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Science

Bill Nye Explains That the Flooding In Louisiana Is the Result of Climate Change (qz.com) 448

Reader mspohr writes: Our favorite science guy has an interview (and video) in Quartz where he explains how Louisiana flooding is due to climate change:
"As the ocean gets warmer, which it is getting, it expands," Nye explained. "Molecules spread apart, and then as the sea surface is warmer, more water evaporates, and so it's very reasonable that these storms are connected to these big effects."
The article also notes that a National Academy of Sciences issued a report with the same findings: "Scientists from around the world have concurred with Nye that this is exactly what the effects of climate change look like, and that disasters like the Louisiana floods are going to happen more and more. According to a National Academy of Sciences report published earlier this year, extreme flooding can be traced directly to human-induced global warming. As the atmosphere warms, it retains more moisture, leading to bouts of sustained, heavy precipitation that can cause floods."

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Bill Nye Explains That the Flooding In Louisiana Is the Result of Climate Change

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  • Or is it? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    IsIs?

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @04:00PM (#52764605)
      Nah. I think it was gender inequality, religious intolerance, racism, and income disparity that caused the flooding.
      • Re: Or is it? (Score:4, Informative)

        by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @04:26PM (#52764791)

        I think it probably doesn't help that Louisiana sits below sea level.

        • Re: Or is it? (Score:4, Informative)

          by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @04:30PM (#52764835) Journal

          I think it probably doesn't help that Louisiana sits below sea level.

          Baton Rouge (where the flooding occurred) is not below sea level. It sits 56' above sea level.

        • by PatientZero ( 25929 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @05:07PM (#52765057)

          Your altitudism is not welcome here.

          • Re:Discrimination (Score:4, Interesting)

            by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @09:14PM (#52766273) Homepage

            You want to buy underwater front, well, you just have to expect it to go underwater :/.

            It can be turned around, it is just a choice. Forget trillions of dollars in sea walls (the biggest being the one to keep sea levels down in the Mediterranean, serious dollars). Just use nuclear power stations to desalinate sea water and then irrigate the worlds deserts to produce food and this is the important part, turn the worlds current farm lands into dense, rich bio-diverse forest, problem solved and at far less cost that all those sea walls (you get mass water retention in those forests and new farmlands, improved reflectivity and heat absorption, mass carbon sinks and cities would be surrounded by air cleaning forests). Depending upon where the irrigated desert farmlands are, altered precipitation patterns as a result of transpiration should also flood below sea level, especially the newer higher one, current deserts (think places like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]).

            So just a choice, now what one do you think they will make, the care and share one, or trillions of dollars in sea wall profits or losses, depending upon who spends the money and who gets the money and losses, which regions get no protection and of course how many die when those walls fail and they will, one after another with tens of thousands drowning.

            In the interim, absolutely do not invest in underwater front property, seriously bad choice. Now the worse prediction still does not allow for a mass methane release from once perma frost regions where decades become mere years.

    • No, this is Bill Nye the Climate Change Guy, where what you had for breakfast is due to CLIMATE CHANGE

  • But of course (Score:5, Insightful)

    by halivar ( 535827 ) <bfelger@gmai l . com> on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @03:30PM (#52764361)

    It has nothing at all to do with over-development in what used to be (and by all rights and common sense, still ought to be) swampland and coastal forest.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Do they have to be mutually exclusive?

      • by XXongo ( 3986865 )
        No, of course they're not mutually exclusive. Development in lowlands and swamps makes the effects of flooding more severe, and global warming makes flooding more frequent.

        It's worth pointing out (again) that no single flooding event can be in itself attributed to global warming. Warming may make such events somewhat more frequent, but flooding events happen with or without global warming.

        • and global warming makes flooding more frequent

          No, it does not. However, it makes it a lot worse when it does happen.

          • and global warming makes flooding more frequent

            No, it does not. However, it makes it a lot worse when it does happen.

            Flooding in low-to-mid lying areas could be more frequent if it is "worse". Meaning that worse could cause areas that might have otherwise just missed being flooded to be flooded - i.e.: more frequently.

    • Re:But of course (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pollarda ( 632730 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @03:47PM (#52764479)
      Absolutely correct. What people forget is that the Mississippi used to have flood plains all along its path. When there was heavy rain anywhere along its course, the waters would raise and it would overflow its banks depositing rich soil and silt all along the way. Now, we've replaced the flood plains with housing developments and mini-malls. The rich soil deposited by the Mississippi is under asphalt. (Well, not all of it.) Additionally walls, dams, and other barriers have been constructed by various municipalities and the US Army Corps of Engineers to keep the Mississippi from overflowing its banks. This creates a situation where additional water has no where to go other than to cause the water level to raise and for the river to run faster (such as water flowing through a pipe.) When it gets down to coastal LA, it is traveling much faster than it would naturally and is causing massive erosion. Additionally, it causes major floods as the pent up water finally has a place to go. Government planning at it's best. (Thanks US Army Corps of Engineers!)
      • Re:But of course (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @04:18PM (#52764747)

        You nailed the reason for the sinking Mississippi delta we're hearing so much about today. Because deltas are made of silt, all of them slump and sink over time. In nature, they are kept alive by annual flood depositions of fresh silt from upstream. Because of Corps of Engineers reclamation, the Mississippi is flowing clean and the delta, even the part that is not built on, is no longer getting fresh silt.

        If we want to save New Orleans, why not drill a grid of injection wells citywide and pump fresh mud at an even rate into each one to keep the city afloat?

      • Absolutely correct. What people forget is that the Mississippi used to have flood plains all along its path. When there was heavy rain anywhere along its course, the waters would raise and it would overflow its banks depositing rich soil and silt all along the way. Now, we've replaced the flood plains with housing developments and mini-malls.

        That's not so much the case in the Baton Rouge area because of the protected Atchafalaya Basin and the big lock between it and the Mississippi. In other parts of the

    • The type of land is secondary, and is only significant once the water arrives. It may (or may not) make the flooding worse, but flooding would occur regardless.

      • Swampland is code for "permanently flooded".

        It isn't different dirt necessarily, but if land is flooded for thousands or millions of years, you'd best be wary about draining it and building there.

    • Re:But of course (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @04:26PM (#52764795)

      I suffered a few minutes of NPR over the weekend while they happened to be covering the flood news. Apparently the only officials from Louisiana or the feds that NPR has any interest in hosting are climatologists. No FEMA, no state first responders; just climatologists.

      While discussing the floods with the climatologists, both the federal and state climate guys made the mistake of mentioning the fact that the high costs and displacement are as much to do with recent property development as the amount of water. You could clearly detect the host's frustration as he attempted to get these hapless officials back on the rails speculating about climate and saying disparaging things about fossil fuels.

      Whatever. You people want to eat all the crap they're feeding you and furnish your rulers with the ammo to manage you're decline, go ahead. Enjoy. I don't care anymore. Bill Nye lives in a nice $1,000,000+ home in Studio City and I'm all set with my nice property and neither one of us are giving it up for the benefit of your virtues, so fuck off.

  • He's right. (Score:5, Funny)

    by KermodeBear ( 738243 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @03:39PM (#52764415) Homepage

    He's right. It was a bright, beautiful day. Then the climate in Louisiana changed and it rained a lot.

  • Of course. . . (Score:3, Informative)

    by Salgak1 ( 20136 ) <salgak AT speakeasy DOT net> on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @03:46PM (#52764473) Homepage

    . . . the in-process Maunder-type Solar Minimum gets ignored.

    Me, I'm planning for Blizzards, not Hurricanes. . .

    • There is some possibility that the sun may, at some time in the future, enter another sunspot minimum similar to the Maunder minimum of 1645 to about 1715. But we're not in one now. Sunspot count peaked at about 150 this cycle, which is lower than usual. But it's not even approaching coming near the Maunder minimum, which had single-digit sunspot counts

      http://static1.squarespace.com/static/56530521e4b0c307d59bbe97/t/56af97fda3360cecbfe34b0e/1454348294881/?format=750w

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        There is some possibility that the sun may, at some time in the future, enter another sunspot minimum similar to the Maunder minimum of 1645 to about 1715. But we're not in one now.

        Actually, there was a recent development in modelling the sun, which (if I recall correctly) resulted in a model of the sunspot cycle that has a high-90s percentage match to the historical data. (The key was to model it as TWO dynamos rather than one.)

        Also (again, if I recall correctly) the new model predicted that we were going

        • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

          There is some possibility that the sun may, at some time in the future, enter another sunspot minimum similar to the Maunder minimum of 1645 to about 1715. But we're not in one now.

          Actually, there was a recent development in modelling the sun, which (if I recall correctly) resulted in a model of the sunspot cycle that has a high-90s percentage match to the historical data. (The key was to model it as TWO dynamos rather than one.)

          Also (again, if I recall correctly) the new model predicted that we were going into something that looked like a new Maunder Minimum, with this cycle being weak and the next one nearly nonexistent.

          (Sorry I can't dig up the reference right now. Only got a couple minutes left to post.)

          You're referring to this one, I think: http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and... [ras.org.uk]

          I might note that the work only modeled three solar cycles, and has not (as far as I've seen) yet gone through peer review (the paper that the new article is about is a conference presentation.)

    • & torrential rains soon to hit the Left Coast again soon: see Wikipedia for "Pineapple Express."

      The climated do-gooders are going to have a field day with the next mega-rain on the West Coast, but they happen about every 160 years.

      • by slew ( 2918 )

        & torrential rains soon to hit the Left Coast again soon: see Wikipedia for "Pineapple Express."

        The climated do-gooders are going to have a field day with the next mega-rain on the West Coast, but they happen about every 160 years.

        Well, on the west coast we are still waiting for the repeat of the 1862 atmospheric river (aka pineapple express) they promised us last year to get us out of the drought. Of course as will all things, there can always be too much of a good thing.

        http://www.scientificamerican.... [scientificamerican.com]

  • by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @03:47PM (#52764481) Homepage

    The fact the whole state is a river flood plain and only stupid people build homes in a river flood plain?

    Global warming may have cause the weather pattern changes, but it does not change the fact that if you build in the low lands, you have to expect flooding because it will absolutely happen with a 100% guarantee.

    • And yet the Netherlands has no problems with flooding despite most of the country being below sea level..
      • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @04:07PM (#52764653)

        Average discharge of the Mississippi river: 16,792 m^3/s
        Average discharge of the Rhine: 2,900 m^3/s
        Average discharge of the Maas: 350 m^3/s

        No wonder the Dutch have an easier time of it. They have a fifth the water flow to worry about.

      • And yet the Netherlands has no problems with flooding despite most of the country being below sea level..

        Of course, the Netherlands don't have a 3M km^2 watershed dumping water into them, either. And the Netherlands is smaller than Louisiana alone (by a factor of about 2.5), much less the Mississippi watershed (by a factor of about 80)....

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @03:47PM (#52764491)

    Bill Nye the politics guy.

  • Thunderstorms are humongous elevators that dump heat in to space.
    • by wbr1 ( 2538558 )
      You do realize that the largest storms are about 60,000 feet high and the edge of space is about 328,000 feet high. What bridges this heat further up?
  • .... regional floods have been happening for quite some time before man even existed, let alone was capable of having an environmental impact on the world.
  • After all of the bad things said about climate change, it is nice to hear something positive for once.
  • by mdsolar ( 1045926 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @04:27PM (#52764817) Homepage Journal
    Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein describes the situation with frequent 500 year floods and explosive wild fires as a climate emergency. https://youtu.be/7X_aqEr1vCY [youtu.be]
  • Louisiana floods early and often, rather foolish to make a statement about climate based on a single weather event there. Maybe some other events in the USA would be better for the cause I'd think....

  • Seriously, I see him all over the net, doing interviews talking about creationists. Is he only a TV person or does he have an actually lab and published research data???
    • He is a science popularizer, not a scientist. He listens to the experts and echos what they say, but in a folksy way. I guess that's what a 'science guy' is. This doesn't mean he's wrong; he has a fairly good understanding of the climate issue. He is sometimes a little fuzzy on the details, though.

  • by Alain Williams ( 2972 ) <addw@phcomp.co.uk> on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @05:32PM (#52765197) Homepage

    suggests that what we are doing is changing the atmosphere and sea in ways that, amongst other things, increase the energy that drives weather systems. This increases the likelihood: that storms will be violent; that winds pick up more moisture from the sea - that has to fall later as rain; etc ... The predictions are silent about individual weather events, these will be more affected by local geography and placing, etc, of weather patterns on the day. In some cases: the energy changes will lead to local cooling or drying (or droughts).

    So: we cannot point to an individual climatic event (ie storm or something) and say that it was caused, or made more extreme, by global warming. We can observe that overall things are getting worse - in ways that match the models that we have used to predict these effects.

    The trouble is that many do not want to know: the effects are over many years "I'll be dead by then"; or are seen as costing more (eg moving from petrol [gas] to electric powered cars); global in nature "why should I do something when XX is not"; and are often far away:

    • First the flooding happened in Louisiana, but I did nothing because I do not live in Louisiana.

      First the flooding happened in Eastern Australia, but I did nothing because I do not live in Eastern Australia.

      Then the flooding happened in Cumbria, England, but I did nothing because I do not live in Cumbria.

      Now the flooding is inundating my house, but there is no one to keep me dry.

    With apologies to Pastor Martin Niemöller.

  • by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @05:38PM (#52765233) Homepage Journal

    They can explain everything, but are able to predict nothing. Internet is full of compilations of failed predictions [google.com], but the only "successful" ones are the useless statements like "it may get hotter, or colder". Yeah, right...

    Tar-and-feathers beckon...

  • by ooloorie ( 4394035 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @06:51PM (#52765615)

    Increasing frequency and severity of storms may well be a result of climate change, although when it comes to flooding, there are many factors involved.

    But, let's look at Bill Nye's explanation:

    "As the ocean gets warmer, which it is getting, it expands," Nye explained. "Molecules spread apart, and then as the sea surface is warmer, more water evaporates, and so it's very reasonable that these storms are connected to these big effects."

    The only thing that explanation shows is that Bill Nye is not a scientist, but a clown. International scientists didn't "concur" with Bill Nye, most international scientists aren't even aware of the existence of Bill Nye. The fact that this guy is the president of the Planetary Society is a disgrace to the society and the the memory of Carl Sagan.

  • by Grand Facade ( 35180 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @07:56PM (#52765917)

    the Army Corp of Engineers not maintaining the dykes????

  • by mattwarden ( 699984 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2016 @09:05PM (#52766237)

    I actually don't thin Bill is saying it's the result of climate change. He is saying it is consistent with what we would expect from climate change. And then I can't tell if Bill or the journoclown is getting it wrong by making the leap that THEREFORE it was the result of climate change. Of course that does not follow logically.

    The power of statistics is such that we would need many decades of data before we could theoretically detect that climate change is indeed changing the frequency or intensity of these events. Truth is that things like floods APPEAR to be dropping when measured in meaningful ways.

    When people make these statements, they are worse than people who deny science. They are pretending to be scientific when being quite the opposite.

    There are sane people out there. They are rare. But they exist. Here is one: https://youtu.be/meoETyMA4K0 [youtu.be]

Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis. It makes sense, when you don't think about it.

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