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

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119326362#Comment_119326362

Climate is defined meteorologically as the average weather patterns in a region over a period of 30 years, which until the recent past was about the same as the average life expectancy for a human.

Average life expectancy is an incredibly misleading statistic - very dishonest of you to try and use it to suggest climate changed only across lifetimes.

Life expectancy in the past was massively skewed low by child mortality - if you lived to be a toddler you would live to your 60s or older. Lifetimes were not far off what they are now, they were absolutely not a period of 30 years.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119325610#Comment_119325610

Lots of people believe in the 'science' that just happens to suit their financial interest or political beliefs

Unfortunately the reality is that we need to make changes to become more sustainable across all areas of our economy.

For Agriculture in Ireland, there are solutions that we can use to drastically reduce GHG emissions from farming. An Australian company has just begun to sell a food supplement that cuts methane emissions from ruminants by 85%. The IFA should be in talks with this company to secure enough supply for the national herd and should be in talks with the government to finance this as part of Ireland's climate change strategy

https://bundabergtoday.com.au/news/2022/07/11/first-sale-of-methane-cutting-supplement/

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119325745#Comment_119325745

If she is a climate scientist who is not publishing data that disagrees with the consensus on climate change because she's afraid of being challenged. then she is not a very good scientist

Scientists should publish their findings

Or, more likely, I'm guessing your wife is not a research scientist in a relevant field of science, in which case the fact that she is a 'scientist' is irrelevant and her opinion should have no more weight than any random person on the street.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119325803#Comment_119325803

This is a big part of the problem. Land management is an issue, but we're doing it from both ends, on one side, reducing the ability for the planet to sequester carbon naturally, while also pumping out billions of additional tonnes of GHGs which have to go somewhere

The end result is the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is going up, and the planet is warming.

We need to either

Reduce our CO2 emissions to a level that can be sustainably removed by natural processes thereby stabilising the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere

1. Reduce our CO2 emissions to a level that can be sustainably removed by natural processes thereby stabilising the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere
2. Improve the ability of the land and oceans to sequester carbon from the atmosphere
3. Both

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119326556#Comment_119326556

My partner is doing a PhD on measuring brain waves in children, I think that makes her a scientist. She believes in man made climate change. Totally irrelevant I know.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119326475#Comment_119326475

Thats not the point, the point is that climate is defined as the average weather over multiple decades. These are human timescales.

The scale and speed of the changes we are seeing now are unprecedented.

HerrKapitan

That's such a relief that temperatures were equally as hot 1,200 years ago with less fossil fuel consumption.

With growing population numbers it still managed to cool down. There is hope!

Orion402

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119326659#Comment_119326659

In other words, climate is defined as 30 cyclical weather events (seasons) without any reference to the cyclical dynamics behind those averages. This is stacking the deck to create an artificial conclusion, in this case, the attempt to borrow on the success of short term weather computer modelling and extending it on to planetary climate by pretending that weather is an open-ended timeline without any cyclical components.

People are not doing their jobs.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119326757#Comment_119326757

Where did you get that impression from?

Global average temperatures today are hotter than they have been in 125,000 years

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02179-1

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119326636#Comment_119326636

Best of luck to her

May she use her powers for good and not evil

thinkabouit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119326602#Comment_119326602

Option 1 isn't really going to happen.

Option 2 is the only job. You solve the problem of famine, job's, clean air, water, immigration virtually all the worlds problems.

M.T. Cranium

Well of course much is made of the "science" of climate change but the problem is that we don't really have definitive answers to relevant questions. For example, it is supposed to reach record high temperature values this coming weekend and early next week. In a truly scientific context, experts would be able to say without any doubt what the temperatures would have been in the absence of the human race or even the version of the human race now in existence. Let's say it hits 40 some place in the UK and breaks their record. Without human beings on the planet, or if you prefer, with the human civilization that existed in the late 19th century, what would this weather situation have produced? 39 C? 38? No heat at all because of a totally different climate?

There is not one person, scientist or otherwise, who could answer this question, only a number who could give an opinion. And that opinion might be based on untestable hypotheses, not to say they are bad or flawed, just untestable. This is just the nature of the beast. So my belief is that the IPCC anticipated that such a discussion might arise in general terms, and decided to pre-empt it by stating, without any real logic or evidence, that the natural climate should now be cooling slightly, because Milankovitch. This is about as close to fraudulent as any accepted scientific group has come in a long time. Milankovitch cycles are currently flat-line and not producing any significant directionality to temperature trends. It's true that they don't point towards warming, but neither do they really point to any cooling.

Meanwhile, I have asked around extensively on a number of weather forums, and always found that most of the weather interest people who tend to study a lot of climate records almost unanimously reject this approach and believe that the 20th century showed signs of natural warming over the 19th century.

The question then is, how much natural warming and what might that have produced from the given state of the climate around 1900, if there had not been any changes to human activity? This by the way excludes the question of the urban heat islands which are obviously fairly large and slowly growing larger, although in a net-zero system if urban heat islands are generating heat, it has to stay in the system to some extent. I said elsewhere in similar discussions that I came to the conclusion as early as the 1990s that the AGW signal was only part of the increase then being displayed, the question that has stayed on my mind ever since is to find ways of reliably separating out the components so that, for example, if the warming is 1.0 C deg, then is that 0.5 natural and 0.5 AGW, or is it some other combination, or is it not valid to add them for some reason, if so, what reason? It's complex. The IPCC has over-simplified it to say -0.2 natural plus 1.2 AGW = 1.0 net warming. I think their -0.2 (or thereabouts) is wrong, but how to prove that? Difficult. They haven't proved the natural cooling, it's sheer conjecture on their part assisted by a real world policy of "agree with us or leave the profession." And don't bore me by saying this is not the case, everyone knows it is the case. And it's the largest scientific scandal of many decades. My hope has always been that better sciences would intrude and bring adult supervision to the teenage climate science which basically says we're going for a spin in dad's car, he won't mind. My hopes have not been realized. There is still room in my view for some AGW warming and some responses that are justified to reduce it. I don't see mass starvation or economic collapse as great tools to fight that portion of an inevitable warming. A lot of the other claims of climate change are even more tenuous, yet millions seem to believe them, and they expect governments to fix the problems (of too much rain or freak cold waves or whatever). My belief is that governments can do nothing to change any of that, mainly because it is not caused by anything under their control anyway.

Orion402

" So my belief is that the IPCC anticipated that such a discussion might arise in general terms, and decided to pre-empt it by stating, without any real logic or evidence, that the natural climate should now be cooling slightly, because Milankovitch."

The cyclical weather event, by hemisphere, known as the seasons is a product of two surface rotations acting in combination.

The issue is not Milankovitch but rather the figure of Copernicus, who originally identified the motions of the poles annually, but was forced to drop that view in order to satisfy the Ptolemaic framework and the observed 1 degree per 72 year drift in the position of the stars known as the Precession of the Equinoxes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=612gSZsplpE&t=43s

The introduction of two surface rotations as a means to explain the seasons obviates the need for axial precession as a resolution for the 1 degree drift every 72 years and not least that the observation is entirely visible and therefore affirmed easily. It is then applied to the Earth as a matter of course, as the expanding/contracting circles where the Sun currently remains in view at the North pole and out of sight at the South pole. Those circles are presently contracting from the June Solstice to the September Equinox as the polar latitudes move closer to the planet's divisor (the line diving the light and dark hemispheres of the planet).

The Precession of the Equinoxes arises from the same observation and framework where the first annual appearance of Sirius provided the basis for the conclusion that there are not 365 days/rotations for one orbital circuit but rather 1461 rotations for 4 annual circuits to a close proximity. It uses a different framework to Ptolemy -

".. on account of the precession of the rising of Sirius by one day in the course of 4 years,.. therefore it shall be, that the year of 360 days and the 5 days added to their end, so one day shall be from this day after every 4 years added to the 5 epagomenae before the new year" Canopus Decree 238 BC

In other words, the observed precessional drift within the Ptolemaic framework is just a more exact refinement of the 365 rotations for one orbit of the Sun and the more exact Egyptian observation of 1461 rotations per orbital circuit (in terms of planetary dynamics).

There is no real need to untangle the complicated relationship between timekeeping cycles and planetary cycles, however, it creates a lot of difficulties for those who may wish to appreciate cyclical weather (seasons) and the cause as the planet turns and travels through space.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119329360#Comment_119329360

Well that's an impossible standard you've set right there

Science isn't done by counter factual hypothetical unprovable questions

It's done by creating models and isolating variables and experimenting and measuring

Whether the UK breaks their hottest ever day record on 14th of July 2022 is not the cumulation of all scientific research into global climate.

So Impossible questions being impossible to answer aside, do climate scientists actually know anything?

Well they've been building Climate models for decades and we have enough data now to know that they are able to make accurate predictions for how global climate will react to the increases in CO2 and changes to land use we have been doing

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

Climate scientists use scientific methods and tools and models to make testable predictions about the future. Those predictions have been proven accurate through the passage of time

On the other hand, those who have been most vocal against the scientific consensus have been wrong with every single prediction that they have made.

The question you ask about how much of our warming is natural vs anthropogenic will only be answered by the climate scientists developing better and better tools and improving our ability to model planetary systems and do experiments in the data

Orion402

The RTE news has the upcoming heatwave at the top of their news bulletin along with commentary from the usual doom monger on the half hour.

Is there nobody with enough common sense to inform wider society that it is a low pressure system spinning its wheels off the Iberian peninsula while drawing hot air up from Morocco and the Sahara that will create conditions for hot weather on the island of Ireland this weekend?.

igCorcaigh

Regarding the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe, it seems to have been 48C in Athens in 1977, although there was a speculative 48.8C in Sicily last year.

Does this record have a chance of being broken over the coming period?

Akrasia

Yeah it's possible, Spain has already seen temps of above 44c and the temperatures are not at their peak yet, but the point isn't that max temperature records get broken, it's the 'normalisation' of extreme heat. Temperatures above 40c used to be extremely rare, but they're very rapidly becoming the normal summer heatwave. (along with extended droughts and wildfires)

Orion402

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119335682#Comment_119335682

You don't enjoy how a low pressure system off Portugal is dragging air up from North Africa among other components and giving us some hot weather-

https://www.windy.com/-Pressure-pressure?pressure,2022071818,42.828,1.978,5

I feel sorry for those who are adversely affected by a series of events which create temperatures that they are not comfortable with, however, every time a heatwave shows up it will have a different cause and it is good that they are predicted in advance.

ednwireland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333001#Comment_119333001

needs more george lee

NedsNotDead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119336099#Comment_119336099

Dont feed

Orion402

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119336099#Comment_119336099

It is far more interesting to go into the mechanics of the present heatwave than launch into the usual doom mongering and negative perspectives.

I too find the perspectives of the atmospheric interactions with heat drawn from the landmass and oceans to be fascinating so it leaves climate research as a background topic with more emphasis on planetary dynamics.

Thelonious Monk

https://twitter.com/LiquidFaerie/status/1547511357880270848

Poor Portugal is in flames, such a lovely place. With the temperatures and drought the place must be a tinder box.

Orion402

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119342008#Comment_119342008

I feel sorry for those people who suffer from the current heatwave. Humanity is not responsible for it.

Climate change modelling is anti-social behaviour in its current form. Modelling our planet's climate has yet to happen once genuine researchers emerge with more balanced views.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119342531#Comment_119342531

This is such a mental forum where you're made feel like a weirdo for believing in man made climate change, it's just nuts

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119342683#Comment_119342683

If it's something you have to "believe" in then it ain't proper science.

Gaoth Laidir

Interesting to take a look at what the Spanish Met actually say about the sequía or drought, using the Standardized Precipitation Evotranspiration Index, SPEI. The more negative the value, the worse the drought.

Picking the worst-looking area on the map below the graph underneath shows no real trend over the past 60 years. The lowest value by far occurred in June 1965.

AGW making this drought worse? Really?

Orion402

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119342683#Comment_119342683

Being gullible on account of misusing computer modelling turns you into a cheerleader for someone else's 'beliefs' and you don't really want to be in that position. It is anti-social on an industrial scale so the central issue is not just how to deal with the modelling indulgences and the dire conclusions projected into the future, but more importantly, how to put climate research on to a stable foundation.

The hardest thing to change is not climate, it is changing your perspectives on climate.

M.T. Cranium

I think most believe that human activity contributes to observed warming, but there is plenty of room for discussion (debate if you prefer) about how much of this warming might have occurred anyway from entirely natural causes, and also, whatever fraction of it is attributable to human activity, what process is taking place, is it merely a warming of all air masses so that the weather patterns are not changing except in some internal details, or are patterns changing? If the latter, then this particular heat wave forthcoming might have been considerably different in our absence, if it's only a warming of existing patterns, then this heat wave would have come and gone perhaps 1 C deg lower in its temperatures. I suspect the truth is complex and is not quite that straightforward. But without a control earth it is difficult to apply the full scientific method, and we are left with educated guesswork.

I don't expect this heat wave to produce all-time European heat records if they actually are 47-48 C as discussed. Locations in Spain have been around 45 C for the past few days, when the severe heat spills into France this weekend 41-43 C would be possible. Some other set-up where the heat remains confined to southern Spain (or Greece) is more likely to see those more extreme values. But never say never. At least it won't last for a week to ten days in most areas except for Spain.

M.T. Cranium

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119343295#Comment_119343295

Interesting, 1965 is also the driest year for NYC in its records (1869-2022).

Orion402

Climate change modelling invites the same type of reactions as those who argue for a flat Earth or other niche convictions where the standard is abysmally low. The assertion for a flat Earth involves contrived reasoning so naturally someone who contends that the Earth is round will try to convince the person otherwise by using multiple different discussion points but these things go nowhere and just make the proponent more determined in their conviction-

"I have heard such things put forth as I should blush to repeat--not so much to avoid discrediting their authors (whose names could always be withheld) as to refrain from detracting so greatly from the honour of the human race. In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion In their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea as they hit upon themselves or hear set forth by others, no matter how simple and stupid these may be, gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand, whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or with hot rage--if indeed it does not make them ill. " Galileo

The answer is to raise the standard of consideration and that means introducing the main structure for planetary climate and variations within the main cycles, in this case planetary dynamics.