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2020 officially saw a record number of $1 billion weather and climate disasters.

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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,235 ✭✭✭Oneiric 3


    Of the two inland stations I looked at in recent years, (Mullingar, Claremorris) the same trend exists. Note the far higher frequency of not just high wind events, but also moderate storm events pre 2000 compared to the last two decades. I imagine if the naming system existed back then that most years would have got through a good portion of the alphabet with relative ease.

    New Moon



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    Claremorris' 10 highest gusts since 1945.

    How some people would like it to look like...




  • Registered Users Posts: 2,855 ✭✭✭Nabber


    National Geographic is such a waste space now.


    They show that the waters around Helgoland have risen by 1.9°C since 1962 (3.4°F) —about double the global ocean average.


    Growing up in Dublin, Ireland, Wiltshire wanted to become a forester or an Arctic researcher. But she was denied both of those careers, she says, because of her gender.


    “When I came home from my first trip after six months, my mother asked, Boy, what have they done to you?” Klings recalls. He had returned as a man.

    They will write any old shíte it seems, once it's global warming related.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    Ireland 'could face' electricity shortages over next five winters (thejournal.ie)

    This is your green brownout future. It's worrying when the left leaning Journal.ie are reporting on this.

    Well, I guess the increase in carbon tax next week is going to make the population feel all warm and fuzzy, cause thats the only way alot of folk are going to be warm this winter.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,328 ✭✭✭Banana Republic 1


    Calling it a green out is to not understand what’s going on



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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    What is going on is we've a government hell bent on virtue signalling to the world about how "Ireland can be a world leader in wind energy" and effectively placing all it's eggs in the wind turbine basket while simultaneously shutting down our dependable fossil fuel sources. This puts us at the mercy of the British and French to sell us wholesale power via interconnectors and when their demand peaks, we won't be getting much if any of that. If this peak coincides with a blocking high pressure this winter you are going to see the chickens come home to roost and then I'd highly doubt people will be thanking their lucky stars that we're not emitting much C02 if the lights are off this winter.

    We should halt all operations to shut down any further fossil fuel stations until we've built either a nuclear power plant and/or enough biogas generation plants to cover current peak demands and capacity for the future well planned. We also should scrap all carbon taxes and VAT on fossil fuels. A set excise duty on fuels should be set at ~50c per litre and all these funds raised should be ring-fenced into an energy independence project for Ireland that covers cleaner energy projects.

    There are enough energy poverty related deaths annually in Ireland without exacerbating this issue any further. It's time to return to affordable fuel for the people and time to start planning proper energy security for the future. Enough of this wild goose chase by "green" politicians and alarmist campaigners.



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,130 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    And we’re the alarmists.

    it’s not wind power that’s threatening our power supply btw, it’s the increase in demand due to poorly planned data centers. If every data center has as a condition of Planning permission, a requirement to have 48 hour on site back up energy, then our grid would be fine. But even if we get brownouts this year, and the chance is remote, there is an even smaller chance that anyone will die because of it. Yet you’re prepared to commit us to increased global warming, guaranteeing that more lives and biological systems will be lost, just to avoid a short term easily solvable risk of inconvenience

    and even if the grid is hit to the worst possible extent you can argue for, the solution is to invest in grid storage technologies, which will be provided very quickly by the state or private sector if we just stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,130 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    what are the percentage odds that we ‘could’ face brownouts in the next 5 years?

    you never answered me the last time I asked a very similar question to a very similar claim you made…

    (or maybe you did and I missed it cause this new site doesn’t properly order replies in real time and if I don’t remember to press refresh it’s really easy to miss comments)



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,130 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    National Geographic has been rubbish since before I was born, really nice photographs, really poor journalism



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,603 ✭✭✭Birdnuts


    I think you'll find countries across the EU like Germany, UK etc. that have invested most in wind power are experiencing the most pressing demand for the likes of Russian Gas to keep their power grid online. Having that Green clown Eamon Ryan in charge of Department of Energy is only making things worse this side of the pond



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  • Registered Users Posts: 22,130 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Claremorris’peak gusts per year are not particularly relevant climatological data.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    They are in the context of a discussion on an alleged increasing trend in violent storms.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Confirmation bias, select a weather station that fits with a desired worldview.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    Where have you been? Several stations were shown that painted the same picture and negated Akrasia's desired worldview.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    Anyone can choose any station or number of stations or areas here and get data on several parameters going back decades. Just because some people think that cherrypicking is going on.

    Climate Explorer: Select a daily time series (knmi.nl)



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Fair enough, dived in without gauging the wider picture. This falls under "recency bias". Carry on.



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,130 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    In my living memory there have been a very small number of notable storms, hurricane charley 1986. Was only a child but remember the impact that it had

    Darwin 2014,. Not because it was named Darwin, but because I saw the devastation that followed it, I saw the roads and walls that were swept away by the storm surge and I was able to experience first hand

    Ophelia, 2017 which could have caused similar devastation if Darwin hadn’t already felled whole groves and big parts of mature woodland

    Katia 2011 was a scary event that missed my part of the island but did impact with huge flooding and coastal erosion that I saw directly when I took a drive to the beach the day after it passed

    then there was the 2009 flooding event where half my county was under water. Didn’t give that storm a name cause it wasn’t particularly windy, but flooding causes just as much suffering as a wind storm probably even more



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    Wind power is a problem because it is unreliable: demand for leccy soars under cold blocking highs during winter and increases greatly during warm summer blocking highs - that is a fact. Under blocking highs, the wind doesn't blow enough to provide enough power. It's in every news article today and yesterday quoting what Eirgrid says.

    The data centres are here because of our cooler climate. This allows the centres to be cooled (less power consumption) at less expense than in other climates (by the way, less power consumed = less C02).

    These data centres use approx 4.8% of Ireland's total energy demand, so they're not the bogeyman the alarmists want to pin the blame on in order to cover the inadequacies of wind power. Source - see page 16: Bitpower_Report_Substance_pdfA (seai.ie)

    Eirgrid are one of the worlds best in energy infrastructure builders, so I'll take their warnings over shortfalls (EirGrid warns of electricity supply shortfalls (rte.ie)) above your opinion that the chances are remote.

    With ~10% of Irish homes (some ~170,000 households) totally dependent on leccy for home heating (Environment - CSO - Central Statistics Office) there is a reasonable risk of further deaths owing to energy poverty. We already see north of 2,000 annual deaths owing to energy poverty as it stands: https://assets.gov.ie/76068/e7891cd1-76ca-4de2-8353-eff39ea6223d.pdf

    Yes, I would commit Ireland to further C02 emissions until such a time as we can switch over to greener more reliable sources. One Chinese company emits more C02 in just over three days than this entire country does in a year, so I don't give a toss what little smidgin extra we create in order to keep our population warm and safe in the interim.

    "which will be provided very quickly by the state or private sector" Where are these storage devices, and why will they be quickly provided by the state? Are they disguised as e-voting machines in some warehouse waiting to be deployed as soon as Evelyn Cusack warns of an impending severe cold spell at three to four days notice? FFS, get real man.



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,130 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Max gusts are one element in what makes a storm damaging/severe/powerful

    a max gust of 140kph is not as severe as sustained winds of 120kph over an extended period, and a windstorm accompanied by a storm surge and high levels of precipitation, like an extra tropical cyclone is more damaging than the traditional winter frontal storm in Ireland which can be locally intense but short lived and locally damaging

    You cannot dismiss the findings of a comprehensive study involving a large number of variables and historical measurements by playing top trumps with data points

    (So what if that Oil tanker has a bigger displacement, the submarine has torpedoes )



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,130 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    And this is actually a good thing.

    As the price for gas increases, the incentive to invest in alternatives also goes up. Once that infrastructure is in place, gas becomes increasingly redundant and it’s price will collapse.

    There are so many viable technologies ready to go right now that can replace gas as the buffer for renewables, but because those are new technologies they are higher risk and have R&d costs attached. Eventually they will replace gas on their own, but if we keep pandering to the fossil fuel Industry propaganda and subsidizing gas, that will take longer, cost way more and condemn us to much more damaging climate change



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  • Registered Users Posts: 22,130 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    My ‘world view’ is that, globally, climate change is going to have a very severe negative effect on our ability to survive and prosper as a species if we allow it to warm beyond 1.5c to 2c

    we are currently on a trajectory of 3c + if we follow the advice of Gaoth Laidir and the rest

    this is backed by the IPCC, not my opinion

    My ‘world view’ is science based. Gaoth’s ‘world view’ is based on one parameter at one or two ‘randomly’ chosen weather stations near where he lives (probably, I don’t care/know where he lives, but anywhere in Ireland is proximate on a global scale)


    Gaoth loves drilling down into specific details, and is missing the wood for the trees. It’s obvious to even the oil industry that they cannot argue that climate change isn’t a massive threat.

    they don’t argue that in public anymore, not directly anyway.



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,235 ✭✭✭Oneiric 3


    You are just making up your own rules and frames here.

    'Sustained' windspeeds are comprised of higher gust which are the most damaging force in a storm.

    And hurricane charley wasn't that strong of a storm, wind wise at least.

    Here is a list of the highest 10 min mean windspeeds (40 knots or greater) at Dublin Apt since the 40s.

    To break this down further. Here are the number of days when mean wind speeds reached 40 knots or higher for each decade:

    So, once again, your claim that storms are becoming stronger and more frequent is spurious and just downright ill-founded.

    (all that data is from Met Eireann)

    New Moon



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,130 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    The ‘Luke warmers’ have the most transparently stupid ideology of all. Paraphrased as ‘Global warming isn’t as bad as it’s going to be Yet, therefore there’s nothing to worry about’ Luke warmers know perfectly how bad things could get if unaddressed, they just choose to believe that everything will be fine

    We’re at 1.2c above preindustrial heading for 3c+

    their arguments that the recent chaotic weather are ‘natural variability’ because it may have been worse at x time in the past’ is stupid because we’re only at the beginning of the warming we’ve already Locked ourselves into.

    it’s like the guy who feels a lump in his testicle and thinks ‘this is only a little bit more lumpy than normal, it’ll die down. By the time you realize it’s not getting smaller, you’ve lost at least that testicle and potentially your life.



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,235 ✭✭✭Oneiric 3


    As someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, I know what storms are like, and none of these you mentioned in anyway came close. Maybe in your neck of the woods, but most certainly not here.

    New Moon



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    It's all well and good picking an individual datapoint when it suits you (e.g. a station that breaks a temperature record) but when a range of stations are all showing the same thing it's suddenly not. Maximum mean speeds are also not showing an increasing trend, so that's two strikes. Three and you're out.

    And I took stations from all over Ireland, not just one near I live. None of them was near where I live, as it happens. There's your third strike.

    You said we in Ireland are experiencing more violent storms. You are completely wrong. Several posters have posted several datasets from several stations all over the country to show that you are wrong and yet you still deny it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,235 ✭✭✭Oneiric 3


    The chart I reposted the other day showed the combined mean high gust speed of 3 west coast stations, which tends to bear the brunt of Atlantic storms, and this still showed a big downward trend. So the claim that we are nick picking individual stations is also completely wrong. We are being constantly gas lighted on here by those who claim to read countless science papers, but never actually take the time to look at and research any dataset themselves, even when it is freely available to them.

    New Moon



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,130 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    I agree Eirgrid are highly respected experts in their field. If we give them the resources they need to preserve our grid infrastructure while also reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, I have supreme confidence that they would get the job done. This is a discussion about resource allocation. The fossil fuel industry want us to panic and subside their supply. We need to call their bluff and invest in long term sustainable solutions

    I work with engineers and developers every day in my job, they build what they are told to build. They are constrained by resources and deadlines way more than by the technology at their disposal

    i am not opposed to emergency funding to pay to extend the life of retiring infrastructure by a few years, but only if it’s a definite stopgap while renewable is coming online



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,235 ✭✭✭Oneiric 3


    Interesting video I watched earlier on. UK focused but give a good insight to what is going on in with energy sector at the moment:

    There is no skin in the game here and while the whole video is interesting, what I found most interesting is that the lack of wind in the UK this year decreased the output of 'wind energy' from about 32% to just 7%. (these values may not be exact as I am just going from memory). So, as Danno notes, what is going to happen if the UK and Ireland is subject to 'blocked' windless and cold winter ahead? What energy source is going to keep our families and ourselves warm?

    New Moon



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,130 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    You can give me as many strikes as you like as a self designated umpire, nothing you can say about historic records nullifies the projections that we’re only at 1c of warming and on track to exceed 3c within a few decades if we follow your business as usual strategy

    it takes time for the signals to emerge from the noise. You have 2 centuries of records to call on, climate change only started accelerating properly in the last 25-30 years. 10 years ago Richard Lindzen was saying temperatures had ‘only’ warmed by .6c now we’re at 1.2c, with a 40% chance of beating 1.5c by 2025 (wmo 2021)

    your predictions from a few years ago on temperature rises were completely wrong. What is your ECS prediction as of now?



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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    Trying to shift the focus back to temperature now. "Experts" (e.g. that idiot Sweeney from Maynooth) are constantly spouting that we're already seeing stronger storms, and you agree(d). Now you're saying well we will see them. It's laughable.



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