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

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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,208 ✭✭✭highdef


    Although completely off topic for this section, could you please show me an example of the new demonstration that the Earth moves through space and around the central/stationary Sun by using modelling and predictions for interpretative purposes only? A handy YouTube video would be my first preference please? If none currently exists, perhaps you could do everyone here a courteous favour and create your own video to demonstrate your message in the best way possible for your intended audience here. Many thanks in advance and warm regards to you.



  • Registered Users Posts: 601 ✭✭✭WJL


    My tuppence worth. I've found in the south east since 2015 that rain belts have found it very hard to get across to us. We're having longer settled spells in summer and the interruptions are fewer and bring little rain.

    It's probably too soon to call it a trend given the summers from 2006-12 and 2015 were wet.



  • Registered Users Posts: 408 ✭✭Orion402


    Short term weather events and predictions do not require planetary dynamics even if they are in the background, cyclical weather extending out to seasonal variations is based on planetary dynamics and from there into the larger topic of climate. Trying to make weather an open-ended timeline which segues into climate without paying attention to cyclical dynamics is an indulgence no society can afford.

    If readers here can't affirm a new demonstration for a moving Earth using satellite imaging then there is little hope the direction of climate research will change to including cause and effect of a moving Earth in a Sun-centred system.


    Go ahead, enjoy Mercury moving behind the central Sun from right to left as seen from a slower moving Earth from a satellite tracking with the Earth-


    The demonstration that the Earth moves and the Sun does not is that the background stars change position from left to right due to the Earth's orbital motion, thereby setting the Sun up as a stationary central reference for our motion and presently that of Mercury.


    In matters of climate, cyclical weather is the foundation for any other changes that occur in the atmosphere, oceans and landmass. There is no conflict with matters of high/low pressures or the jet stream among other factors influencing our experience of short term weather modelling and predictions which occupies most readers here.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,609 ✭✭✭thinkabouit


    People need to watch some videos of Allan Savory on YouTube.

    He's farming 1000 head of cattle in Zimbabwe using nothing but the management of the livestock. He's stopping desertification, bringing desert land back into grass using only livestock.

    This man has it figured out.

    I promise you it will be one of the most important videos you will ever watch.

    ⅔ of the worlds land is desertifying, you can see it clear as day just zooming out on Google. We're in serious serious trouble and this is the only option left for mankind.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,440 ✭✭✭beggars_bush


    Preponderance of goat farming is causing overgrazing and deforestation across much of the Sahal and other areas in Africa



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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,609 ✭✭✭thinkabouit


    It's not the numbers of stock it's the management of the stock. Unbelievable isn't it



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


    Interestingly, the data suggests the Sahel in particular is greening since the easing of drought conditions that plagued there in the 1970s and 1980s. Also of interest in this article is that there was harsher droughts in the Sahel between 200 and 300 years ago. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332220301007



  • Registered Users Posts: 601 ✭✭✭WJL


    I'm not denying the fact but how do they measure drought and soil moisture deficit from 800-1000 AD? Say in Ireland using the Annals of The Four Masters would tell you of a famine or drought but little science.



  • Registered Users Posts: 422 ✭✭john123470




  • Registered Users Posts: 696 ✭✭✭Oscar Madison


    Incredibly enough & this might be a SURPRISE to some but the earth has been continually warming

    interspersed with periodic ice ages without any assistance from humanity in its long history!



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  • Registered Users Posts: 14,425 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    I am guessing they do it from tree rings if there are species that live long enough, as there are in the southwest U.S., where some go back over two thousand years. Fixing actual dates to tree ring sequences can sometimes be improved with reference to clues left by known solar disruptions. Other correlations are available from timber used in architectural relics. There may be anecdotal historical reference points to correlate further. Radiocarbon dating in the vicinity of the Anasazi ruins was one way to locate them in the 11th century, and their rock paintings include depictions of what is suspected to be the supernova event that left behind the Crab Nebula which from Chinese sources we reliably know to be 1054 AD. Apparently they also had a total eclipse of the Sun very soon after that so there are some examples of both events in proximity in the rock art.

    However all of this comes with inherent uncertainties too. The point of saying "worst drought in 1200 years" can mean more like, we don't think there has been anything worse from any evidence going back 1200 years which is not quite the same as saying there was a bad drought 1200 years ago, maybe there wasn't one. They may mean they can't find anything worse since 800 AD but have no reliable way of assessing anything earlier from a complete lack of all sorts of evidence. If there are no tree rings or written records, what else might they use? Pollen sediments possibly.

    One thing that the Chaco canyon ruins (from the largest Anasazi remains) illustrates is that they stopped using timber that had been dragged in from fifty miles away (the Chuska Mountains) and went more to all-masonry construction late in their occupation, something that could be partly due to climate change but also partly due to various difficulties in moving wood that was still there to harvest. For example, maybe they couldn't raise sufficient labour, or the Chaco River had fewer times with any water for rafting (it would have been dragging rafts upstream if so given the direction the river takes away from Chaco to reach the San Juan), or more frequent wildfires made it difficult to complete the task. Or it could have been a cultural shift where for whatever reason builders preferred not to use timber any longer. These are the challenges that cultural anthropolgists face and I think climate scientists at least attempt to follow their lead on such issues but as we know, it often comes out that "climate change did this or that" at all sorts of intervals in history, whether it's actually true cause and effect is surely a legitimate subject for debate.



  • Registered Users Posts: 20,010 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    I had to explain to my children, when they were in PS and being indoctrinated with that Irish fascination for the buy goats for africa charity stuff, that maybe it wasn't exactly what that continent needed: more of the vermin that have eaten nearly every green shoot across the middle east and much of Africa.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,965 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    Big problems in Italy too, rivers drying up and irrigation of crops not possible. Sh*t will start to get real when Europe starts experiencing food shortages.



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,006 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    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.

    Way wrong. Even in recent history we have evidence of big fluctuations in climate in fast timescales, events like the Roman and Medievil warm periods, the maunder minimum. The climate can change quite drastically and quickly at times, and all this pre-industrialization. The idea that the Earth's climate and geology only ever changes at tiny increments over long periods of time is a fallacy with very little to back it up



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,965 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    Pretty sure you're a farmer so it's in your interest not to believe in man made climate change, but why do you think the vast majority of scientists think it's a thing? I just don't get it, do you think it's a scam to take your money or something?



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,006 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    One of the main causes of desertification in Zimbabwe is poor farming from when Mugabe seized farms and gave them to people who hadnt the first notion.

    That they could go from the breadbasket of Africa to a starving basketcase, some here would blame that on climate change too🤣

    The reality is post revolution they simply didnt maintain water infrastructure (dams, water mains, irrigation systems) and also didnt know how to farm, and the result is an increasingly desert and poor yielding landscape. That you could reverse these effects with a bit of cop on is not surprising.

    The Ankorians (of Angkor Wat fame in Cambodia) were thought to have collapsed due to changes in water levels nearby, with river levels having fallen drastically in parts, which would have effected their complex irrigation and transport systems. Theres many ruins of bridges and irrigation channels that in present day are almost 10s of meters above the current rivers, levels that wouldnt even be reached in current floods. One theory is the water levels rapidly receded over some years and their agriculture simply couldnt cope with feeding that many people in the empire. This coincides with the end of the Medievil warm period and the beginning of the Little Ice Age, which may explain the water levels decreasing.

    No and no. Also why would you think it's in a farmer's interest not to believe in man made climate change? How does not believing it benefit a farmer?

    Claims like the "vast majority of scientists believe X" are dubious at best, like those toothpaste ads with 9/10 dentists recommend Colgate. If you ever dig down into who is counted in these majorities, and who they deem a 'scientist', the results are a lot less convincing. Many of those big climate action statements of late with all the signatories from concerned scientists, most weren't even scientists at all, or had anything to do with climate or weather research, but by god were there names going to be tacked on to give the whole thing a better veneer of credibility.

    Unfortunately climate science lately has taken on a more religious belief, a faith that the consensus is correct rather than following the true scientific, data-driven approach. As M.T alluded to earlier, the cult of man-made climate change now has every extreme weather event being used as proof of man-made climate change. Climate change causes the rain, and the lack thereof, the heat, and the cold. It's a dogmatic belief system.

    Natural climate change is real and observable. Anyone who would dispute that the earths climate naturally changes is a fool. Man-made climate change, is hard to judge. We do not yet know what if any impacts mankind are having on the global climate. Anyone spouting definites about it only exposes their own ignorance. The truth is we do not know.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,965 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    Because from what I can tell, farmers in Ireland seem to think climate change is just some made up thing by Eamon Ryan and the D4 Wokerati to use as a stick to beat rural Ireland with. Real measures to reduce emissions would hit Ag hard in Ireland, so it seems to me you all try and become experts on climate change and go against the general scientific consensus that says climate change is real, in order to fight your corner.



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,006 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    Because from what I can tell, farmers in Ireland seem to think climate change is just some made up thing by Eamon Ryan and the D4 Wokerati to use as a stick to beat rural Ireland with.

    From what you can tell, i.e. no evidence you just made it up. "You had a feeling", "you reckon". Then we're playing buzzword bingo about the greens and "D4 Wokerati" lol. Right.

    To date your only argument to support your position that anthropomorphic climate change is 100% definite real and to blame for all these weather events is just an appeal to authority - "the general scientific consensus says so". A weak and fallacious argument to be sure.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,965 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    I don't think it's a weak argument to say pretty much every climate scientist in the world believes man made climate change is real.

    Anyway these discussions on climate change are kind of pointless on boards I've realised, farmers and the usual posters believe one thing, others believe another thing, and no conclusion ever comes of it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 20,010 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    My wife is a scientist and does not agree with the consensus, but like so many others world wide, she's not going to stick her hand up and say so as the cancel culture thing has seen several academics lose their job because they expressed doubt about the anthropogenic origins of CC.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,006 ✭✭✭timmyntc


    You're correct on that one.

    Aside from some nonsense about planetary rotation, most of the posters here engage in good faith and present well detailed arguments. Only yourself and someone else post with a head-in-the-sand attitude that you are 100% right and anything else is not to be considered, because of the scientific consensus (the appeal to authority argument). And its also you who engages in name calling and strawmanning about the farmers(?) and others. You seem to have a real bugbear against farmers certainly, I havent seen any in this thread.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,986 ✭✭✭OldRio


    So you know what I think? When you asked farmers about climate change how many did you ask? What type of farming do they do? What questions were asked? We need to know.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,609 ✭✭✭thinkabouit


    Yes it's the management of the land.

    It's not just an African problem though. it's human problem passed down from centuries.

    The best way to store carbon is in the soil. Every year there's Billions of hectares of grassland around the world being burnt, tilled and turning to desert.

    That carbon has nowhere else to go and that is the problem.



  • Registered Users Posts: 408 ✭✭Orion402


    This type of hysterics has a limited shelf life as opposite weather events happen at those locations in time. Barely 3 years ago, drought around Sydney was proposed as an example of irresponsible human behaviour, whereas presently, in a La Nina year, their reservoirs are full.

    Cyclical weather would incorporate El Nino/La Nina events which in turn effects local weather with sometimes extreme effects like the current Sydney floods yet little or nothing is understood as to the cause of these cyclical events organised around the Earth's Equator in the Pacific.

    Raising the standards of consideration is far removed from the hysterics surrounding weather events that are made more frequent through a 24 hour news cycle and those willing to misuse them for modelling convictions.



  • Registered Users Posts: 601 ✭✭✭WJL


    Farmers are acutely aware of weather changes. They shouldn't be dumped in any particular basket.



  • Registered Users Posts: 601 ✭✭✭WJL




  • Registered Users Posts: 22,363 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    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. The changes around the 'medieval warm period' happened over 300 years and was not a global phenomenon

    The Roman warm period spanned 7 centuries and only affected parts of Europe and the North Atlantic

    The current GLOBAL changes in climate are happening much faster and at a much greater scale than either of these two events you mentioned

    https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2019-07-25-earth-warming-faster-climate-change-study



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,363 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    "The truth is we do not know." - Guy on the internet


    ​​"It is unequivocal" - All of the worlds most respected scientists in relevant fields


    Hmmm, who should I believe?



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,440 ✭✭✭beggars_bush


    Most farmers understand climate change better than most.

    Unpredictable weather for harvesting

    Flooding during winter

    No rainfall in spring

    And i say that as a part time farmer

    The green economy agenda is driven too much by urban living politicians and civil servants.

    The green party needs to get some rural TDs asap



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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,440 ✭✭✭beggars_bush


    Medieval warm period can be explained though

    Same as mini ice age



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