Spain and Portugal are at their driest for 1,200 years

DumbBrunette

Spain and Portugal are at their driest for 1,200 years due to a huge increase in the frequency of large Azores highs. No surprise to the snow starved inhabitants of Ireland 😑

"The researchers found that winters featuring “extremely large” Azores highs have increased dramatically from one winter in 10 before 1850 to one in four since 1980."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/04/spain-and-portugal-suffering-driest-climate-for-1200-years-research-shows?CMP=share_btn_tw

Orion402

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058253053/spain-and-portugal-are-at-their-driest-for-1-200-years

I came back from a hot Valencia last week, however, the early part of the summer was quite wet-

https://www.efas.eu/en/news/southern-and-central-spain-flooding-early-may-2022

The desperation among a certain section of society to link every weather event to human activity is disappointing considering they could easily work with modelling based on El Nino/La Nina even without considering planetary climate and the underlying dynamics behind the interaction between oceans, atmosphere and landmass within that research.

The fact that ENSO is structured around the Earth's Equator and the planet's rotational characteristics is totally ignored for obvious reasons, after all, even basic weather oscillations such as the day/night or seasonal cycles face awful opposition in terms of the underlying dynamics.

Thelonious Monk

Welcome to Climate Change, the nutters on here don't believe in it though.

Orion402

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119292178#Comment_119292178

Encouraging an approach to planetary climate in a more productive way is taken as an affront to those who have convinced themselves that humanity can and do control the weather/temperatures. A more balanced approach based on information sharing for interpretative purposes becomes impossible as readers opt for polarising speculative conclusions with no links whatsoever to planetary dynamics, even at a fundamental level.

I don't consider you a 'nutter' for your inability to account for the daily temperature rise and fall as the planet turns once every 24 hours as rejected by clockwork solar system modellers, as far as I am concerned, you are a cheerleader for convictions which are unhealthy and unhelpful. Set aside your cheerleading status and discuss the matter rather than react to anyone who doesn't share the dire conclusions and the subculture that creates it.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-declares-state-emergency-drought-stricken-north-2022-07-04

Big problems in Italy too. The sh*t will really hit the fan when these droughts lead to food shortages.

Akrasia

According to the experts on here we're heading for an ice age

Danno

I see certain posters are back. The farmers must have ground them down over on the Agri and Forestry section.

Fair play to the farmers, they don't put up with much nonsense.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119292178#Comment_119292178

Sure sign it's a religion bro.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119296425#Comment_119296425

Which posters?

thinkabouit

Desertification

Only when they start listening to people like Allan Savory and start doing holistic management will they ever fix it.

Akrasia

What's causing the desertification.

The worst droughts on record caused by increased temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns because of climate change

Worst droughts on record happening simultaneously in multiple separate parts of the world leading to crop failures and acute water shortages.

This is the price we are only beginning to pay for allowing our political discourse to be controlled by the fossil fuel industry and associated conspiracy theorists and fringe libertarians

Orion402

The discussion should be advanced enough to discuss the limitations of modelling where short or medium term atmospheric conditions remain acceptable and useful, whereas attempting to extend modelling on to conditions of the oceans, atmosphere and surface into the distant future is not just overreaching, but undermines what planetary climate actually is within the umbrella of the motions of the planet in a Sun-centred system.

This meteorological community has a rightful culture in terms of weather conditions, however, it allows the presence of a subculture within its ranks with specific shortcomings when it comes to cause and effect between planetary motions and responses on the surface and the atmosphere. It is therefore easy for those who run with climate change modelling to create polarised positions and goad others into reacting in the absence of accurate perspectives of planetary motions, whereas a more balanced view places dynamics as a primary driver of climate.

Information sharing displaces information misuse as the objective is to raise the standard of consideration rather than contend with convictions which are crude and serve no productive purpose.

"I know; such men do not deduce their conclusion from its premises or establish it by reason, but they accommodate (I should have said discommode and distort) the premises and reasons to a conclusion which for them is already established and nailed down. No good can come of dealing with such people, especially to the extent that their company may be not only unpleasant but dangerous." Galileo

I am eager not to participate so that the alternative approach to climate connected to planetary motions emerges in a more substantive way. It means starting from scratch while using observations of the Earth from space to assign cause and effect properly. It is using modelling for interpretation rather than predictions at these scales so it does not interfere with short term weather modelling and predictions which occupies most readers in this forum.

Billcarson

Hate the Azores high,outside the summer months anyway.....

squarecircles

And all we want is one dry warm sunny summers day.

IrishHomer

Yes I've been the Costa Blanca a lot over the past 25 years and this past winter, spring and early summe was the coldest wettest one I ever saw there. Even today there the land on the region was never so green and lush. I won't read the article the headline is joke in my opinion

pauldry

There's always been Climate Change only now man made pollution interferes with the earth's natural system of Climate cycles. So it's quite a dangerous mix really.

M.T. Cranium

Two points made in this thread are dubious at best. There are no "experts on here who expect an ice age." A cynic might say that is because there are no experts on here, and that's fair enough, but if you mean frequent posters, I am not aware of anybody pushing that idea. There has been a debate ongoing about the balance of causes of recent warming, is it all human caused, is it partly natural variability? Most will readily agree that some part of the warming is due to greenhouse gases.

Shifts in storm tracks or the frequency of high pressure can be entirely natural in origin, they have happened before and in centuries before there was any significant human modification of the atmosphere. That is not to say I am claiming this particular phenomenon is natural or entirely natural, nor do I claim to know. So the second dubious claim is that this is all due to political responses to climate change, implying that if all European countries had green governments and vast reductions in greenhouse gases, these Atlantic highs would be more normal in size and it would rain as much as in the past. That is just conjecture and not particularly well supported even by the theory.

What I can say with some assurance is that the same cycle has happened in the desert southwest of the U.S. which is a similar climate, relying on winter rainfalls (and high elevation snowfalls) as well as sporadic summer thunderstorms. The Anasazi native culture which flourished in the 11th and 12th centuries suddenly came to an end around the year 1150 from all available evidence, and not much is known about where the people went (if they survived) or the details year by year but there is considerable evidence of a rather sharp decline in rainfall in the region, which may have combined with overpopulation near the end of a benign climate era, to place considerable stress on the culture. There may also have been an outside attack by another group since there are signs of fires in the Mesa Verde portion of this culture in its dying stages. But that attack might have been something that could have been repelled by a stronger (better fed in other words) Anasazi response. Now 1150 to 2022 is not quite 1200 years so this is not quite the same time frame, although I don't know how reliable the 1200 year period for Iberia might be as opposed to 800 or 1500 years.

It is entirely possible that this climate event is natural in origin, and would have happened even in the absence of human activity (of modern scale) and in theory it is even possible that it could be modified in the opposite direction, in other words, perhaps it could have turned out even worse. Proper research would investigate all those options and keep them in mind before jumping to conclusions that are mostly political in motivation.

You know as well as I do that if Spain and Portugal were seeing the wettest weather in 1200 years and a more powerful storm track in their winter season, that would be touted as a result of our inaction on climate change. Every anomalous weather event is rapidly incorporated into the political narrative whether it makes sense or not, and whether it is correctly estimated in terms of frequency or not.

It is very likely to be quite hot in London about a week from now, just as it was in July 1868 and this will of course be claimed as the inevitable result of climate change. But they even tried to pass off the cold April of 2021 as another "inevitable result" and frankly, there's an air of desperation about all this, rather like the de-Nazification of Ukraine as a rationale for invading a country to pinch their resources. If the climate change lobby wonders why a lot of people don't buy what they're selling, it's because of this tendency to ask the general public to accept all sorts of dubious propositions and most people can see that a "science" with no experimental framework and no reliance on the nullification hypothesis is more like politics or religion than science. Yes it's going to continue to get a bit warmer. Most of the other conclusions are very speculative.

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119297155#Comment_119297155

So are you saying that planetary motions are or are not causing the unusual global weather (record rains, record drought, record heat, record cold, etc)? Or are you just talking about what your personal views are and how your disagree? I may have misread your post but from my point of view, you don't seem to have constructively added any valid input to this chat however I admit that I'm just as guilty on that part with this reply.

dalyboy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119312705#Comment_119312705

Well no offence meant with this but why pull this poster up on lack of constructive input ?

highdef

Because it's a regular occurrence. Statements made but no discussion. Banned from other sections of Boards, I've been informed, but not this section for some reason. "planetary motions" are mentioned very regularly and I've argued that such topics should be in the astronomy section, not here in weather. Poster is allegedly banned from the Astronomy section, hence probably explains why poster posts the statements here.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119292178#Comment_119292178

😄😄😄

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119296345#Comment_119296345

When we start getting reports of giant Icebergs breaking off Antarctica and drifting up to New Zealand latitudes, then that will be the 4th horseman of the apocalypse showing up.

Global temperatures rising, CO2 levels increasing, the gulf stream slowing and stopping and icebergs from Antarctica drifting unusually far north - all precursor signs for the beginning of a glaciation event - often erroneously referred to as an ice age.

But the good news is that there might be a 400 year lag between these events and the cold setting in.

While Spain and Italy might be experiencing a dry spell, rainfall in Australia seems to be increasing, which could boost agricultural outputs by more than is lost in Spain and Italy. Every cloud has a silver lining.

One thing that gets glossed over in a scare story like driest summer for 1200 years, is that 1200 years ago, the climate was doing similar stuff without it being humans fault. Go back further and all the bog areas of Scotland and Ireland were forest, because the climate was nicer and less wet. then it changed; again without any input from us.

Climate change has been a constant for billions of years.

NedsNotDead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119313021#Comment_119313021

@highdef Ah, but your forgetting. The OP is not interested in discussion. Its all about 'information sharing'. But apparently only a select few are able to understand and process such information:)

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119313104#Comment_119313104

Climate change is constant is so true.

I only read recently about the Roman warm era where between 300 BCE to 200 CE the med region had a localised increase in temp that were not recorded in any data collected from elsewhere in the world. Grain was the lifeblood of the legions on the frontiers and it's thought that the climate cooling after 200CE lead to reduced crop yields which in turn weakened the empire's ability to sustain legions furthest from the med.

riffmongous

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119313021#Comment_119313021

Nothing alleged about it, I remember reading that crap every few months there years ago, with a new account each time when the old one was banned.

Larbre34

Climate change is real folks.

It has always changed over long spans, millions of changes in the billions of years of this Planet. Its changing now.

The question is whether anthropomorphosis is 100% to blame, or whether the actions of humanity can in fact, now, do much to halt and reverse current trends. My own view is that the reality for both, lies somewhere in the middle.

However, whats not in doubt, is that we should no longer be incinerating material from the crust of the Earth to heat and cool ourselves and move about. Only through renewables will we de-monetise energy and try to end the economic pain suffered by those at the mercy of fossil fuel markets. Only through renewables, can each Country, each region, become entirely energy independent, from clean, predictable sources.

Yes Spain and Portugal are suffering, but they aren't standing still, they are creating the World's biggest solar arrays and investing in technology to keep their land arable and their livestock healthy.

In the meantime, if the worst thing Ireland has to worry about, turns out to be a scarcity of snow, we won't have much to complain about.

Orion402

Planetary motions present the skeletal structure for planetary climate so cyclical weather topics come within the umbrella of dynamics long before a desperate attempt to make weather look like climate without reference to that skeletal structure. In short, accounting for cyclical weather events like the seasons reflects what the Earth is doing in space and presently the underlying causes of these cyclical events are not sufficiently appreciated.

The argument that planetary dynamics (astronomy) doesn't belong in a meteorology forum would perhaps be valid if the topic was exclusively short term weather events and predictions, however, everything cyclical, from the day/night to glacial/inter-glacial cycles involve cyclical motions within the topic of planetary climate.

I have been notified by a moderator that even the prediction where the faster moving Mercury will appear moving behind the central Sun from right to left in a number of days as seen from a satellite tracking with the Earth will get a ban.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2uCtot1aDg

Just scroll the dates forward while putting the motions of Mercury and the Earth in relation to the central Sun in context with the time lapse and observers will come to appreciate and enjoy how visual observations provide conclusions while keeping predictions as a minor role for interpretative purposes.

https://sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/

https://www.theplanetstoday.com/

Individual weather events from droughts and floods, heatwaves and cold snaps, miserable summers and miserable winters tells the reader little about climate while the motions of the planet tells the reader quite a lot.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119313104#Comment_119313104

Yeah if antarctic glaciers increase calving while also expanding and those icebergs survive to higher latitudes then this would be a sign of a pending ice age.

However if the glaciers are calving because of retreating ice in Antarctica or because the ice shelves are breaking up. This is absolutely not a sign of a coming ice age

'The climate is always changing' is wrong if you don't consider the timescale. Climate is stable over human lifespan timescales. The speed of global climate change is unprecedented since the human species emerged and that speed is accelerating.

When climates change slowly life adapts. When it changes rapidly life migrates. When there is nowhere to migrate, those animals die and species go extinct

We're in a mass extinction event now caused by human activity

Gaoth Laidir

Drought and fires in SE Australia last year: human-induced climate change.

Heavy rain in SE Australia last week: human-induced climate change.

M.T. Cranium

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119315563#Comment_119315563

We do it faster here. Extreme heat June, severe floods November 2021. Blah blah.

In a region where you can see pretty much with your own eyes that the landscape has been shaped by extreme weather events over many thousands of years.

Why should the snowflakes of 2022 get to live in a dome with a controlled climate? Who ever did in the past?

Part of the problem is that we don't have thousands of years of weather records so when trying to assess things like medieval period warming, we are only able to estimate roughly, the wording often sounds quite dire, as in various "yeares of great heat" but was it like 2006 heat, or even worse? It's really difficult to say, isn't it? Some of the records of colder episodes are a bit easier to estimate in numerical terms because there are such signs as ice formation and snow cover to assist. And record rainfalls can be estimated from their flooding consequences, droughts are mainly about duration so a report of a certain duration of drought is in and of itself useful.

Don't get me wrong here, I would love to see cleaner technology and a reduction of greenhouse gases and I can't imagine how some developed countries could be moving much faster towards them (other than these recent course corrections brought about by Putin misadventures). Everything has to be balanced though, what's the point of fixing the climate (if you really could do that) if everyone is hungry, broke and cold in the winter because of a lack of heating fuels (albeit in slightly milder weather)? And if there is some agenda about reducing the population by some huge fraction, who gets to decide that, you can bet there won't be any activists saying, "for the good of humanity, we'll go first" but that would probably be the ideal solution. :)

Orion402

I would hope readers would take the time out to appreciate the new demonstration that the Earth moves through space and around the central/stationary Sun by using modelling and predictions for interpretative purposes only. It is central to Earth sciences like climate, biology and geology to determine as close as possible the clues which link planetary motions with effects on the surface of this planet as it rotates every day and runs a circuit of the Sun.

https://sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/

The light hemisphere of Mercury faces us presently so appears dazzling whereas it is barely discernible when it passes between the Earth and the Sun when it shows its dark hemisphere to us.

https://www.theplanetstoday.com/

Just scroll the dates forward to interpret how we see our planet and Mercury move in a Sun-centred system for the same perceptive faculties are needed when accounting for the seasons and planetary climate among other things. There are no dire warnings or conclusions attached, just the sheer satisfaction in exercising those faculties which are largely underused into today's world in solar system research, planetary motions, Earth sciences and how they all link up to each other.

NedsNotDead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119320372#Comment_119320372

And what exactly does this have to do with the Weather