March Lecture: Ireland’s Changing Climate in a Warming World Invited speaker Seamus Walsh, Met Éireann will discuss the warming of the world since the 19th century; the global mean temperature is projected to continue to increase by between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century, depending on future levels of emission of greenhouse gases. Changes in the Earth’s climate system such as increases in air and sea temperature, sea level rise and decreasing extent of Arctic sea ice and glaciers, which have already been observed, will continue to occur, with changes also likely in precipitation patterns and extremes.His presentation will place these global changes in the Irish context, a future warmer climate in Ireland will bring more frequent wet winters, drier and hotter summers and an increased likelihood of extreme weather events, with implications for many sectors of society.
Oneiric 3 wrote: » Interesting documentary (from 1992) on the tyrannies of the World Bank/IMF:https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/war-by-other-means/ Documentary focuses on the utter decimation of the Philippines during the 80s & early 90s under the 'caring' hands of the World Bank, and its role in destroying colossal areas of the country's rain forests, which in turn was directly responsible for thousands of deaths. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Oneiric 3 wrote: Documentary focuses on the utter decimation of the Philippines during the 80s & early 90s under the 'caring' hands of the World Bank, and its role in destroying colossal areas of the country's rain forests, which in turn was directly responsible for thousands of deaths. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.
dense wrote: » It's taking new steps to make itself appear even more caring apparently.....https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/world-bank-and-corruption
dense wrote: » Eh, no thanks. I'm not sure what his agenda is, but his methods are highly regarded by the settled scientists. Not so much by anyone else.https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1906768358/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521739918&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=hockey+stick+illusion&dpPl=1&dpID=51uETda8P9L&ref=plSrchhttps://www.amazon.com/%2522A-Disgrace-Profession%2522-Steyn-editor/dp/0986398330/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&tag=wattsupwithth-20&qid=1439321074&sr=1-2&keywords=%22A+Disgrace+to+the+Profession%22
Man-made climate change has been proven to have increased recent extreme rainfall and associated floods; coastal flooding due to sea-level rise; heatwaves in Australia, China, and Europe; and increased risks of wildfires with implications for humans and animals, the environment, and the economy. Climate proofing can help to limit these impacts. Globally, according to the new data, the number of floods and other hydrological events have quadrupled since 1980 and have doubled since 2004, highlighting the urgency of adaptation to climate change. Climatological events, such as extreme temperatures, droughts, and forest fires, have more than doubled since 1980. Meteorological events, such as storms, have doubled since 1980 (Figure 2.1 in 2013 report); (Figure 1 in 2018 updated publication).
Akrasia wrote: » An updated analysis by the EASAC shows that the frequency of extreme events has drastically increased in since 1980https://easac.eu/press-releases/details/new-data-confirm-increased-frequency-of-extreme-weather-events-european-national-science-academies
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » Tell me, are you not a bit concerned that the data have not been peer-reviewed and that the reports are conceeded to be affected by improved reporting due to the Internet? Strange to see you quoting a useless paper like this.
Turtwig wrote: » "Spikes" may follow a regression to the mean scenario. Even peer review has its limitations - an individual published study isn't indicative of anything until a flurry of other studies start pointing similar - but peer review at least is a higher standard than no peer review. Depends on the journal too of course.
Turtwig wrote: » I get your point but New scientist (iirc they were the ones who first brought it to attention) put it to the IPPC that some of the references and data listed in their report was grey literature and non peer reviewed. Granted these were miniscule but it shows that even large scale organisations aren't immune from using less reliable sources. I prefer all data to be peer reviewed. Though I agree the sources you used are more reliable than most others.:)
Akrasia wrote: » Are you 'not a bit concerned' that there is a massive spike in flooding events over the past 5 years? Yeah, those useless scientists at the European National Academies of Science. What would they know. A four fold increase in hydrological natural disasters in 38 years. Sure that's all part of natural variability, nothing to see here, Ray Bates says everything's grand.
The updated figures show a continuation in the trends previously observed whereby climate-related extreme events are rising, with particularly sharp rises in hydrological events. However, such trends need to take into account socio-economic developments that influence exposure to and reporting of natural hazards that result from climate variability. As far as reporting is concerned, this has improved through the use of the Internet, and smaller events in particular are better recorded today than they were 30 years ago. This effect accounts for part of the trend in increasing numbers of loss events. However, trends in reporting are unlikely to have any significant impact on the loss amount trend, since annual losses are dominated by the major loss events, which have always been recorded. From the economic perspective, assessing past loss events according to today’s economic standards requires two adjustments: firstly, adjusting the costs of the events to today’s money; and secondly, assessing what damage that event would have caused today (taking into account changes in infrastructure vulnerability, etc.). The first adjustment merely involves applying inflation to the historically determined loss data. This can use an established price index, which should represent the actual development of prices in the region in question and be based on the currency of the country concerned. The second adjustment needs to take into account changes in the exposed assets and their vulnerability, which involves assessing the effects of development on the values in the area affected. Such an adjustment is known as normalisation (Eichner[FONT=Frutiger LT Std 45 Light,Frutiger LT Std 45 Light][FONT=Frutiger LT Std 45 Light,Frutiger LT Std 45 Light]et al.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Frutiger LT Std 45 Light,Frutiger LT Std 45 Light][FONT=Frutiger LT Std 45 Light,Frutiger LT Std 45 Light][/FONT][/FONT], 2015). Such data are not available for all losses worldwide, but two examples of trends that have been normalised are shown in Figure 2: for losses due to thunderstorms in North America and for flood losses in Europe. Whereas there are meteorological reasons for the increase in the normalised losses from severe thunderstorms, protection measures that have been implemented must also be taken into account in explaining the near-static trend in flood losses (Eichner [FONT=Frutiger LT Std 45 Light,Frutiger LT Std 45 Light][FONT=Frutiger LT Std 45 Light,Frutiger LT Std 45 Light]et al.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Frutiger LT Std 45 Light,Frutiger LT Std 45 Light][FONT=Frutiger LT Std 45 Light,Frutiger LT Std 45 Light][/FONT][/FONT], 2015).
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » As I said, that fourfold increase is not a true increase due to the advent of first digital cameras, then internet, cameraphones, and of course social media. These have shown an exponential growth in all countries over the past decade or so, and by the authors' own admission plays a part in the trend. Add to this the increasing population baseline and I would have been very surprised NOT to see an increase in reports. Do you really believe that there are four times more now than 38 years ago? Why aren't we seeing a fourfold increase in precipitation trends?
On the economic side, more people taking out insurance policies now than ever before means increased exposure for the providers, so it's not surprising to see these cost figures on the rise too.
Akrasia wrote: » It's not about what I believe, it's about the statistics Look at figure 4 in the report. In 1985 there was an average of about 1 severe flood in Europe per year. In 2017, the average number is 7. In 1985 there were an average of 4 high magnitude flood events a year in Europe, in 2016, that average is 9. These are the large scale events that would have been reported widely regardless of the availability of smartphones and the internet.
The figures for uninsured losses are increasing too so that argument is wrong. Also, you are only counting one side of the balance sheet. Better meteorological services mean that people are able to take precautions to limit losses from floods and storms that they wouldn't have been able to do 40 years ago, also, there are better flood and storm defenses, so weather events need to be more extreme to cause the same amount of damage. If the storms aren't getting worse, but the defenses are getting better, then we should be seeing reduced damages from storms, especially in developed countries like in Europe where development is usually planned to take into account flood risk.
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » But it is about what you believe, as you're the one who posted the article. Are you saying you don't believe it? But anyway, again, where are the statistics to show that rainfall is up to four times more now that it was then? How are these extra floods taking place if there's not a proportionate increase in rainfall stats?
To take an imby look, here's Met reann's Phoenix Park rainfall series since 1880 (from here).
As mentioned before, the most recent decade is the wettest in our record. Moreover, the winter of 2015/16 saw extensive flooding across Ireland and the winter of 2013/14 was the stormiest winter on record in the region. These seasons were also the first and second wettest winters in the 305 year series, respectively. However, the wettest winter decade occurred in the 1730s, a period of remarkably persistent westerly winds that carried moisture from the Atlantic.https://www.rte.ie/eile/brainstorm/2018/0326/950093-wet-wet-wet-last-decade-saw-most-rainfall-in-300-years/
The population is growing. More people have more material goods, whether insured or not. A flood now is bound to cost more than the same flood 20 years ago.
Akrasia wrote: » You don't need 4 times as much rain to have 4 times as many floods. You just need a few individual rainfall events to dump more precipitation over a short space of time. If global warming changes rainfall patterns so your summer is drier but winter is wetter, the exact same annual rainfall numbers could be concentrated in a smaller window and cause more flooding. Firstly, the phoenix park is not the world, its one location and by itself proves nothing. Not all locations are affected by climate change in the same way. Secondly, those graphs say nothing about the temporal distribution of the rainfall. In the UK, the majority of the wettest years on record have been since 1998, Recent years in Ireland have been amongst the wettest in over 300 years with wetter winters and drier summers according to a new historical reconstructionhttps://www.clim-past-discuss.net/cp-2017-142/
that's one side of the argument, but it ignores the fact that we build flood defenses. The same flood that happened 20 years ago would cause less damage now because we build flood defenses to protect our valuable cities and towns.
Akrasia wrote: » Firstly, the phoenix park is not the world, its one location and by itself proves nothing. Not all locations are affected by climate change in the same way. Secondly, those graphs say nothing about the temporal distribution of the rainfall.
Oneiric 3 wrote: » This is an argument I don't understand. Pick any dot on the globe, and you can claim this is 'not the world', yet curiously, this line of argument only seems to be dished out to to us in NW Europe. However, I would agree with you about Phoenix Park data, which is traditionally one of the driest spots in the country, so not all that representative of the country as a whole. I posted a graph a while back showing that rainfall trends in the west of the country are on the up, particularly in Winter, and if I recall correctly, (which is open to correction) also on the up in the east during the Summer months, which may, in part, be due to the largely increasing SSTs of the north Atlantic leading to more moisture being absorbed into the atmosphere before it is dumped on our wee Isle.
Akrasia wrote: » Basic physics says for every 1 degree Celsius increase the air holds 7% more water. Warmer air leads to heavier precipitation when it happens. But that 7% translates into much bigger increases in precipitation due to complexities like how storms gather in water from miles away and latent heat releases during condensation to rain which goes to fuel weather systems further
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » So with the 0.85-degree increase being about a 5% increase in water, is this 5% increase really able to account for this alleged 400% increase in flood events that you speak of? Basic physics also says we should be seeing increased vapour pressure, but we're not.
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » Wait, on the one hand you're saying we need data on short-term rain events to prove the point, yet on the other hand you speak about annual totals and quote a 305-yr record of monthly totals. Which is it?
The Phoenix Park graph shows the incidence of high (>10 mm) daily totals, which is some metric for what you're looking for, albeit just for one location. But again, for the 4th time, if you can show hard rainfall data proving a fourfold increase in such short-term events for anywhere on the globe then please show it.
Really? Has everywhere now been flood-proofed against typical floods of 20 years ago? Some defenses have been built in some locations, but then so have towns been expanded, flood plains built on, coastal resorts been developed, etc., much of which has been done pretty recklessly, in hindsight. So I would guess that the number of flood-prone locations has most likely increased, despite the defenses introduced in other, more traditional flood hotspots.
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » I think that was the data for Claremorris you posted? Nationally, there is little trend in seasonal totals since 1940. On your theory on increased moisture levels, we should be seeing that in the form of increasing water vapour pressure, but we're not. The trend is flat.
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