Linking Drought and Climate Change: Difficult To Do 222
Geoffrey.landis writes An article about the current California drought on 538 points out that even though global climate warming may exacerbate droughts, it's nearly impossible to attribute any particular drought to climate warming: "The complex, dynamic nature of our atmosphere and oceans makes it extremely difficult to link any particular weather event to climate change. That's because of the intermingling of natural variations with human-caused ones." They also cite a Nature editorial pointing out the same thing about extreme weather.
It's difficult but (Score:5, Insightful)
they do it anyways.
Linking hurricanes to global warming is also difficult but that didn't prevent climate researchers from claiming Katrina-level events will drastically increase in frequency. (we're still waiting on this one)
Re:It's difficult but (Score:5, Informative)
If anything, it's the opposite:
http://models.weatherbell.com/... [weatherbell.com]
The graph shows the global annual counts for all hurricanes and major hurricanes. From '92 through '98, there was around 35 major hurricanes per year, falling this year to 29 major hurricanes. The peaks of the graph roughly correspond to el Nino years, with the stronger the el Nino the more hurricanes. If you consider a hurricane to be a heat transport mechanism to move heat from the oceans to space, this comes as no surprise.
Of course, the "more hurricanes" argument morphed into "less hurricanes but stronger" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/22/global-warming-to-bring-s_n_471227.html), but once again the planet isn't co-operating with theory.
Re: (Score:2)
Not quite accurate. With climate change there is a definitive lead and lag, that of course being the difference between how quickly the atmosphere changes temperature and how quickly the oceans change temperature, that difference of course directly relates to hurricanes because they form over oceans. What we are really seeing now is not so much about climate change but more about the nature of our coastal cities and how bound they are to a stable climate and what current and future actions we will need to
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Hurricanes happen in the northern hemisphere, usually golf of Mexico and north of it.
Tropical cyclones [wikipedia.org] form an average of 6.3 times per year in the northern Indian Ocean (crosses the equater), 14.3 times per year in the south-western Indian Ocean (southern hemisphere), 11.0 times per year in the Australian region, and 11.4 times per year in the southern Pacific. Of those storms, an average of 1.5, 5.0, 0, and 4, respectively, per year achieve hurricane strength. Only an average of 13.6% of hurricane strength tropical cyclones form in the North Atlantic.
If you want to talk about storms in the US and around you should focus on Tornados anyway.
The frequency of tornadoes [usatoday.com] in North
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately you did not read the links you posted otherwise you would have noticed that my comment about el nino/el nina.
Your links about tornados are irrelevant, as the destruction they made during the period where you claim their frequency was the lowest: was the highest ever recorded.
Ntw: we talked anout hurricanes. Bringing in Cyclones and Taifunes make sit only even more complicated for our parent :)
And it seems for you, too.
It's not difficult to erect a Strawman (Score:4, Informative)
that didn't prevent climate researchers from claiming Katrina-level events will drastically increase in frequency
No, that's the exact opposite from what climate researchers have been claiming. To repeat myself [slashdot.org], "[w]ithin the science of climate change that regarding hurricane (and other tropical storm) formation is famously unsettled." The models at least, seem to suggest a probable decrease in the frequency of formation (along with a possible increase in intensity) (Knutson et. al. [noaa.gov]).
Re: (Score:2)
If you're only tallying hurricanes of Katrina level events or worse and exclude anything less, then models can very well show an *increase* (as stated by the OP)
Sure, but I don't agree that is what OP had in mind. After all moving from a once a century event to a twice in a century event might constitute OP's "drastic[] increase in frequency," but that hardly sits well with the observation that "we're still waiting on this one."
Re: (Score:2)
OP is also saying that they're waiting on this one, meaning show me the drastic increase in Katrina level events
But OP would be somewhere between oh ... 50 to 500 years too early to make that statement, had they genuinely been talking about in increase exclusively of events of which the frequency is measured in centuries. If OP is honestly "waiting," (after less than a decade), they could not have had the point you raise in mind.
You're using models to say that overall hurricane frequency should decrease
Re: (Score:2)
" but that didn't prevent climate researchers from claiming Katrina-level events will drastically increase in frequency"
I think you are confusing advocates with researchers.
Fear sells after all.
What is so annoying is that most climate change advocates are as clueless about climate as those that deny climate change.
Every hot summer, warm winter, flood, drought or hurricane is proof... No it is weather.
So when you have a slow hurricane season, a drought ends, or an extremely cold winter you have proof that cl
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, what if we make the world cleaner and safer, for NOTHING!
Some people think reducing CO2 emissions will somehow make the world cleaner, but it won't. If not for AGW, there's no real urgency to reduce CO2 emissions, it's not a pollutant.
Furthermore, if we actually do what is necessary to stop CO2 from increasing further (350ppm is the danger point, we need to stop CO2 from increasing and reduce it down to there), we're going to drastically hurt the economy, and will definitely NOT make the world a safer place, and probably not cleaner either.
If we wait until w
Re:It's difficult but (Score:5, Informative)
Some people think reducing CO2 emissions will somehow make the world cleaner, but it won't. If not for AGW, there's no real urgency to reduce CO2 emissions, it's not a pollutant.
Except for Ocean Acidification. We are already starting to hit the turning point where hard shelled marine creatures are unable to form their shells because of acidification. Visible effects are starting to be seen in the Antarctic - pteropods are now starting to become unviable due to the cold water amplifying the effects of acidification. These little snails are a key food source in the ecosystem, if their population collapses, it will wreck untold damage on the marine ecosystem.
So yes, there still is an urgency to reduce CO2 emissions, and yes, it is a pollutant.
http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/pacific-ocean-perilous-turn-overview/?prmid=4939
Re: (Score:2)
and thus you prove you know nothing, about CO2, Jon Snow.
we've covered this at least a dozen times: you're wrong.
youre wrong about the economic costs.
youre wrong about CO2 not being a pollutant.
youre wrong about it not being better for life as we know.
youre wrong about the availability of technology.
Re: (Score:2)
The climate system is too chaotic for us to predict conditions in 1-5 years time accurately, you scientific illiterate. Yes, of course we know what it will look like in 100 years time, why wouldn't we? Don't you understand the science???
Predicting conditions in 1-5 years time is weather prediction. Predicting that the 30 year running mean temperature of the Earth will be 1 degree C warmer than it is now is a climate prediction. Chaos in weather and chaos in climate are two different things.
This thread will not result in a flame war (Score:4, Funny)
bizarro slashdot
Nope, no sir. Headlines like this are in no way shape or form fodder for the 'deniers'; which then causes the 'believers' to come out in droves. This thread will absolutely be filled to the brim with insightful, informed conversation.
Never stopped my old roomate (Score:4, Funny)
Hot outside: That's global warming, man!
Cold outside: That's global warming, man!
Storming outside: That's global warming, man!
Mild outside: That's global warming, man!
Forrest Fire: That's global warming, man!
Flood: That's global warming, man!
Raining frogs and locusts: That's global warming, man!
He was quite the stoner scientist, that one.
Re: (Score:2)
Raining frogs and locusts: That's global warming, man!
He was quite the stoner scientist, that one.
From what I can tell he has a stable of troll accounts on Slashdot and it's pretty likely that he's busy today. I'll scroll down and have a look.....
Re: (Score:2)
Now he's writing policy for the White House, sadly.
Mean and fluctuations (Score:3, Informative)
The climate has always been a highly fluctuating system where extreme temperatures oscillate over seasons and location by, say typically +/-20K (Kelvin), around a mean value around 287K, slowly growing. In some countries the fluctuations are larger, in some others smaller. All the discussion about the human-induced warming is about the effect of changing this mean value by a couple of K (now +0.5K, in the next century by +2-4K). So even in the most pessimistic scenarios the warming remains in amplitude a small fraction of the typical annual fluctuations. No wonder that it will be difficult to prove that any extreme fluctuations will result from the warming.
Re: (Score:2)
at its root its simply a basic probability concept, but many people have seemingly forgotten it.
if you have a perfect coin you expect 50/50 heads/tails over time.
if you then modify your perfect coin to be slightly heavier on the heads side, you may expect over time to see an increase in the number of heads over time. say 51/49.
but you cant state than any given toss that came up heads was due to your modification; that without the modification outcome would have been different.
thats a very difficult thing to
Warming may increase average world rainfall. (Score:2)
See: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.... [engineeringtoolbox.com]
Since the water carrying ability of saturated air goes up with temperature, there should be a trend toward heavier rainfall with temperature increases. Of course, places that are in a "rain shadow" like most deserts would not be expected to benefit as much as places near large bodies of water.
It is only difficult when fallacious (Score:4, Insightful)
The california drought for example is a well known weather pattern. We get that drought every couple decades and always have.
Last time was in the 1970s. It is difficult to link because natural forces are actually the cause of that drought.
As to other droughts, I really couldn't speak to every single one on earth. Just the ones I am personally aware of... and without exception, they're all normal natural processes that have been recorded in those regions for as long as we've kept records.
Attributing any known and consistent weather pattern to global warming is dishonest or ignorant. Pick one.
It is like blaming summer on global warming or winter on global cooling. Neither one is valid unless we consider changes in the earth's orbit to be global warming/cooling.
We are probably going to go into an ice age in the next few thousand years. At least, that is what the climate records show... we're due an ice age. When that comes, I hope we have the foresight to pump something into our atmosphere to limit it. Ice ages are a thousand times worse then any of the silly predictions about Global Warming. A Global Ice Age would make much of the world uninhabitable.
Re: (Score:2)
The california drought for example is a well known weather pattern. We get that drought every couple decades and always have.
Last time was in the 1970s. It is difficult to link because natural forces are actually the cause of that drought.
As to other droughts, I really couldn't speak to every single one on earth. Just the ones I am personally aware of... and without exception, they're all normal natural processes that have been recorded in those regions for as long as we've kept records.
Attributing any known and consistent weather pattern to global warming is dishonest or ignorant. Pick one.
It is like blaming summer on global warming or winter on global cooling. Neither one is valid unless we consider changes in the earth's orbit to be global warming/cooling.
We are probably going to go into an ice age in the next few thousand years. At least, that is what the climate records show... we're due an ice age. When that comes, I hope we have the foresight to pump something into our atmosphere to limit it. Ice ages are a thousand times worse then any of the silly predictions about Global Warming. A Global Ice Age would make much of the world uninhabitable.
I hope by the time we hit the next ice age we'd have working space mirrors.
Re: (Score:2)
We are probably going to go into an ice age in the next few thousand years. At least, that is what the climate records show... we're due an ice age. When that comes, I hope we have the foresight to pump something into our atmosphere to limit it. Ice ages are a thousand times worse then any of the silly predictions about Global Warming. A Global Ice Age would make much of the world uninhabitable.
There is no chance of that happening for the foreseeable future. With the current conditions on Earth it is impossible for an ice age (glaciation) to occur as long as CO2 levels in the atmosphere are greater than around 250 ppm even if Milankovitch cycles would otherwise lead to one.
Technically speaking we're currently and still in an ice age and will be until the Antarctic ice sheet melts away. /pedant
Re: (Score:2)
We've had ice ages with CO2 more then 4 times these levels. So... you're wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, back when the Sun was fainter and the configuration of the continents was completely different. CO2 isn't the only factor, just a major one. Notice I said "With the current conditions on Earth ...".
Re: (Score:2)
What conditions do you think would prevent another ice age? The CO2? Really? You think the CO2 is going to stop periodic ice ages? The impact of our current CO2 on our existing climate is so minor that the issue remains controversial. And you think it is going to stop something that overwhelms summers for thousands of years?
Things really haven't changed that much.
That said, I hope you're right. Ice ages suck.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're just as guilty of that as me, Dave. Neither of us can explain the full complexity of our positions in a few sentences and neither of us try to do it.
Suggesting that I am uniquely at fault for this sort of thing is laughable. You know damn well that everyone on this topic is simplifying especially on internet forums.
*kicks dave off his high horse so he's standing in the shit with everyone else*
Re: (Score:3)
The impact of CO2 on climate is not controversial in climate science circles. Even such notable contrarians as Roy Spencer and Richard Lindzen admit that CO2 will cause warming. They just think there are other factors that will counter that effect.
When specifically was it you think we had an ice age with 4 times higher CO2? My interpretation of that was back when we had a snowball Earth [wikipedia.org] more than 650 million years ago. Back then the Sun was at least 6% fainter than it is now and the land surface was all
Re: (Score:2)
Roughly 400 million years ago the CO2 levels were significantly above what they are now and the normal cycles of ice ages were undisturbed.
Re: (Score:2)
I just spent the past hour or so researching ice ages. Great fun and I learned a lot more details about the history of ice ages. Thanks for that.
There are 5 known ice ages in Earth's past. The Huronian (around 2.4 to 2.1 billion years ago), the Cryogenian (850 to 630 million years ago), the Andean-Saharan (460 to 420 million years ago), The Karoo (360-260 million years ago) and the current Quaternary (since 2.58 million years ago).
You must be talking about the Andean-Saharan [wikipedia.org] ice age because during the Ka
Re: (Score:2)
There is an average time between ice ages and we're getting due for it.
As to CO2 concentrations, where are you getting your information? Because the ice core records are known to be unreliable indications of CO2 concentration.
Regardless, the levels of CO2 have gone up and down many times in earth's past without correlating temperature swings. The notion that CO2 is a relevant driver of global climate makes very little sense.
Mostly this is because it makes up a relatively small portion of our atmosphere. Her
Re: (Score:2)
There is an average time between ice ages and we're getting due for it.
Oh, you must be talking about the glaciation cycles of the current Quaternary ice age. For about the last 800,000 years there has been a cycle of about every 100,000 years but from 2.8 million years ago until 800,000 years ago the cycle was more like every 41,000 years. Before the Quaternary the last ice age was the Karoo that ended around 260 million years ago.
As to CO2 concentrations, where are you getting your information? Because the ice core records are known to be unreliable indications of CO2 concentration.
Of course the CO2 levels I mentioned were not found from ice cores but from other proxy measurements because ice cores only go back about 800,000
Re: (Score:2)
As to the rightness and wrongness of models, the current climate models are only valid if given non-falsifiable tests.
Non-falsifiable science is not science.
If your model cannot fail a test... then it is not being tested. How is this an alien concept?
This is the consistent issue with climate models. They are non-falsifiable. They are mostly tested against FUTURE predictions which is like saying your model of gravity says a given planet will be in a given place at a given time in the future. But by the time
Re: (Score:2)
Of course droughts are natural phenomena. Global warming isn't going to cause anything unnatural to happen. Nor is any individual phenomenon attributable to global warming.
This is not to say that we can't show that global warming causes more droughts, just that it's going to have to be a statistical argument.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually that is specifically what they are saying. They tried to show AGW as causing more droughts and found that all the droughts were explainable by natural weather patterns that were predicted and not unusual.
Re: (Score:2)
You're missing the point.
Of course all droughts are explainable by natural weather patterns, and it's reasonable that they were predictable.
Assuming that global warming brought more droughts, how do you think they'd happen? They'd happen through natural weather patterns (slightly different from the natural weather patterns if there had been no global warming), and they might well be predictable. What would happen is more and presumably more severe droughts. That's where we should look for evidence.
Re: (Score:2)
Did NYC get submerged by the ocean or are there a lot of idiots on the pro AGW side making fucking stupid predictions?
Rhetorical question. Kindly keep in mind that supporting or criticizing AGW does not decide your intelligence. Rather, it decides your regard for political correctness more then anything.
There is no spoon! (Score:2)
To paraphrase the "spoon boy" from The Matrix:
Do not try and bend the correlation, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth...there is no correlation. Then you will see it is not the correlation that bends, it is only yourself.
Preponderance of the Evidence (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Fortunately, most open minded people are willing to accept a vast amount of statistical evidence as proof.
The links in the article are to fivethirtyeight.com and Nature. If you disagree with them, then you're probably disagreeing with the vast amount of statistical evidence.
Re: (Score:2)
"Fortunately, most open minded people are willing to accept a vast amount of statistical evidence as proof."
Then get back to me when your sample size is much larger...
Talk about your dumb analogies. BTW you are totally wrong. By the 1980s tobacco smoke had been studied and found to be full of known cancerogenic compounds. They did have mass spectrometers in the 1980s after all.
You like most people are confusing weather with climate. A single drought can not be attributed to climate change it would take a lo
Climate != single event (Score:3)
No event or small chains of events can ever be proof or unproof of what the climate is or whether it's changing. The whole point of climate is that it's over a long time. So evidence of what happened requires long time scales. But that doesn't mean you can't have predictive models. Evaluating models with data sets is key. But if you think that you can prove or disprove a model with only one data point, you are going to have a bad time. If you want clean proofs, stick with pure math. Inconclusive data and blurred lines are the trademark of applied sciences. Especially ones with many variables.
This is not news. It shouldn't even be a talking point. This is only in the headlines because of how unfortunately politicized this topic has become.
Re:Climate != single event (Score:4, Insightful)
This is only in the headlines because of how unfortunately politicized this topic has become.
It's news because Every. Single. Story. on weather ends up talking about climate change. Dunno if that's politicalization or just flavour-of-the-week reporting, but it needs to be pointed out as the nonsense it is.
Climate is a distribution.
Weather is an event.
Distributions are made of events, but they are not events and they have properties (their mean and higher moments) that are emergent properties of the distribution, not properties of the events that make them up.
So long as idiots talk about climate change every time there is a warm spell or a cold snap, there will be a need to point out the difference between events and distributions, and the very small amount you can say about discerning between different distributions that largely overlap based on a single event, or even a small handful of events.
10 years ago on Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
Extreme weather, huh? 10 years ago we were discussing right here [slashdot.org], how continuing global warming will make hurricanes more frequent.
The usual suspects were writing "insightful" posts lamenting "deniers" and the sorry state of the uneducated populace preventing the sophisticated elite from saving the planet.
Today, 10 years since that discussion, we are living through a 30 year low [dailycaller.com] hurricane-frequency — something, none of the "Global Warming" models predicted...
Re: (Score:3)
Well, that's certainly a reliable source. I'm surprised they didn't try to blame it on Obama...
But OK, so hurricane frequency is at a 30 year low in America. World-wide, hurricanes, cyclones, & similar category 3+ storms are at a 40+ year high [noaa.gov].
Re: (Score:2)
If you don't dispute the message, why did you have to attack the messenger? Sigh...
The chart you linked to a) ends in 2005 (9 years ago!); b) does not suggest anything of the kind. The number of "named systems" peaked in the early 1930-ies, according to it, with spikes in 1968 and 1994 being below that of 80 years ago. Given the state of most of the world ba
Re:10 years ago on Slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
You seem to have a low threshold for disagreement, if you consider pointing out that a site with multiple anti-Obama, anti-government, and anti-Democrat pop-ups, advertisements, and articles might be a little bit biased to be "attack[ing] the messenger". Adding a little melodramatic sigh afterwards doesn't bolster your argument.
Apart from that, you still seem a little confused between 'local' vs 'global', and 'weather' vs 'climate' - not to mention how to interpret both graphs and what I wrote. And you vastly underestimate the amount, quality, and coverage of storm data available since at least the 1950's (if not much earlier).
But, y'know, if you want to come back with an understanding of global climate rather than a pre-packaged anecdote-based opinion of one aspect of local weather, I'm sure you'll find someone to discuss it with you.
Re: (Score:2)
Whether it is biased against Obama is irrelevant to the point of whether or not we've had a record-low number of hurricanes. If you disputed that point, it could've made some sense for you to attack the site's credibility. But you conceded it instead. That you could not resist to attack the site anyway caused me to wonder...
You claimed, we are now living through 40-year high of hurricanes world-wide. As evidence —
Re: (Score:2)
Mmm, no, you look stupid.
First, he posted under his username, and you as AC.
Second, he's right; that's not what you were saying 10 years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Hurricane INTENSITY is projected to increase BY THE END OF THE CENTURY. That has nothing to do with hurricane FREQUENCY which is primarily driven by short term WEATHER patterns.
Right. Hurricane INTENSITY, let us note, is also primarily driven by short term WEATHER patterns. Which makes your observation completely pointless.
Re: (Score:2)
Touche!
Oh, it has quite a bit to do with frequency — if there are no hurricanes to begin with, for example, you can claim they have any intensity — such is one of the funkier properties of the empty set.
More seriously, here is a scientific write-up [noaa.gov], which has the following to say about the 2004 study:
Re: (Score:2)
If I assume the existence of unicorns, I too may be able to predict global warming's impact on the length of their horns...
No, no, no. If you assume the existence of unicorns, you can predict how much global warming they cause.
Re: (Score:2)
Are unicorn farts methane or rainbows?
Fuel (Score:2)
doy (Score:3)
you can't definitively link any particular roids-era barry bonds home run to the drugs. people know this. people also know that that doesn't mean that the roids didn't have a huge effect on his numbers.
Two separate models (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That was the last straw...I've had it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Will you *please* go read up on chaos theory? At least smoke some weed and read 'Chaos' by James Gleik, try to see some pictures. Read A First Course in Turbulence [amazon.com] by Tennekes and Lumley. I mean, shit, chaos theory has been around for longer than most of you have been alive. Read a goddamned book once in a while. The dead tree kind of book.
Maybe I need some weed.
The universe is filled with non-linear chaotic systems. Earth's climate is part of one. Deal with it!
Yep...I do need some weed.
Linking Drought and Los Angeles: Easy To Do (Score:2)
Linking Drought and Los Angeles: Easy To Do
Northern California sends most of their water south to Los Angeles so that they can grow water intensive crops like walnuts, rice, avocados, etc., when other crops would take hugely less water (but not be as profitable). Sadly, agribusiness pays a deeply discounted price than the rest of us, so we're effectively subsidizing their shrinking water bills with our ballooning ones.
If Los Angeles would just *catch* their run-off, instead of dumping it into the ocean usi
Global warming is NOT a single incident. (Score:2)
Asking if this single event is attributable to global warming i
Re:Why is this hard? (Score:4, Funny)
DENIER! DENIER!
The science is settled!
That weather is not climate!
This weather is climate!
GET EDUCATED!!!!
Re: (Score:2)
yes, all that data, all those observations, they're all based on faith, rather than measurements taken by devices around the world measuring well understand physical phenomena, and showing a clear trendline of increasing energy on a planetary scale.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Who?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Polar Vortex" appears in the scientific literature decades before it became news.
Re: (Score:3)
You know, just because you're ignorant doesn't mean there's a conspiracy every time you're forced to learn something new.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
no one exploited it, but that hasnt stopped you idiots from claiming they have.
in fact scientists went out of their way to do the opposite.
Re: (Score:3)
It's easy to link any meteorological phenomenon with climate change. Since weather is chaotic, that particular weather event would not have been the same if the planet had been slightly cooler.
Climate is statistical, and we can reasonably talk about climate changes in reference to global warming, including whether it causes more droughts.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh and don't forget how warm periods crushed medieval civilization and the Roman Empire.
Or is it now settled science that those warm periods didn't exist ?
Or that the Roman Empire and Pre Black Death Europe didn't exist ?
Re: (Score:2)
Those warm periods where not created by human made CO2, so what is your point?
Do you really wish to have such a "warm period" on top of our current "global warming"?
In german we have the saying: putting oil into the fire ...
Re: (Score:2)
The point is the warm periods were/are good things.
Re: (Score:2)
The point is: we don't know if they where or not.
The fact that the romans did cultivate wine in brittany, UK not france (like we do since a few years, or even a decade again) tells us nothing about floodings anywhere else on the globe.
It tells us nothing about dimishing glaciers (as those periods where rather short) nor tell they us anything about the amount of sea level rising, as at that time not enough arctic ice melted.
Also: quite a time ago someone linked reports from China at that time, IIRC they repo
Re: (Score:2)
Do you have evidence that the Roman and Medieval warm periods were world-wide? They did help the areas they affected. Whether this is the same as global warming is another question, climate being as complex as it is.
Re: (Score:2)
Are we talking about climate or weather here ?
Or if warming is bad it's climate if it's good it's weather ?
The premise is that warming is bad for civilization and will destroy it. Well about the only instance I can think of warming maybe causing a problem for civilization is Anasazi and no one is really certain what happened there. Cooling has wrought hell for civilizations just look at middle east and Africa.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A storm brewing somewhere does not know how warm or cold it is at the pole.
And the pole temperature is irrelevant. Relevant is the difference in temperature between lower atmosphere and upper atmosphere. The warmer the water/air the faster it is rising upward, the stronger the storm is yielded from that.
Actually a no brainer if people had the simplest of education. I don't get it, I learned that 40 years ago in school, 5th or 6th class or something.
The way how storms form has not changed the recent 100 or 2
Re: (Score:2)
If you're going to do percentages with temperatures you have to use an absolute temperature scale like the Kelvin scale. So 90 degrees F = 305.37K and 20F = 266.48K, the difference being 38.89K. That's a 12.8% difference (39/305).
Regarding less extreme weather because of smaller temperature differences between different air masses that's possible but don't forget that warmer temperatures mean more total energy in the system overall so it's not clear exactly what will happen. The simple fact of a warming E
Re: (Score:2)
Hurricanes are created alone by water temperature.
So more hot water (or the hotter the water) the more hurricanes.
No idea what you mean with "driven" ... you want to tell us they drive further north if the temperature difference between poles and equator is higher?
Interesting ... but not relevant. (And likely wrong anyway)
Re:Duh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't this something everyone already knew, radical warmists and evil deniers alike?
Maybe, but statistical thinking doesn't come naturally. People cheat at gambling by loading dice so that they come up snake eyes (say) 1 in 20 throws. They get away with it because even if you know the dice are loaded there is no way to link any particular snake eye event to the hidden weights. The victims simply subscribe it to luck, but the longer you play the more suspicious they will become of your "lucky streak". Same deal with storms, floods, and droughts.
Re:Duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Therein lies the quandary. You know the dice are loaded to come up snakes-eyes; they come up snakes-eyes; but you cannot with any certainty state "those snakes came up because the dice were loaded."
Instead you have to say, "those snakes-eyes coming up again so soon is consistent with the fact that the dice are loaded," or "we could see more and more snakes-eyes with these loaded dice." That doesn't make for so compelling a narrative. And narrative thinking comes much more naturally than statistical thinking.
Re: (Score:2)
Keep in mind that a few rolls also don't confirm that the dice are as loaded as you claim they are.
That the dice are loaded was a given in the above example. Even if we know the dice are loaded we cannot with any certainty say that any single occurrence of snakes-eyes is the result of loading. That's the point.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, it's physically impossible for a die to be 100% completely unbiased. Yet, we carry on as if it was.
Of course it is. And I was tempted to reply to khallow's observation that "nobody knows what unbiased dice roll like" to that effect --with the addendum that we will presume two perfect platonic dice (even though, by definition, there could only be one :). But since he wasn't talking actually about dice that would have been disingenuous, wouldn't it?
Actually for present purposes we don't even ne
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'll go out on a limb and say the college hipsters are either on vacation or busy getting ready for finals so slashdot is deprived of their input.
Re: (Score:2)
Kids.
They overran Ars, and sort of ran me back here. I, also, am glad.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You guys are all fucking zero-sumers, you want more water in an area that is desert, build a couple nuclear power plants and run some desalination plants. News flash, Southern California is in the horse latitudes, that means desert, just like almost every desert on the planet is in the horse latitudes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
yep. That's the 0-level model.
On the other hand, we're heading to a mode of Earth's climate that we've never experienced. Not us living folks, not our species, not our genus or even taxonomic family. It last occurred during the "great Dying", 250 million years ago. Mammals had only recently evolved, and were lucky to survive. Only to cause a repeat of the catastrophe?
Humans, we humans, are causing a rapid change to the conditions of the end-Permian extinction event. "Some 57% of all families and 83%
Re: (Score:3)
The temperature graph in that article is not very useful. It ends in 1850, before most of the modern warming, and in any case it's only the temperature for Greenland, it's not global temperature.
The Wikipedia page on Paleoclimatology is probably better:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology [wikipedia.org]
They have this graph for the global temperature for the last 10,000 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology#mediaviewer/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
They _shouldn't_ say she is a woman. They should include her dimensions and cup size.
Re: (Score:2)
Too hard for your simple mind to understand the subtleties of science? It's all a hoax to take power over us and take our money!
Re: (Score:2)
That is about 0.5% of California's water usage over the last two years and often at times when the water would not have been stored.