, to the point where it's pretty absurd to claim it's "just weather"
It's not at all unthinkable - it might have been extremely unlikely without climate change but nowhere near unthinkably unlikely. Indeed, I bet the same people who came up with the odds of this year's drought would probably claim to be able to give you the precise odds which is why you cannot trust single events as indications of climate change because, even
Re: (Score:2)
If key infrastructure had catastrophic failures at the same rate that weather forecasts were wrong I'd be terrified of going near any major structure
Are you intentionally misreading what I write or are you essentially ignoring it and inventing what you wish I meant?
Infrastructure is built based on predictions of the weather. As in the expected worst case weather events within a given time period. So I ask again, since you are more interested in points-scoring than discussion, how worried are you about those
Re: (Score:2)
Are you intentionally misreading what I write
No, I am reading exactly what you wrote, not what you think you wrote. I can't read minds only words.
Infrastructure is built based on predictions of the weather. As in the expected worst case weather events within a given time period.
I would not want to live too close downstream from a dam since dams do fail, and not just due to weather. Why take on an additional risk if you do not have to? However, in general, I'm not that worried about weather events taking out dams because we do have enough weather data for the past century or two to know that we can likely build a dam that can last a century or so at which point the frequency of fa
Re: (Score:2)
I can't read minds only words.
The former I believe, the latter, as of today I'm beginning to have doubts.
However, in general, I'm not that worried about weather events taking out dams because we do have enough weather data for the past century or two to know that we can likely build a dam that can last a century or so at which point the frequency of failure is low enough that it probably does not matter especially that there will be some additional safety margin.
So you believe the 100 year predictions abo
Re: (Score:2)
So you believe the 100 year predictions about weather events
For someone complaining about reading words you are not very good at it yourself. As I indicated in my post, the reason I would believe in designing for ~100 year weather is because we have records going back at least that far pretty much everywhere. You do not need a predictive model just simple analysis of the data. _That_ is why I would believe it and why I do not believe claims about 1-in-400 year weather events in areas where we do not have data going back that far because those have to be based on pr
Re: (Score:2)
While we only have 100 or 200 years, we have hundreds of thousands of examples all over the world, so we know we're not terrible at a, given a lot of 100 year samples.
Different locations are different data and weather is not the same everywhere. To use that data you would need to understand how the weather in one location is correlated to another and the only way to do that would be to use predictive weather models...which is exactly the sort of model I'm claiming we need to be very dubious about.
The different between climate and weather here is more subtle. With climate you are looking at the mean of a distribution a
Re: (Score:2)
There is some truth to what you say, but it's not relevant to what the scientists are saying. And it sounds a bit like climate denial how you talk about weather and climate.
It's perfectly reasonable to run the models and report on events such as droughts. Running the models multiple t
Re: (Score:2)
6 is the average of "4, 8, 6, 6, 7, 5, 100, -94"
no one number in "4, 8, 6, 6, 7, 5, 100, -94" is provably "6"
the extreme events "100" and "-94" are "6"
Perhaps what you're trying to say is that an aggregate of extreme events can be considered "climate", but a single extreme event, or a small number of extreme events, are only "weather". Or perhaps you intend to say is that d
Re: (Score:2)
6 is the average of "4, 8, 6, 6, 7, 5, 100, -94"
Erm 5.25 is the average (mean), but who's counting. Not you! Ba dum tschhhh.
But OK, 6 is both the median and mode, both perfectly fine averages, but I really REALLY wanted to make that quip. Sorry. I'll go now...
no one number in "4, 8, 6, 6, 7, 5, 100, -94" is provably "6" ... what?
6 appears in the list twice. The list provably contains 6. I don't get your point.
the extreme events "100" and "-94" are "6"
I would not say 6 is extreme in any sense. Like... it's l
Re: (Score:2)
You're doing it again.
I think what you're *trying* to say is the lack of infrastructure collapsing during rare, extreme events means we have done a good job of overengineering our infrastructure.
Infrastructure generally doesn't collapse without a rare, extreme event, and rare, extreme events, by definition, don't happen all the time.
Re: (Score:2)
I think what you're *trying* to say is the lack of infrastructure collapsing during rare, extreme events means we have done a good job of overengineering our infrastructure.
No, that's not what I'm trying to say. I said what I meant to. Overengineering is easy if you have infinite money. We don't. Building is expensive, so people try hard to not overengineer, especially big structures.
Infrastructure generally doesn't collapse without a rare, extreme event, and rare, extreme events, by definition, don't happe
Re: (Score:2)
Rare events happen rarely, right?
So, no matter how you engineer your infrastructure, it is only going to *rarely* be threatened, right?
Or do you expect infrastructure to spontaneously collapse even during common events?
You need to start with the assumpt
Re: (Score:2)
I see you have resorted to selective quoting, quoting when I call it absurd but snipping out the but where IV demonstrate that.
If you try to "win" by removing my arguments you've already conceded the point, so why the pretense?
Re: (Score:2)
Not trying to win, trying to understand your point of view better.
Here's the two threads I'm not sure you're explaining well:
#1 rarity
Rare events happen rarely.
No matter how you engineer your infrastructure, it is only going to *rarely* be threatened by rare events.
Expecting infrastructure to fail often is in direct contradiction to the idea of *rarity* of events that could cause it to fail.
You're missing a denominator.
#2 assuming the predictive power of models
Always start off assuming your model has no pre
Re: (Score:2)
No matter how you engineer your infrastructure, it is only going to *rarely* be threatened by rare events.
Yes?
Expecting infrastructure to fail often is in direct contradiction to the idea of *rarity* of events that could cause it to fail.
Expecting? Who said anything about expecting? We can observe hundreds of thousands of pieces of infrastructure scattered across the entire world to see if they fail. They aren't failing all the time. That means we are not drastically underestimating extreme events.
Observing
Re: (Score:2)
Extreme events don't happen all the time. Why would you expect failures all the time?
Yeah, you've got it backwards. Don't believe anything. Science is about skepticism of one's own id
Re: (Score:2)
Extreme events don't happen all the time.
No shit, sherlock!
Why would you expect failures all the time?
What the fuck are you talking about. Across 100,000 sites I'd expect a 1-in-1-million year rare event to happen once every 10 years. You're pretty much denying statistics at this point.
Don't believe anything.
You don't believe that. Like literally. You cannot by your own words believe it. Believing nothing makes it impossible to move forwards. Literally everything might be wrong all the time or unknown agen
Re: (Score:2)
So, let's make a grid of 1 million equal squares of the earth. Do you expect a 1-in-1-million year rare event to happen every year?
I don't think you understand statistics.
Well, take a temperature range, say +/- 1C. Randomize a temperature within that range down to
Re: (Score:2)
I like most of your argument except for this:
> We built a lot of infrastructure worldwide based on our ability to predict 2 and the lack of infrastructure collapsing all the time indicates that we have done a pretty good job of not underpredicting rare, extreme events.
1) If the events are rare, then infrastructure worldwide wouldn't be collapsing all the time, only rarely.
2) You need to look at more extreme events and tell me the infrastructure didn't collapse, because in most cases, it did. Buildings,
Re: (Score:2)
It's a simplified announcement that claims a link between extreme weather events & global heating in terms that most people can understand & that may have some influence over political decision making. At this point, disastrous global heating is uncontroversial & we have the ability & the resources to mitigate some of the worst effects/avert most extreme case s
Re: (Score:2)
Would you prefer if the journalists who reported on this included the standard deviations from the scientists' statistical models?
That might help but the problem I have is that I have trouble believing the predictive power of their models for single weather events so I'm not sure I'd believe their claimed uncertainty either. For example, they claim that such an event, before climate change, had a probability of less that 1-in-400 years but for most of North America and I'd guess most of Africa as well, we don't have weather data going back 400-years, and certainly not the ~800 years you'd need to measure a 1/400yr frequency with any
Re: (Score:2)
You might be writing this in good faith, I don't know, but your argument and reasoning is straight out of the denier playbook.
Move goal posts constantly, complain about "But you had it 1% wrong in the past, so all your predictions can't possibly be right!", "I want exact data, not statistics!".
The most insidious one is "We need to focus on things we can do (implied: Not on things that would affect us too much or actually require effort)"
As far as weather models go, when is it "good enough" for people statin
Re: (Score:2)
I understand what you're writing
My apologies, but I do not think you do because you are confusing climate and weather. Climate is the average effect of all that is happening with the weather on a day-to-day basis. That statistical averaging cancels out the day-to-day fluctuations and allows us to see long-term trends. This is where the concrete evidence for climate change comes from: we can see a rapid rise in global average temperature that cannot be explained by anything but our emission of CO2. You do not need models for this: you can
Re: (Score:2)
A necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statement.
1) a list of observations, which if observed, mean a hypothesis is false;
2) a logical argument that the lack of those falsifications means that a hypothesis must be favored over all others (including the null).
Translation into plain english (inspired by Scott Adams):
1) tell me what would change your mind;
2) tell me why those if the things that would change your mind aren’t there, the only explanation left is AGW.
tl;dr - I prefer Popper to Bay
Re: (Score:2)
The average temperature of the earth is getting hotter. That's the average, not one location. Do the physics on how much energy that is. Average temperature of the planet changes very slowly over time and yet it appears to be accelerating. A massive increase in energy. So severe weather events are predicted just by doing the math. Whether or not the predictions are for this particular event is irrelevant, because a rising average temperature doesn't say anything about what happens in Florida in particu
Re:Probability of a single event (Score:4, Interesting)
That means if you live outside the Southwest expect to see a large influx of what are for lack of a better word climate refugees driving up the price of everything in your city. If we were smart we would be doing a green New deal along with building desalinization plants.
We are not smart. The left wing dipshits we have in Congress couldn't resist putting a bunch of social justice crap into the preamble bill of the green New deal and the right wing is used that to completely shut down any discussion. Now anytime anyone brings it up they just scream woke woke woke and the conversation ends. Never mind all the jobs and economic activity and the stabilization of our water supply and all the other good things that would come out of it. Now it's just dismissed out of hand as woke and because people hate political correctness so damn much they'll literally go without water rather than suffer the insufferable.
I get it, political correctness is annoying. But is it worth going without water to stick it to the libs? About 30% of the country think so and they vote
Re: (Score:3)
I get it, political correctness is annoying. But is it worth going without water to stick it to the libs? About 30% of the country think so and they vote
Well, it is rarely the leaders that kill a country. It usually is the general population letting the leaders do dumb shit. Also remember that Hitler was voted into office, with 34% of the votes. That is all it takes. To be fair, the NSDAP would probably have done more about climate change than is being done now. They had this affinity for nature, just not for people.
Godwin sez... [Re:Probability of a single event] (Score:2)
Well, it is rarely the leaders that kill a country. It usually is the general population letting the leaders do dumb shit. Also remember that Hitler was voted into office, with 34% of the votes.
And then changed the system so that he couldn't be voted out.
First take-away lesson: the guy who says that once he's elected to office he can't be voted out, is a dictator.
Second take-away lesson: vote counting systems that allow a candidate to win office without a majority in elections with more than two candidates, can fail badly. We need a better voting system than plurality-wins (sometimes called "first past the post".)
...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Probability of a single event (Score:5, Informative)
If you check the drought map at https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu... [unl.edu], you can see Texas is not being spared.
?? [Re:Probability of a single event] (Score:2)
Problem is that California gave up its state senate's representation by geography a few decades ago.
I don't know what that sentence means. Do you mean acreage should vote, instead of people?
Everything in the state is 100% popularity.
I don't know what that sentence means either, and don't even have a guess.
Which means that if you are not in one of the coastal towns, you get zero voice and zero representation in the state's lawmaking body, and have to resort to Federal lawsuits because the coastal elites over in LA and SF don't give a rat's ass how your town is doing, and will happily take your water rights so their buds can have their almond farms and rice paddies in a desert.
This sentence is self-contradictory. It starts by saying the coastal towns run the state, and ends by saying that therefore the farming counties take all the water.
In any case, the water rights weren't "taken" in your lifetime; they were already divvied up by the 1930s.
Look at the Salton Sea. That place only gets attention when there is enough of a die-off that the stench wafts to LA. Once the coastal elites are impacted, stuff happens.
Yep. A brackish lake made by mistake in a desert with low population gets igno
Re: (Score:2)
The green new deal, by design, would have done nothing had it passed. It wasn't really legislation. It was ideas, but without funding, and without the actual force of law.
Also, consider, the D's universally did not vote for it in the Senate, so it wasn't only an R problem, they just put it forward to vote on without any changes, and let the legislation die when none of the Ds voted for it.
Re: (Score:2)
That wasn't my question. Answer my question: you believe R are a party that support CO2 emission reductions or any kind of green deals regardless of their efficacy? The windfarms cause cancer R? The gut all powers from the EPA R? The relax emissions regulations R?
If so, which alternate reality are you stuck in, and how do we get you back?
Republicans have been anti-environmentalism since the 60s, it's not even new. They wouldn't have ever voted for a green new deal or any pro-environmental legalisation regar
Re: (Score:3)
If your statement were true, the fossil fuel sector, which has deeper pockets than anybody, would simply buy themselves a bunch of tame scientists, who would then "prove" Global Warming was a hoax.
This hasn't happened, of course...because you are a liar. You should kiss your own lily-white arse, since your head is already up it.
Re: (Score:2)
Studies show that. 97% of scientists side with whomever is funding them.
Which study? Since you claim to have multiple studies, I assume you can link to one of them.
Re: (Score:2)
Which study? Since you claim to have multiple studies, I assume you can link to one of them.
Hang on a mo, it's taking longer to pull it out of my arse than expected.
Re: (Score:2)
"The difference between the droughts we're seeing now and the droughts people saw in the past is that in the past people had a reasonable expectation of those droughts ending."
That doesn't even make sense. This last drought has ALREADY ended. As it's been 500 years since a drought of that magnitude has happened, I'd say we have every reasonable expectation of them ending. Sheesh.
Re: (Score:2)
Our droughts will never end. A peer reviewed paper said so.
I'm not allowed to question teh science, and neither is anyone else.
Because reasons.
Re: (Score:2)
That sounds like an ad hominem [wikipedia.org] fallacy to me.
The article linked says that hunger stones have been making an appearance. Is that a lie? Are there any other lies in that article?
All news sources have an agenda, and a bias. If we are going t
Re: (Score:3)
The scientists tell us what they discovered works as solutions. Follow their guidance and we have this problem solved.
The problem is nobody is listening to the scientists. They are listening to the politicians. And the politicians, already not the brightest pig on the farm, are listening to whoever can scream the loudest. The ones that tend to scream the loudest also tend to be the least educated on the subject they are screaming about.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, but more rain.. where? Florida just got a ton of water from climate change, time to start planting? Wait, a lot is sea water so maybe just plant some kelp? The prediction that there will be more extreme weather events (more extrame than historical norms) is easy to do. What's hard is to predict where and when. Anyone thinking that it'll be nice to have some warmer weather or more rain is missing the big picture because this doesn't mean a uniform increase in temp and rain for every inch of the plan
Re: (Score:2)