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

  • 12-01-2021 8:52pm
    #1
    MeHappy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5 ✭


    OAA has had a chance to look back on all the weather and climate disasters of 2020. And like many other aspects of 2020, the numbers we're seeing aren't positive.

    2020 officially broke the record for most $1 billion disasters. The 22 costliest events shattered numbers previously set by 16 separate billion-dollar disasters in 2011 and 2017.

    Note: the record here is for the number of events. In terms of cost, 2020's $95 billion price tag ranks as the fourth costliest.

    1-billion-dollar-disasters.png

    Hurricane Laura's damages came in at the highest price for 2020. In fact, seven of the 12 landfalling tropical systems caused at least $1 billion in damages, which is a record in itself.

    2020-landfalls.png

    Western wildfires were also extremely active in 2020, consuming nearly 10.3 million acres. This includes about 4% of California's total acreage.

    2020-wildfire-acres.png

    To top it all off, 2020 ranked as the 5th warmest year on record for the contiguous U.S.. Here in the District, 2020 ranked as the 3rd warmest year, tying 2019 with an annual average temperature of 60.6 degrees.


    2020-temperature-trend.png


«134567…51

Comments

  • #2
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,584 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    Some of these events are being criticized for inflation on U.S. based weather forums. You also have to ask, what is the equivalent of one billion dollars (US) in 1995 or 1975 or 1955 dollars? My guess, 500 million, 200 million, 100 million respectively.

    I don't count wildfires as strictly weather caused disasters. There has been appalling forestry management in some parts of the west, prompted by overzealous environmentalist concerns about cutting any trees, including those growing along hydro-electric power corridors. California in particular has suffered a number of recent fire disasters from strong winds causing power lines to arc into these poorly situated trees.

    There is also the question of a growing phenomenon of deliberately set fires by eco-terrorists or unemployed men seeking work. Some may snicker at this but believe me, it's a real thing and well known in western Canada and the United States as a growing problem.

    Then there's the question of growing numbers of human targets of the sorts of weather-related occurrences, such as buildups of urban communities along subtropical coasts, and the "exurban" phenomenon where a preferred lifestyle is in a parkland setting well out of urban areas but near their margins. These settings unfortunately can accelerate the spread of forest fires and expose more people to them.

    However, for whatever reason these costs are going up, it does point to needs for mitigation strategies, but I am dubious about over-generalizing like "if we all drove electric vehicles, none of this would happen;" in fact, even if everyone just walked and biked to work, the weather would hardly change at all and these human factors (spread, poor siting, malfeasance) would continue presumably. So you would be left with much the same outcome only no cars to escape them in.


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


    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    Some of these events are being criticized for inflation on U.S. based weather forums. You also have to ask, what is the equivalent of one billion dollars (US) in 1995 or 1975 or 1955 dollars? My guess, 500 million, 200 million, 100 million respectively.

    I don't count wildfires as strictly weather caused disasters. There has been appalling forestry management in some parts of the west, prompted by overzealous environmentalist concerns about cutting any trees, including those growing along hydro-electric power corridors. California in particular has suffered a number of recent fire disasters from strong winds causing power lines to arc into these poorly situated trees.

    There is also the question of a growing phenomenon of deliberately set fires by eco-terrorists or unemployed men seeking work. Some may snicker at this but believe me, it's a real thing and well known in western Canada and the United States as a growing problem.

    Then there's the question of growing numbers of human targets of the sorts of weather-related occurrences, such as buildups of urban communities along subtropical coasts, and the "exurban" phenomenon where a preferred lifestyle is in a parkland setting well out of urban areas but near their margins. These settings unfortunately can accelerate the spread of forest fires and expose more people to them.

    However, for whatever reason these costs are going up, it does point to needs for mitigation strategies, but I am dubious about over-generalizing like "if we all drove electric vehicles, none of this would happen;" in fact, even if everyone just walked and biked to work, the weather would hardly change at all and these human factors (spread, poor siting, malfeasance) would continue presumably. So you would be left with much the same outcome only no cars to escape them in.

    The weather and climate are not the same.


  • #4
    Gaoth Laidir
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    Banana Republic 1 wrote: »
    The weather and climate are not the same.

    You're going to have to expand on that a bit. Who said they were?

    A rake of weather events were listed in the OP as proof of climate change. MT has put forward reasons as to why it's not necessarily so.


  • #5
    Nabber
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,855 ✭✭✭Nabber


    Gaoth Laidir wrote: »
    A rake of weather events were listed in the OP as proof of climate change. MT has put forward reasons as to why it's not necessarily so.

    OP might have edited their post?
    Although the construction of the post teases towards the correlation of global warming and weather diesters, I don't see that they have explicitly liked the two (?)

    The other note to make is that infrastructure and safe measures are installed to safeguard against human injury and casualties at the cost of finances. If the dollar figure is increasing and the death toll is reducing then the issue for me is moot.

    A warming planet would suggest that the planet is getting safer interns of human safety. Although this certainly due to better response teams, technology, engineering, warning systems, regulations and building materials.

    539411.JPG


  • #6
    Danno
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    Irish Mirror: Map shows how much of Ireland could be under water by end of decade - with one city in trouble.
    https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/map-shows-how-much-ireland-23320870

    Little under 9 years left to go. Save the date. Can't wait to take the fishing boat out on main street Youghal.


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  • #7
    Davaeo09
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,220 ✭✭✭Davaeo09


    People trying to talk down to MT need to have a look at who they are talking to haha


  • #8
    Gaoth Laidir
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    Interesting that the stats mention nothing of the 15 consecutive years (2006-2015, inclusive) without a Cat-3+ US hurricane landfall. Overall, there is no significant longterm trend in severity or number of landfalls, so measuring damage in monetary terms is pretty useless.

    https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/99/7/bams-d-17-0184.1.xml

    full-bams-d-17-0184.1-f2.jpg

    full-bams-d-17-0184.1-f3.jpg


  • #9
    Banana Republic 1
    Registered Users Posts: 3,328 ✭✭✭Banana Republic 1


    Danno wrote: »
    Irish Mirror: Map shows how much of Ireland could be under water by end of decade - with one city in trouble.
    https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/map-shows-how-much-ireland-23320870

    Little under 9 years left to go. Save the date. Can't wait to take the fishing boat out on main street Youghal.

    Youghal is only a one horse town anyway shur.


  • #10
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,584 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    "weather not the same as climate" ...

    You hear this a lot in discussions of climate change. Usually, it's climate change believers talking to skeptics who have used a weather example as an indication that climate change is not real.

    That's not my position nor is it entirely valid. Climate at any point in time is the integrated totality of weather events over a defined period. The 30-year normal is something that developed in climatology before it was known as climate science, in the early 20th century (perhaps earlier, I know for sure it was used between the world wars in discussions of climate variability).

    What is climate? It's a blend of averages and extremes observed at a location. For example, I just finished a comprehensive study of 180 years of weather records at Toronto. In the 1870s, somebody might have written "the local climate consists of a long, cold and snowy winter, with an average of 100" of snow, and a short but relatively hot and humid summer with frequent heavy rainfalls. " They would have been essentially correct but that would not read very well since about 1920, at the present time, this would be more accurate ... "the local climate consists of a four-month winter season with mixed intervals of cold and mild, a wide variety of precipitation, and long warm to hot summers that alternate between hot and humid, and dry and pleasantly warm, with a few other types sprinked in."

    So there has been climate change at Toronto to make these two statements equally accurate.

    But even so, that didn't prevent anomalies like an April 1975 blizzard being worse than any recorded April snowfall since 1840, or a 1969 October snowfall coming earlier (10 cm+) than in any previous year. Feb 2015 was so cold that it beat all Februaries since 1840 except 1875 and 1885. And that's the kind of "weather" that climate change people don't want to hear about, but in fact what something like that does, is to change the running average, who knows whether there might be another really cold one in 2025 so that (2015,2025) looks like (1875,1885) to some future observer or analyst.

    But in any case, my objection to this news release is that it doesn't really report the facts in context of financial and human-target human-caused (non-atmospheric) factors. When those factors are understood, the meaning of the "finding" changes from alarming to perhaps pedestrian.

    Let's get back to the paradigm about weather and climate. They are not two different things. Climate can only be the integrated summary of averages and extremes of weather. Therefore it is always changing. Every day changes the climate incrementally. If you think climate is "normally the weather we get here" then what is that in a high variability climate zone like most of the U.S.A. has, the whole point of U.S. weather is that frequent large variations can be expected. Very few months come out very close to recent averages, and almost equal numbers of them are warmer or colder, wetter or drier.

    I follow U.S. weather closely and really, 2020 was a rather bland sort of year compared to many. Considering there were a record number of named storms, the actual landfalls did not add up to all that much compared to some other seasons -- there was no single extreme landfall event like 2018 (Michael in Mexico Beach FL) or 1992 (Andrew) or 1989 (hugo) etc.

    These derecho damage tolls are inflated, people make insurance claims on thousand dollar deductible policies and try to run them up so as not to lose a thousand bucks. And if a derecho goes through a number of towns and damages thousands of houses slightly, there's a lot of claims, but it doesn't really add up to much in economic impact. Half the companies weasel out of paying anything anyway. The homeowners have to fix their houses, so money changes hands between them and construction companies. Then there are ongoing droughts -- whose fault is it that people try to farm or ranch in land that has, for centuries, been arid and nearly useless for such purposes? There may have been a few better decades in the late 19th century and early 20th to lure people into such activities, but I'm a frequent visitor to archaeological sites in the southwest, and the native people who settled there faced the same problems in cycles, there was a whole culture in that region (Anasazi) that was wiped out around 1150-1200 AD, either by climate change (drought) or hostile invasion of other native tribes who didn't practice the same horticulture. We will never know for sure what caused them to disappear but we do know that there were many dry years after centuries of relatively favorable conditions. Those people may have migrated far to the north and reinvented themselves in the interior northwest, or they may have died out entirely. They left no written records so it's hard to trace them.

    There were weather events in the past that I know would create a firestorm of angst and concern in some circles if they happened nowadays. I would list these few examples:

    1900 -- A cat-4 hurricane made a direct hit on Galveston TX, wiped it out and killed 12,000 people. The city had to be rebuilt.

    1925 -- F4/5 tornado destruction through IL-IN-OH killed 750 people (March 18th) and wiped out several large towns (Carbondale IL).

    1926/28 -- Two major hurricanes struck south FL, if they happened today, damage tolls would be astronomical. Their death tolls would likely be lower due to better warnings, but still considerable.

    1929 -- Huge floods on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers were far greater than anything seen since that event, the economic impact was huge (probably about a ten billion dollar event in today's economy).

    1933-37 -- Devastating heat waves and drought hit large areas of the central and eastern U.S., temperatures hit levels not seen since, in some cases by 5 C or 9 F deg (NYC 106 F, Toronto 105 F, Steele ND over 120 F -- nowadays 105-110 is considered extreme there, and at Toronto, ten of eleven days that have exceeded 100 F were before 1953, only one in 2011 since then.

    1938 -- The Long Island hurricane, probably a 2-3 billion dollar impact in today's economy.

    1954-55 -- Two very active hurricane seasons with some high impact flooding events, Hazel (1954) reached Toronto as a tropical storm and wiped out rows of houses in a floodplain no longer inhabited, killing 80 people. Nothing like that has happened since.

    Those are just a few examples of high impact weather events from the so-called "normal" climate that the so-called "extreme" climate has replaced. This is why a lot of people are skeptical, because they don't recall all that many similar high impact events in more recent years.


  • #11
    Danno
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    "weather not the same as climate" ...

    Thank you for that summary, a very informed evaluation of past events that no doubt will encourage readers to take a broader look at Irish weather events and reach a self informed conclusion that harsh weather events occurred in the past and that storms tagged with colour-coded warnings in today's world are for the connoisseur of all things disaster.


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  • #12
    Banana Republic 1
    Registered Users Posts: 3,328 ✭✭✭Banana Republic 1


    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    "weather not the same as climate" ...

    You hear this a lot in discussions of climate change. Usually, it's climate change believers talking to skeptics who have used a weather example as an indication that climate change is not real.

    That's not my position nor is it entirely valid. Climate at any point in time is the integrated totality of weather events over a defined period. The 30-year normal is something that developed in climatology before it was known as climate science, in the early 20th century (perhaps earlier, I know for sure it was used between the world wars in discussions of climate variability).

    What is climate? It's a blend of averages and extremes observed at a location. For example, I just finished a comprehensive study of 180 years of weather records at Toronto. In the 1870s, somebody might have written "the local climate consists of a long, cold and snowy winter, with an average of 100" of snow, and a short but relatively hot and humid summer with frequent heavy rainfalls. " They would have been essentially correct but that would not read very well since about 1920, at the present time, this would be more accurate ... "the local climate consists of a four-month winter season with mixed intervals of cold and mild, a wide variety of precipitation, and long warm to hot summers that alternate between hot and humid, and dry and pleasantly warm, with a few other types sprinked in."

    So there has been climate change at Toronto to make these two statements equally accurate.

    But even so, that didn't prevent anomalies like an April 1975 blizzard being worse than any recorded April snowfall since 1840, or a 1969 October snowfall coming earlier (10 cm+) than in any previous year. Feb 2015 was so cold that it beat all Februaries since 1840 except 1875 and 1885. And that's the kind of "weather" that climate change people don't want to hear about, but in fact what something like that does, is to change the running average, who knows whether there might be another really cold one in 2025 so that (2015,2025) looks like (1875,1885) to some future observer or analyst.

    But in any case, my objection to this news release is that it doesn't really report the facts in context of financial and human-target human-caused (non-atmospheric) factors. When those factors are understood, the meaning of the "finding" changes from alarming to perhaps pedestrian.

    Let's get back to the paradigm about weather and climate. They are not two different things. Climate can only be the integrated summary of averages and extremes of weather. Therefore it is always changing. Every day changes the climate incrementally. If you think climate is "normally the weather we get here" then what is that in a high variability climate zone like most of the U.S.A. has, the whole point of U.S. weather is that frequent large variations can be expected. Very few months come out very close to recent averages, and almost equal numbers of them are warmer or colder, wetter or drier.

    I follow U.S. weather closely and really, 2020 was a rather bland sort of year compared to many. Considering there were a record number of named storms, the actual landfalls did not add up to all that much compared to some other seasons -- there was no single extreme landfall event like 2018 (Michael in Mexico Beach FL) or 1992 (Andrew) or 1989 (hugo) etc.

    These derecho damage tolls are inflated, people make insurance claims on thousand dollar deductible policies and try to run them up so as not to lose a thousand bucks. And if a derecho goes through a number of towns and damages thousands of houses slightly, there's a lot of claims, but it doesn't really add up to much in economic impact. Half the companies weasel out of paying anything anyway. The homeowners have to fix their houses, so money changes hands between them and construction companies. Then there are ongoing droughts -- whose fault is it that people try to farm or ranch in land that has, for centuries, been arid and nearly useless for such purposes? There may have been a few better decades in the late 19th century and early 20th to lure people into such activities, but I'm a frequent visitor to archaeological sites in the southwest, and the native people who settled there faced the same problems in cycles, there was a whole culture in that region (Anasazi) that was wiped out around 1150-1200 AD, either by climate change (drought) or hostile invasion of other native tribes who didn't practice the same horticulture. We will never know for sure what caused them to disappear but we do know that there were many dry years after centuries of relatively favorable conditions. Those people may have migrated far to the north and reinvented themselves in the interior northwest, or they may have died out entirely. They left no written records so it's hard to trace them.

    There were weather events in the past that I know would create a firestorm of angst and concern in some circles if they happened nowadays. I would list these few examples:

    1900 -- A cat-4 hurricane made a direct hit on Galveston TX, wiped it out and killed 12,000 people. The city had to be rebuilt.

    1925 -- F4/5 tornado destruction through IL-IN-OH killed 750 people (March 18th) and wiped out several large towns (Carbondale IL).

    1926/28 -- Two major hurricanes struck south FL, if they happened today, damage tolls would be astronomical. Their death tolls would likely be lower due to better warnings, but still considerable.

    1929 -- Huge floods on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers were far greater than anything seen since that event, the economic impact was huge (probably about a ten billion dollar event in today's economy).

    1933-37 -- Devastating heat waves and drought hit large areas of the central and eastern U.S., temperatures hit levels not seen since, in some cases by 5 C or 9 F deg (NYC 106 F, Toronto 105 F, Steele ND over 120 F -- nowadays 105-110 is considered extreme there, and at Toronto, ten of eleven days that have exceeded 100 F were before 1953, only one in 2011 since then.

    1938 -- The Long Island hurricane, probably a 2-3 billion dollar impact in today's economy.

    1954-55 -- Two very active hurricane seasons with some high impact flooding events, Hazel (1954) reached Toronto as a tropical storm and wiped out rows of houses in a floodplain no longer inhabited, killing 80 people. Nothing like that has happened since.

    Those are just a few examples of high impact weather events from the so-called "normal" climate that the so-called "extreme" climate has replaced. This is why a lot of people are skeptical, because they don't recall all that many similar high impact events in more recent years.

    What is your opinion on this, it’s a report from channel 4 news last night, link contain 4min clip.
    https://www.channel4.com/news/oceans-hit-highest-ever-temperatures-in-2020


  • #13
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,597 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Danno wrote: »
    Irish Mirror: Map shows how much of Ireland could be under water by end of decade - with one city in trouble.
    https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/map-shows-how-much-ireland-23320870

    Little under 9 years left to go. Save the date. Can't wait to take the fishing boat out on main street Youghal.
    Did you read the article that you decided to post, or just the headline?


  • #14
    Danno
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    Additionally, global heating caused by climate change leads to warmer water temperatures, which in turn causes the water to expand and for sea levels to rise.

    As sea levels rise, certain parts of Ireland that are currently on land may soon find themselves at risk of severe flooding as the coast line encroaches inward, with some urbanised areas of the country even expected to be entirely below sea level as soon as 2030.
    Yes. Hence why I posted the link. Highlighted above is the complete hyperbole of a prediction made. Let's check back here in little under 9 years to see if its hyperbole or truth.


  • #15
    Gaoth Laidir
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    Danno wrote: »
    Yes. Hence why I posted the link. Highlighted above is the complete hyperbole of a prediction made. Let's check back here in little under 9 years to see if its hyperbole or truth.
    with some urbanised areas of the country even expected to be entirely below sea level as soon as 2030.

    Entirely, mind. Maybe that film Waterworld was not far off the mark afterall.


  • #16
    Oneiric 3
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,238 ✭✭✭Oneiric 3


    Oh I do want to be beside the seaside...

    sea-levels2.jpg

    New Moon



  • #17
    Oneiric 3
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,238 ✭✭✭Oneiric 3


    Banana Republic 1 wrote: »
    The weather and climate are not the same.

    They actually are. Consider, for example, when the hurricane season gets going and anything passed Cat 3 develops, or a heatwave in Europe occurs, or we get a few windy and wet days here in Ireland. These weather events become further proof that climate change is happening and not about weaving up a lucrative narrative at all.

    New Moon



  • #18
    Banana Republic 1
    Registered Users Posts: 3,328 ✭✭✭Banana Republic 1


    Additionally, global heating caused by climate change leads to warmer water temperatures, which in turn causes the water to expand and for sea levels to rise.

    As sea levels rise, certain parts of Ireland that are currently on land may soon find themselves at risk of severe flooding as the coast line encroaches inward, with some urbanised areas of the country even expected to be entirely below sea level as soon as 2030.
    Danno wrote: »
    Yes. Hence why I posted the link. Highlighted above is the complete hyperbole of a prediction made. Let's check back here in little under 9 years to see if its hyperbole or truth.

    You wrote the first quote yourself, put that text in quotations to make it seem like you read the mirror article and not just the headline.


  • #19
    Banana Republic 1
    Registered Users Posts: 3,328 ✭✭✭Banana Republic 1


    Oneiric 3 wrote: »
    They actually are. Consider, for example, when the hurricane season gets going and anything passed Cat 3 develops, or a heatwave in Europe occurs, or we get a few windy and wet days here in Ireland. These weather events become further proof that climate change is happening and not about weaving up a lucrative narrative at all.

    NASA piece on the difference between weather and climate.
    https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html


  • #20
    Danno
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    Oneiric 3 wrote: »
    Oh I do want to be beside the seaside...

    I'm still well inland and away from those nasty marine layers turning my snow to rain under that scenario. :D


  • #21
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,584 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    Banana Republic 1 wrote: »
    What is your opinion on this, it’s a report from channel 4 news last night, link contain 4min clip.
    https://www.channel4.com/news/oceans-hit-highest-ever-temperatures-in-2020

    My views were laid out in another thread, climate change 3 -- an alternative to both orthodox climate change and skeptical positions commonly taken.

    It has been locked recently after about the fourth off-topic bun fight between the two groups I am trying to join with my third option. That third option basically says considerable warming seems inevitable, whether it's the fault of human beings or not, and the best response is mitigation, not economic disruptions on a huge scale.

    So without watching the link, I can already tell you that I accept it's quite likely that ocean temperatures are rising, and I don't think that in realistic terms there's much if anything we can do to prevent it.

    As to one-metre, three-metre or ten-metre sea level rises, let's take each in turn. Considerable land ice marginal melting in Greenland, arctic Canada, Svalbard, northern Russia etc will likely raise sea levels one metre to 1.5m.

    That amount of sea level rise can be mitigated by coastal defensive installations. Just raise the existing seawalls or build new ones where that level of increase would cause problems. A lot of shorelines can handle a 1.5 m rise without anyone noticing much change. When you get to three metres, that's more like a third to a half of Greenland ice gone, that would take the rest of this century probably, if not longer. Defensive measures plus staged moving away from coastlines well in advance would be my suggestion there.

    A ten metre sea level rise would require all northern ice gone and a considerable start to Antarctic ice melt (if all that goes, then I believe we're looking at 17 metres). That would obviously have major impacts around the world. I don't think things will get that bad, whether it's human caused or natural variability, I think the atmosphere has certain limits beyond which natural feedback processes would kick in, such as enhanced arctic snowfall which would partly slow down the process.

    I don't claim to be clairvoyant or have definitive answers. My approach is more holistic -- do we prefer to mitigate or destroy the existing economic structure in favour of drastic changes that might not even have any actual effect?

    The one good thing about the COVID emergency is that it rather answers my question indirectly.


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  • #22
    M.T. Cranium
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,584 ✭✭✭✭M.T. Cranium


    I could add that I am very concerned about recent news reports that Bill Gates and others want to fund aerosol based solutions to climate change. The last thing we need is some impossible-to-research engineering solutions to problems that might have other causes. A decrease in the incoming solar radiation might plunge the northern hemisphere into a little ice age or even a big ice age, some people say we shouldn't play God, and I add we shouldn't play Milankovitch.

    If one wanted to try a major engineering solution, damming the Bering Straits might be less risky. That should have some of the desired effects, while being reversible if it then became obvious that the move had resulted in unintended consequences. I would envisage a pair of dams on either side of the Diomede islands at the narrowest point of the Bering Straits, whereas some other proposals call for a longer and deeper based dam two hundred kilometers south of that. My concept (not very much developed to be honest) would include locks for the passage of ocean vessels, and perhaps variable flow gates if some predictive science developed about the cause and effect created. Basically the idea is that if the Beaufort, Chuckchi and Laptev Seas froze sooner and remained frozen longer, arctic air masses might be stronger, and the circulation as a whole might cool down slightly. Although there would be little direct effect on the eastern arctic or the north Atlantic sectors, some symmetry of response could be expected as processes already underway responded to that new variable. The arctic circulation would try to balance the new disparity introduced, meaning there should also be stronger arctic air masses at times in the rest of the subarctic.

    A dam across the Bering Straits also has benefits for world trade and international co-operation should it be integrated into new road or rail links between Asia and North America.

    Not sure how easy it would be to remove the Bill Gates aerosols if we didn't want them around after half a century, I suppose they would be designed to settle out over time or to require periodic reinforcement. My guess is that it wouldn't do what the designers think it might do, a criticism that also applies to the Bering Straits concept.

    It has to be said that sea level rises so far have been relatively subtle and nowhere near as large as some that occurred after the peak of the Little Ice Age.


  • #23
    Gaoth Laidir
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    We should be alright for now, though, as the Greenland mass balance shows no increasing trend for nearly two decades now. This is somewhat at odds with what we tend to hear in the propaganda and it was of course not mentioned in the C4 clip. Like the Svalbard sea ice trends, Greenland melt seems to follow the sign of the AMO trend, increasing as the AMO becomes positive, which is what happened in the mid-late '90s.

    539840.PNG

    539841.png


  • #24
    Danno
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    If one wanted to try a major engineering solution, damming the Bering Straits might be less risky. That should have some of the desired effects, while being reversible if it then became obvious that the move had resulted in unintended consequences. I would envisage a pair of dams on either side of the Diomede islands at the narrowest point of the Bering Straits...

    I think this would be a worthwhile project, it would be relatively easy to hit the "undo" button on this one.

    If it meant returning Arctic Sea Ice levels to 1970s levels it would be a great achievement.


  • #25
    Banana Republic 1
    Registered Users Posts: 3,328 ✭✭✭Banana Republic 1


    There was 13 paragraphs to your response to my question so Im going to respond in this post to several points raised.
    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    climate change 3, has been locked recently after about the fourth off-topic bun fight between the two groups .
    The reason for this was that the climate change skeptics on that thread were resorting to personal attacks and insults, trying to solicit documental proof from the "orthodox" crowd and then refusing to read same afterward. Also the "moderator" used a racial slur, and a third moderator had to be brought in to mop up after his/her underlings transgressions. Interestingly that "moderator" is modding this thread also. People are entitled to their opinions but to spew them out in that fashion is totally counter to the role of a moderate.
    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    So without watching the link,
    Sounds familiar but at least you admitted it, however you couched your follow up with
    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    it's quite likely that ocean temperatures are rising
    .
    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    My approach is more holistic
    Not a scientific one? I admit I use a sarcastic tone.
    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    do we prefer to mitigate or destroy the existing economic structure in favour of drastic changes
    Our current economic structure is what's causing the problem.

    I looked into the Bearing Straits proposal and while it appears legitimate in the sense that the guy works at Utrecht University a search of him brought to his web page were the main image is of him in a topless Vlad Putin pose.http://www.rolfschuttenhelm.nl

    That said I read through what was proposed, unusual perhaps for this forum to exaim opposition suggestions, in a paper called "Diomede Crossroads
    Saving the Arctic sea ice? Thoughts on plausibility", published in 2008 and several things stood out.

    On page 3, Schuttenhelm, the main guy, laid out three things damming would change and three engineering solutions to achieve same. There are of course several negative effects that could occur from damming the 85km wide Bearing Straits.
    Ive taken this extract from an Anchorage Daily News article
    Still, perhaps anticipating the public reaction to meddling with Mother Nature on such a scale, Schuttenhelm realized that it might be hard to tell whether blocking the gap between North America and Asia is an exercise in stupidity -- or one of simple genius. Acting rashly with too many unknowns wouldn't be wise, he acknowledged.
    . Several are listed in Schuttenhelm paper as mentioned above.

    The above section brings me to this point,
    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    the last thing we need is some impossible-to-research engineering solutions to problems that might have other causes.

    How can you then dump on the aerosol solution whist at the same time advance an another perhaps outlandish plan, they are researching not implementing it. The reason its has advanced is exactly because they a getting private investment and not waiting for the cooperation of international players, which consistently fails, as per the Straits idea. Speaking of International players, the first guy to come up with the idea of damming the Bearing Straits was a a Soviet lad called Petr Michailovich Borisov in the 60s who offered it as a solution to the difficulty of extracting oil and gas from the Sakhalin oil fields.

    Post Script: From all that Ive read a watched about the aerosol plan it is consistently said that there is no money to be made from it hence it may not actually happen.


  • #26
    Gaoth Laidir
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    Banana Republic 1 wrote: »
    The reason for this was that the climate change skeptics on that thread were resorting to personal attacks and insults, trying to solicit documental proof from the "orthodox" crowd and then refusing to read same afterward. Also the "moderator" used a racial slur, and a third moderator had to be brought in to mop up after his/her underlings transgressions. Interestingly that "moderator" is modding this thread also. People are entitled to their opinions but to spew them out in that fashion is totally counter to the role of a moderate.


    Sounds familiar but at least you admitted it, however you couched your follow up with .


    Not a scientific one? I admit I use a sarcastic tone.


    Our current economic structure is what's causing the problem.

    I looked into the Bearing Straits proposal and while it appears legitimate in the sense that the guy works at Utrecht University a search of him brought to his web page were the main image is of him in a topless Vlad Putin pose.http://www.rolfschuttenhelm.nl

    That said I read through what was proposed, unusual perhaps for this forum to exaim opposition suggestions, in a paper called "Diomede Crossroads
    Saving the Arctic sea ice? Thoughts on plausibility", published in 2008 and several things stood out.

    On page 3, Schuttenhelm, the main guy, laid out three things damming would change and three engineering solutions to achieve same. There are of course several negative effects that could occur from damming the 85km wide Bearing Straits.
    Ive taken this extract from an Anchorage Daily News article

    . Several are listed in Schuttenhelm paper as mentioned above.

    The above section brings me to this point,


    How can you then dump on the aerosol solution, they are researching not implementing it. The reason its has advanced is exactly because they a getting private investment and not waiting for the cooperation of international players, which consistently fails, as per the Straits idea. Speaking of International players, the first guy to come up with the idea of damming the Bearing Straits was a a Soviet lad called Petr Michailovich Borisov in the 60s who offered it as a solution to the difficulty of extracting oil and gas from the Sakhalin oil fields.

    Post Script: From all that Ive read a watched about the aerosol plan it is consistently said that there is no money to be made from it hence it may not actually happen.

    That and it's nigh on impossible, but don't let that get in the way.

    But going back to your first graceful paragraph above, I'd suggest you have a rethink about exactly who is resorting personal attacks and insults. That's almost the only thing that you did.
    Also the "moderator" used a racial slur, and a third moderator had to be brought in to mop up after his/her underlings transgressions. Interestingly that "moderator" is modding this thread also. People are entitled to their opinions but to spew them out in that fashion is totally counter to the role of a moderate.


  • #27
    Pa ElGrande
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,633 ✭✭✭Pa ElGrande


    Danno wrote: »
    Irish Mirror: Map shows how much of Ireland could be under water by end of decade - with one city in trouble.
    https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/map-shows-how-much-ireland-23320870

    Little under 9 years left to go. Save the date. Can't wait to take the fishing boat out on main street Youghal.

    That's the usual scaremongering with computer models using representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5 radiative forcing scenario. The diminutive Eva links to a site that claims to use projections based on Kopp et all 2014.. The truth is, we don’t know what the climate will be doing, any time you see scary headlines about future climate, it's going to be assumptions based on RCP 8.5, the media never cautions about the limits of knowledge or accurately relays the caveats tied to highly abstract computer models.

    Net Zero means we are paying for the destruction of our economy and society in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless policy.



  • #28
    Thelonious Monk
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,477 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    My approach is more holistic -- do we prefer to mitigate or destroy the existing economic structure in favour of drastic changes that might not even have any actual effect?

    The one good thing about the COVID emergency is that it rather answers my question indirectly.

    The existing economic structure will spell the end of the world as we know it anyway. The current model is constant growth and consumption of resources.
    So if we want to keep going we have to do something differently.


  • #29
    Pa ElGrande
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,633 ✭✭✭Pa ElGrande


    Thelonious Monk wrote: »
    The existing economic structure will spell the end of the world as we know it anyway. The current model is constant growth and consumption of resources.
    So if we want to keep going we have to do something differently.

    Constant growth and consumption of resources has been the human model for at least 12,000+ years.

    When I first came to Ireland it was to a farmhouse with no central heating that used an open fire burning turf and wood with a bit of coal thrown in, cooking was done on Calor gas. The house was modernised and oil fired central heating installed, they even had a solid fuel range installed at one stage, over the years the house has been knocked and rebuilt using better insulation methods, heating using back burner boilers and wood pellets. In that period of time efficiency gains have changed consumption patterns, we use less energy to heat our houses and live much more comfortable lives. There is no one size fits all solution, Ireland is a cold and damp island for much of the year, we will continue to adjust in the future, without economic growth our energy consumption patterns must logically revert to those of a prior economy. With global warming we can reduce our energy consumption further, something to think about, it not a one way trade.

    Net Zero means we are paying for the destruction of our economy and society in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless policy.



  • #30
    Birdnuts
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,760 ✭✭✭Birdnuts


    Thelonious Monk wrote: »
    The existing economic structure will spell the end of the world as we know it anyway. The current model is constant growth and consumption of resources.
    So if we want to keep going we have to do something differently.

    Maybe - but I would rate the likes of plastic contamination of the worlds oceans, degradation of soil via intensive farming, loss of biodiversitry via habitat destruction etc. as far graver threats in that space than the hysteria generated by climate alarmists.


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  • #31
    Banana Republic 1
    Registered Users Posts: 3,328 ✭✭✭Banana Republic 1


    Birdnuts wrote: »
    Maybe - but I would rate the likes of plastic contamination of the worlds oceans, degradation of soil via intensive farming, loss of biodiversitry via habitat destruction etc. as far graver threats in that space than the hysteria generated by climate alarmists.

    All those things you mentioned are part and a result of the current economic structure.


  • #32
    Nabber
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,855 ✭✭✭Nabber


    Banana Republic 1 wrote: »
    All those things you mentioned are part and a result of the current economic structure.

    Some of it is by ignorance, most of it by greed.

    I’d prefer a model where investment in raising education and lowering poverty is the number one goal. If we raise our collective brain power we’d solve the issues, if we can’t solve the issue well then at least we are providing a better life before the ‘end’.

    On the topic of warmer seas, what was the temperature raise? .75c since 1880.
    It’s also incredible that ‘reliable’ sea measurements start in 1880, but it still requires adjusting.
    Even looking at the data 1934 -.22c jumps to .35c in 1941. That’s a .57c jump.... imagine if that happened from 2013 to 2020, the media wouldn’t be able to contain themselves... Al Gore and Attenborough would be telling us that it’s so warm Mars will be ice free in 5 years


  • #33
    Thelonious Monk
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,477 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    What do you all think of Biden's stance on climate change? Looks like he's taking it very seriously. How has the president elect being duped into thinking it's real, or is it a conspiracy to make some people richer or what?


  • #34
    Pa ElGrande
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,633 ✭✭✭Pa ElGrande


    Thelonious Monk wrote: »
    What do you all think of Biden's stance on climate change? Looks like he's taking it very seriously. How has the president elect being duped into thinking it's real, or is it a conspiracy to make some people richer or what?

    That's a topic for Current Affairs/IMHO

    Net Zero means we are paying for the destruction of our economy and society in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless policy.



  • #35
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,597 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Danno wrote: »
    Yes. Hence why I posted the link. Highlighted above is the complete hyperbole of a prediction made. Let's check back here in little under 9 years to see if its hyperbole or truth.


    Oh I can guarantee that if we come back in 9 years and those areas on the map that are coloured red under the 'sea level rise' setting are actually under sea level (ie, they flood with just a normal tide unless artificial flood defenses have been installed) someone on here will be saying it's because all the heavy buildings forced the ground to sink or other such nonsense, And someone else will say 'Sure this place used to always flood' when previously, it used to flood during storms, but now it floods during high tide.

    https://coastal.climatecentral.org/map/11/-6.3542/53.3464/?theme=sea_level_rise&map_type=year&basemap=roadmap&contiguous=true&elevation_model=best_available&forecast_year=2030&pathway=rcp45&percentile=p50&refresh=true&return_level=return_level_0&slr_model=kopp_2014

    The article you linked to shows sea level rises with annual flood events. any of the urban places affected by flooding have had flood defenses installed, but we are likely to see these defenses fall short in many areas

    Of course, each flood event will follow some series of concurrances, allowing people to say that the reason for the flood was not sea level rises, it was bad luck because there was an onshore wind after a heavy shower on a spring tide and the real cause of the flood was that storm drains were blocked and the new tennis court was built on a flood plain, etc etc etc.

    This has been the pattern for hand waving away natural disasters for decades. But now we're seeing the beginning of the 'Blue sky floods'
    Where properties are getting damaged by flooding at high tide when there has been no rain or storm surge to blame it on
    https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/2/eaau2736
    Using these nuisance flood thresholds, Sweet and Park (12) show that the number of hours at nuisance flood stage has increased substantially over time. Across 27 locations in the United States, the number of nuisance flood days has risen from an average of 2.1 days per year during 1956–1960 to 11.8 during 2006–2010. By 2035, nearly 170 coastal communities in the United States are projected to experience flooding more than 26 times per year (13).


  • #36
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,597 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Oneiric 3 wrote: »
    They actually are. Consider, for example, when the hurricane season gets going and anything passed Cat 3 develops, or a heatwave in Europe occurs, or we get a few windy and wet days here in Ireland. These weather events become further proof that climate change is happening and not about weaving up a lucrative narrative at all.

    Lucrative narrative?

    So people only talk about flooding and hurricanes because they've invested in Sea Wall construction firms and Storm Shutter manufacturers is it?

    Your 'follow the money' logic needs to be cast a bit wider to see who is funding all of these 'think tanks' that exist almost purely to cast doubt on climate change and campaign against regulations on polluting industries


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  • #37
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,597 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    M.T. Cranium wrote: »
    My views were laid out in another thread, climate change 3 -- an alternative to both orthodox climate change and skeptical positions commonly taken.

    It has been locked recently after about the fourth off-topic bun fight between the two groups I am trying to join with my third option. That third option basically says considerable warming seems inevitable, whether it's the fault of human beings or not, and the best response is mitigation, not economic disruptions on a huge scale. .

    And my views have been laid out in multiple threads across this site where I outline the natural progression of the 'Nothing to see here' climate change 'skeptics'

    Phase 1.) Global Warming is not happening, in fact, we're probably heading into a mini ice age (this is abandoned now by all but the nuttiest 'skeptics')

    Phase 2.) Ok, so the world seems to be warming, but it's all within natural variability, It'll be cooling again soon (something to do with maunder minimum/solar cycles)

    Phase 3.) Ok, so maybe humans are contributing something to climate change, but it's very very small because humans cannot possibly affect the mighty planet earth. Anything we see now is just part of a bigger natural cycle that hasn't been fully accounted for (people like Gaoth laidir are still in this phase)

    Phase 4a) Ok, so Humans are warming the planet, but it won't cause any real harm, it might even be good. (Anyone who scoffs at the predictions in scientific papers relating to more harmful, heatwaves, floods, consequences related to lost glaciers and changing rainfall patterns, more powerful storms, loss of biodiversity etc)

    Phase 4b) Ok, so humans are warming the planet (along with caveats like 'contributing to' and 'along with natural causes (never defined') but it would cost more to reduce GHG emissions (politically, culturally and economically) so we're better off just building our cities on stilts and living underground anywhere near the tropics (go capitalism!) (MT is here verging on phase 5)

    Phase 5) Oops. Sorry everyone, we were wrong, climate change is real, actually, I believed in it fully this whole time and always advocated that we take action to prevent it, but it's too late now, the genie is out of the bottle. We're stuck with it so no point now in even trying to prevent climate change, we should focus entirely on Mitigation. Lets all buy land in Siberia and Canada and Norway and screw everyone who cannot afford to relocate to a less inhospitable climate. (We should probably buy lots of guns to keep them nasty climate refugees out)


  • #38
    Pa ElGrande
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,633 ✭✭✭Pa ElGrande


    Akrasia wrote: »
    Oh I can guarantee that if we come back in 9 years and those areas on the map that are coloured red under the 'sea level rise' setting are actually under sea level (ie, they flood with just a normal tide unless artificial flood defenses have been installed). . .

    It has been noted for some time that the the climate models used to supposedly "prove" humans are controlling the global climate have not successfully predicted anything. That lack of predictive skill invalidates them and relegates them to the science of climate doomology.

    Claims about the predictive performance of climate models are built on quicksand. Climate modellers claiming predictive skill decades into the future operate in a fantasy world...
    <snip>
    Climate models cannot be verified or falsified (if at all, because they are so complex) until after the fact. Strictly speaking, they cannot be considered to be legitimate scientific products.

    source

    Net Zero means we are paying for the destruction of our economy and society in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless policy.



  • #39
    gozunda
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    Akrasia wrote: »
    And my views have been laid out in multiple threads across this site where I outline the natural progression of the 'Nothing to see here' climate change 'skeptics'

    Phase 1.) Global Warming is not happening, in fact, we're probably heading into a mini ice age (this is abandoned now by all but the nuttiest 'skeptics')

    Phase 2.) Ok, so the world seems to be warming, but it's all within natural variability, It'll be cooling again soon (something to do with maunder minimum/solar cycles)

    Phase 3.) Ok, so maybe humans are contributing something to climate change, but it's very very small because humans cannot possibly affect the mighty planet earth. Anything we see now is just part of a bigger natural cycle that hasn't been fully accounted for (people like Gaoth laidir are still in this phase)

    Phase 4a) Ok, so Humans are warming the planet, but it won't cause any real harm, it might even be good. (Anyone who scoffs at the predictions in scientific papers relating to more harmful, heatwaves, floods, consequences related to lost glaciers and changing rainfall patterns, more powerful storms, loss of biodiversity etc)

    Phase 4b) Ok, so humans are warming the planet (along with caveats like 'contributing to' and 'along with natural causes (never defined') but it would cost more to reduce GHG emissions (politically, culturally and economically) so we're better off just building our cities on stilts and living underground anywhere near the tropics (go capitalism!) (MT is here verging on phase 5)

    Phase 5) Oops. Sorry everyone, we were wrong, climate change is real, actually, I believed in it fully this whole time and always advocated that we take action to prevent it, but it's too late now, the genie is out of the bottle. We're stuck with it so no point now in even trying to prevent climate change, we should focus entirely on Mitigation. Lets all buy land in Siberia and Canada and Norway and screw everyone who cannot afford to relocate to a less inhospitable climate. (We should probably buy lots of guns to keep them nasty climate refugees out)

    And from reading most of those threads such comments belong more certainly in the deep realms of personalisation and daft generalisations eg 'scientific papers' are not rosetta stones. They can be both criticised and disproved. Nothing there but got forbid anyone should do so ...

    But I guess it's good to know that in the field of science and meteorology our knowledge can only have one hue and everything and everybody else is either a heretic or an outright gun toting racist or similar

    :rolleyes:


  • #40
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,597 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Pa ElGrande wrote: »
    It has been noted for some time that the the climate models used to supposedly "prove" humans are controlling the global climate have not successfully predicted anything. That lack of predictive skill invalidates them and relegates them to the science of climate doomology.
    'Noted' only certain in dark corners of the internet where facts are distorted and scientific studies are attacked because of conspiracy theories about scientists chasing grant money
    Your source by the way is a well known Climate change denial 'think tank' and the chief policy adviser is Christopher Monckton. (Monckton is one of the biggest clowns out there who hasn't got the first clue about science or integrity)

    They do not publish in the scientific literature, they write 'essays' where they can say absolutely anything they like without anyone challenging their facts or assumptions
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Public_Policy_Institute


    And then there's NASA (supported by a published study by Berkley scientists that appeared in journal Geophysical Research Letters)
    https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/
    1984_for_alan.jpg


  • #41
    Pa ElGrande
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,633 ✭✭✭Pa ElGrande


    Akrasia wrote: »

    And then there's NASA (supported by a published study by Berkley scientists that appeared in journal Geophysical Research Letters) . . .


    You quote Zeke Hausfather of the University of California, Berkeley. Would you mind mapping the Y axis local examples for the same period (Dublin Airport and Valentia will do) and while you at it can you explain the range of results on the X axis, it seems as we go further to the right the range diverges a lot from the centre.



    The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
    Our study builds upon a growing literature — notably that led by our co-author Justin Ritchie of the University of British Columbia — indicating that commonly used climate scenarios are already well off track and will become increasingly off track. As Zeke Hausfather and Glen Peters write in Nature, the highest emissions scenario commonly used in research to represent a “business as usual” trajectory into the future “becomes increasingly implausible with every passing year.”


    source

    Net Zero means we are paying for the destruction of our economy and society in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless policy.



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  • #42
    Gaoth Laidir
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    Akrasia wrote: »
    'Noted' only certain in dark corners of the internet where facts are distorted and scientific studies are attacked because of conspiracy theories about scientists chasing grant money
    Your source by the way is a well known Climate change denial 'think tank' and the chief policy adviser is Christopher Monckton. (Monckton is one of the biggest clowns out there who hasn't got the first clue about science or integrity)

    They do not publish in the scientific literature, they write 'essays' where they can say absolutely anything they like without anyone challenging their facts or assumptions
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Public_Policy_Institute


    And then there's NASA (supported by a published study by Berkley scientists that appeared in journal Geophysical Research Letters)
    https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

    My oh my, those damn predictions have gotten worse with time, not better. Here are more recent RCP4.5 projections, with actual global observed temperature in black dots. Temperature scraping the bottom of the RCP4.5 members. But let's all ignore that and jump on the worst-case scenario bandwagon and wait for "some urban areas to be entirely under water by 2030".

    498916.png


  • #43
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,597 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Gaoth Laidir wrote: »
    My oh my, those damn predictions have gotten worse with time, not better. Here are more recent RCP4.5 projections, with actual global observed temperature in black dots. Temperature scraping the bottom of the RCP4.5 members. But let's all ignore that and jump on the worst-case scenario bandwagon and wait for "some urban areas to be entirely under water by 2030".

    498916.png

    1. It's nice to quote your sources. If it's not a peer reviewed journal or at least some professional body , then how can anyone be sure that there weren't errors or omissions in the analysis of the data? Especially given that the data in your graph looks very different to the data on the NASA graph. Your 'observed' temperatures show an increase of .4c between 1990 and 2019 and the NASA version shows observed warming of .9c for the exact same range
    That's a massive difference

    2.
    The RCPs relate to the emissions scenarios. In the RCP scenarios, the emissions are all projected to be about the same until the mid 2010s when they start to diverge as carbon reduction strategies were expected to begin reducing CO2 emissions. The RCP 8.5 scenario most closely matches our current CO2 emissions of on balance about 11.7GtC per year (the net increase in the atmosphere after carbon sinks are accounted for)

    Therefore, we cannot really use the RCP scenarios to distinguish early warming before the paths diverge because they're all more or less the same

    What we have observed in the past 5 years is a significant increase in the rate of warming. Despite La Nina conditions, our global average temperature has not gone below 1c above pre-industrial since about 2015 despite natural variability such as La Nina that would, absent climate change, have driven global average temperatures below average
    metofficegovuk%3Axxlarge
    https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2020/2021-global-temperature-forecast

    and to call the statement 'some urban areas to be entirely under water by 2030" a worst case scenario is ridiculous given that I posted a link to a study a few posts ago showing that 'Some Urban areas' are already getting flooded at high tide

    I suppose you can call the foreshore of a beach 'above sea level' if it only floods twice a day


  • #44
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,597 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    I am still interested in the difference between Gaoth Laidirs graph and NASAs one. When he gets a chance I hope he responds


  • #45
    Danno
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    Akrasia wrote: »
    I am still interested in the difference between Gaoth Laidirs graph and NASAs one. When he gets a chance I hope he responds

    Considering it is almost 2am, I'd give him the opportunity of a Friday night's sleep to respond. I'd wager the response will be well worth the wait. ;) :cool:


  • #46
    Gaoth Laidir
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    Akrasia wrote: »
    I am still interested in the difference between Gaoth Laidirs graph and NASAs one. When he gets a chance I hope he responds

    Missed this post. That's a graph I posted over the past several years, adding the dots after each year. It was from some IPCC report that I can't remember now but I'll try and dig it out later.


  • #47
    Gaoth Laidir
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Gaoth Laidir


    Akrasia wrote: »
    1. It's nice to quote your sources. If it's not a peer reviewed journal or at least some professional body , then how can anyone be sure that there weren't errors or omissions in the analysis of the data? Especially given that the data in your graph looks very different to the data on the NASA graph. Your 'observed' temperatures show an increase of .4c between 1990 and 2019 and the NASA version shows observed warming of .9c for the exact same range
    That's a massive difference

    2.
    The RCPs relate to the emissions scenarios. In the RCP scenarios, the emissions are all projected to be about the same until the mid 2010s when they start to diverge as carbon reduction strategies were expected to begin reducing CO2 emissions. The RCP 8.5 scenario most closely matches our current CO2 emissions of on balance about 11.7GtC per year (the net increase in the atmosphere after carbon sinks are accounted for)

    Therefore, we cannot really use the RCP scenarios to distinguish early warming before the paths diverge because they're all more or less the same

    What we have observed in the past 5 years is a significant increase in the rate of warming. Despite La Nina conditions, our global average temperature has not gone below 1c above pre-industrial since about 2015 despite natural variability such as La Nina that would, absent climate change, have driven global average temperatures below average
    https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2020/2021-global-temperature-forecast

    and to call the statement 'some urban areas to be entirely under water by 2030" a worst case scenario is ridiculous given that I posted a link to a study a few posts ago showing that 'Some Urban areas' are already getting flooded at high tide

    I suppose you can call the foreshore of a beach 'above sea level' if it only floods twice a day

    I originally took that chart from the IPCC AR5, Fig 11.25. and overlaid the annual HadCRUT4 temperatures in black dots.


  • #48
    SeaBreezes
    Registered Users Posts: 1,525 ✭✭✭SeaBreezes


    Gaoth Laidir wrote: »
    Entirely, mind. Maybe that film Waterworld was not far off the mark afterall.

    I tbought we were all meant to be.under water already :)


  • #49
    Pa ElGrande
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,633 ✭✭✭Pa ElGrande


    SeaBreezes wrote: »
    I tbought we were all meant to be.under water already :)


    Without contrived, frightening forecasts, they would soon be out of business. :)

    . . . there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale.

    source - IPCC


    Kevin Trenberth     said in journal Nature (“Predictions of Climate”) about climate models in 2007
    . . . None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models. There is neither an El Niño sequence nor any Pacific Decadal Oscillation that replicates the recent past; yet these are critical modes of variability that affect Pacific rim countries and beyond. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, that may depend on the thermohaline circulation and thus ocean currents in the Atlantic, is not set up to match today’s state, but it is a critical component of the Atlantic hurricanes and it undoubtedly affects forecasts for the next decade from Brazil to Europe. Moreover, the starting climate state in several of the models may depart significantly from the real climate owing to model errors. I postulate that regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialized.

    source


    In fact the IPCC openly acknowledges that its models should not be trusted.

    . . .The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.

    source - IPCC

    Net Zero means we are paying for the destruction of our economy and society in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless policy.



  • #50
    Nabber
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,855 ✭✭✭Nabber


    Pa ElGrande wrote: »

    In fact the IPCC openly acknowledges that its models should not be trusted.

    Predicting unknown unknowns is a difficult task. Hyperbole from scientists and media alike does not help.

    Computer modelling is fascinating, but hind casts with modified data inputs does not validate the accuracy of forecasts, at least we should see replication, if there is an embedded natural warming it’s lost in CO2 forcing.

    With the topic of worsening extreme weather events. If your models and theory are pinned on additional energy being absorbed.. weather is feed by energy then you must hold to the idea of ‘worse’ weather events.

    Yet a deeper inspection of flooding will find that areas for development are typically on flood plains, beach front and river sides.


  • #51
    Banana Republic 1
    Registered Users Posts: 3,328 ✭✭✭Banana Republic 1


    Nabber wrote: »
    Predicting unknown unknowns is a difficult task. Hyperbole from scientists and media alike does not help.

    Computer modelling is fascinating, but hind casts with modified data inputs does not validate the accuracy of forecasts, at least we should see replication, if there is an embedded natural warming it’s lost in CO2 forcing.

    With the topic of worsening extreme weather events. If your models and theory are pinned on additional energy being absorbed.. weather is feed by energy then you must hold to the idea of ‘worse’ weather events.

    Yet a deeper inspection of flooding will find that areas for development are typically on flood plains, beach front and river sides.

    Nobody is saying that places didn’t flood just that these events happen more often. There’s also the fact that the vast vast vast majority of scientists and world governments believe that the climate is overwhelming caused by humanity’s actions since the industrial revolution with significant contributions made over the last 60 odd years.


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