Thread for discussing climate change

[Chap]

I agree with the canpakes post above. In that post, he quotes himself as saying:

Ceeboo, you have options. I’ve not politicized the issue in this thread and I’ve asked you directly to touch on any aspects of climate change science that you find compelling or worthy of discussion. So far, you’ve chosen to not respond.

As the initiator of this thread, I'd like to point out that it is intended specifically for discussing issues such as the following, set out in the OP:

This is a thread specifically for discussing the issue of climate change.

What is it?

Why is it happening?

What will its consequences be?

What should we do about it?

So - for starters, what do we hope will come out of the forthcoming COP-26 conference this autumn, at which the USA will certainly play an important role?

See: UNITING THE WORLD TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE: Glasgow 31 October -12 November

The COP26 summit will bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

If Ceeboo wants to talk about other posters rather than the issues, maybe he could go and do so on the other thread that he assures us is NOT for discussing climate change? This thread emphatically IS for discussing climate change, along the lines set out in the OP. So I would appreciate it if Ceeboo's posts here could be on that topic.

Anything relevant to say, Ceeboo? Otherwise ...

[Chap]

Ceeboo - the post you quote was in full:

So far you haven't even scratched it.

I only see Cultellus if other people quote him - so thanks for doing so in this case, since it is an interesting specimen of his style. There is a lot of continuous grammatically correct prose, mingled with aggressive stuff about how ludicrous, ignorant and simplistic his chosen adversary is. You might think there was an argument there, but when you look for it there are just a lot of things he says, and that's it.

Res Ipsa was commenting on a post by Cultellus as follows:

Our civilization is predicated on the assumption that the climate will be more or less the same as it has been since the last ice age ended: that all the regions where humans farm will still have arable land and adequate water supplies, that our ports will be at sea level rather than above or below it, that our cities won't suffer heat or cold too extreme for our technology to protect the inhabitants from the temperature. If we were looking at a new ice age, we'd be worried about farmland becoming too cold for crops to grow and millions of people freezing to death. In the warmer climate we're expecting instead, we're looking at farmland becoming desertified and millions of people dying of high wet-bulb temperatures.

What about Golf Courses?

I am laughing so hard... "predicated on the assumption." That is the winner of winners and sums this all up very well. I do not agree with the claim entirely, but I know you said it, and it is damn funny. If you look at the growth of the hedge fund industry and specifically short selling, you will see how important this concept of a foundation of assumptions is and how easy it is to exploit. Anything that is "predicated on the assumption" is not likely grounded in facts. Once something is known to be founded on assumptions, it is like blood in the water (that is a metaphor, for Res) and anyone that can exploit the assumptions will do just that.

Now, exploiting the assumptions is not just something that short sellers do. That is something that the crooks do on the long side too. Look at Enron and the mortgage crisis which were high profile cases. Look also at Madoff. A very contemporary case is Theranos. Anytime there are assumptions at the foundation of anything, people will exploit the assumptions for their own benefit, and others will expose those assumptions for their benefit.

Manetho, this post of yours is just garbage and it is all easily debunked. Obviously, our civilization was not predicated on the assumption that all the regions where humans farm would still have arable land and water supplies. That is a simplification predicated on the assumption of stupidity. It is easily debunked. It may be true for a development, it was never true for civilization. Prior to the industrial age, we did not have the means to communicate this kind of information. In this era, we do not have the means to reach consensus for it.

Write better.

I saw this post thanks to Res Ipsa quoting it in full. In it, Cultellus comments on a post by Manetho, who points out that much of our way of life depends on certain climatic conditions being maintained. Cultellus claims that "this post of yours is just garbage and it is all easily debunked". As Res Ipsa points out, he quite fails to do so. My post expresses my agreement with that, pointing out that despite the aggressive and insulting prose, Cultellus's post does not contain the promised 'debunking' argument.

By doing so, I am taking part in a substantive discussion of an issue relating to the topic of the thread: absent the promises refutation by Cultellus, Manetho's point stands.

Now would you like to make some contribution bearing directly on the thread topic?

[canpakes]

Maybe we can just eat kudzu.
From - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/envi ... ming-south

Can the iconic Georgia peach keep growing in a warming South?

Few places have the generational love of a single crop that Georgia has for the peach. It’s a love that’s motivating farmers and scientists alike to make sure the Georgia peach never dies, since peach trees require cold weather to produce fruit and climate change is warming winter weather in the southeastern United States.

But could climate change ever spell the end of the Georgia peach industry?

“We’re talking probably the second half of this century. Certainly by 2100 it could be a possibility,” says Pam Knox, an agricultural climatologist at the University of Georgia.

The entire southeastern U.S. is warming, and the average winter temperature in Georgia has risen by five degrees Fahrenheit since 1960. That warming trend is expected to continue, and peach trees need a minimum number of chilly hours for their spring buds to bear fruit.

Every winter, when temperatures fall below 45°F, peach trees produce the hormones that tell them to go dormant. The average Georgia peach needs anywhere from 650 to 850 hours of cold weather in a season—so-called chill hours. One of the most popular varieties, the Elberta peach, needs at least 800 hours of cold weather. It’s a trait peach trees evolved to withstand cold winters in their native China. By going dormant, the tree version of going to sleep, they reserve energy and ride out unfavorable growing conditions, awakening after they’ve properly rested.
“When they go into dormancy, nothing can wake them up until the cold requirement is satisfied,” says Ksenija Gasic, a horticulturist at Clemson University in South Carolina.

Once a peach has enough chill hours, temperatures above 45°F begin to shake the trees out of dormancy like a seasonal alarm clock announcing that it’s time to start making peaches. If exposed to enough warm weather, the tree’s flowers start to develop and open. Some may even produce small fruitlets. But the tree needs to stay on that warming trajectory; when a spring frost hits, as it often does in Georgia, it can damage fruit that’s already growing.

In 2017, an especially warm winter destroyed 85 percent of the state’s peach crop, since the peaches didn’t get enough chill hours to facilitate blooming. Between 1980 and 2010, central Georgia saw about 1,100 chill hours on average every year. In 2016, they averaged just about 600 chill hours. In 2017, farms struggled to reach 400.

[canpakes]

Saying that civilization was predicated on any one thing is dumb.

Not if you’re taking about water.

And if you’re talking about food, then you might take a survey of your cupboard and fridge to see how much of your daily eating is highly dependent on 5 6 core items:

Beef
Chicken
Wheat
Corn
Rice

So, not as ‘dumb’ a comment as you would like to pretend.

ETA: Forgot about soy. At least we’re up to 6, now. Lol.

[Chap]

Saying that civilization was predicated on any one thing is dumb.

Not if you’re taking about water.

And if you’re talking about food, then you might take a survey of your cupboard and fridge to see how much of your daily eating is highly dependent on 5 6 core items:

Beef
Chicken
Wheat
Corn
Rice

So, not as ‘dumb’ a comment as you would like to pretend.

ETA: Forgot about soy. At least we’re up to 6, now. Lol.

Will it help if I explain the distinction between:

(a) A necessary condition (if the condition is not fulfilled, the phenomenon under discussion can't happen)

(b) A sufficient condition (if the condition is fulfilled, the phenomenon under discussion will definitely happen)

Appropriate environmental conditions are certainly a necessary condition for the emergence of the complex urban-based social structures we call 'civilisations'. You won't get much of a civilisation emerging in an extensive region of the world where food production on a large scale is impossible and the climate renders human life unlivable because of extremes of heat or cold.

On the other hand, no set of environmental conditions can ever be a sufficient condition for the emergence of a 'civilisation'. There is no environment, however livable and potentially productive that can by itself force a civilisation to come into being.

I hope that lets the fly out of the fly-bottle ... now back to climate change?

[Res Ipsa]

I saw this post thanks to Res Ipsa quoting it in full. In it,

absent the promises refutation by Cultellus, Manetho's point stands.

I am so glad you do not read my stuff, Chap. And I am so impressed that you have to repeat that you can't read. I love that.

I never said I would refute anything. When asked, I said, "no." Because, Res did not say "please."

Chap, Manetho's post was dumb. Society was not predicated on what he says it was predicated upon. Or civilization or whatever the hell he said. Hell, civilizations may be predicated on the possibility of having flushing toilets and vaccines that do not work. Civilizations needed much more assurance than watering plants to get along. I am pretty goddamn sure that Philadelphia does not grow enough food inside the city limits to take care of their own crap, but they have a civilization. Saying that civilization was predicated on any one thing is dumb. Except for reproduction. Maybe that is an argument we could defend. Civilization was predicated on reproduction and continued labor sources.

You should take more time to understand a point before flailing around trying to refute it. And that’s what you’ve done twice now — flailed.

Just keep telling yourself that stability is irrelevant to a farmer when she is deciding to invest in land, structures, and equipment with payback periods of decades.

Please.

[canpakes]

Also this:

The chill was exceptional, even for the coldest location on the planet.

The average temperature at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station between April and September, a frigid minus-78 degrees (minus-61 Celsius), was the coldest on record, dating back to 1957. This was 4.5 degrees lower than the most recent 30-year average.

We first learned of this record through a tweet from Stefano Di Battista, who has published research on Antarctic temperatures. The legitimacy of Di Battista’s information was confirmed by Richard Cullather, a research scientist at NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office.

The temperature averaged over September was also the coldest on record at South Pole, wrote David Bromwich, a polar researcher at Ohio State University, in an email.

The extreme cold over Antarctica helped push sea ice levels surrounding the continent to their fifth-highest level on record in August, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Oh, wait ... there's more to that article:

The conditions over Antarctica are in stark contrast to much of the rest of the planet which notched its fourth hottest June through August on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Northern Hemisphere registered its second hottest summer.

Scientists credited a very strong polar vortex, or a ring of strong winds in the stratosphere, surrounding Antarctica for the intensity of the cold.

The stratospheric polar vortex is a seasonal phenomenon. In the Southern Hemisphere, it forms in the fall, persists through the winter and weakens before reversing course in spring.

Whether the vortex is strong or weak depends on a cycle known as Southern Annular Mode (SAM). Right now, the mode is in its positive phase and the vortex is intense.

“Basically, the winds in the polar stratosphere have been stronger than normal, which is associated with shifting the jet stream toward the pole,” wrote Amy Butler, an atmospheric scientist at NOAA in a message. “This keeps the cold air locked up over much of Antarctica.”

Butler wrote the strong polar vortex not only makes it very cold over Antarctica, but accelerates processes that lead to stratospheric ozone depletion, which in turn can strengthen the vortex even more. This year’s ozone hole over Antarctic is much bigger than average at around 24 million square kilometers, a reflection of the vortex’s strength.

Although the stratospheric ozone layer is on the mend since some ozone-depleting chemicals were banned by the Montreal Protocol in the 1980s, Wargan said year-to-year variations are expected to influence the size of the ozone holes in the coming decades.

Scientists stressed the record cold over the South Pole in no way refutes or lessens the seriousness of global warming. Antarctica is notorious for its wild swings in weather and climate which can run counter to global trends.

Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado, wrote in an email that the Antarctic climate is extremely sensitive to high-altitude winds and Pacific Ocean conditions and prone to rapid change. He pointed out that its sea ice, which was close to a record high at the end of August tanked to “to one of the lowest extents for this time of year that we’ve seen” by the end of September.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-wor ... ing-world/

[Chap]

Thanks, canpakes.

Why am I not surprised to find that, yet again, Cultellus quotes half an article, when so doing would obviously create a misleading impression in his readers minds?

Where I happen to be at the moment is much colder than it was 10 days ago.

But the earth is, globally speaking, getting hotter.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Thanks, canpakes.

Why am I not surprised to find that, yet again, Cultellus quotes half an article, when so doing would obviously create a misleading impression in his readers minds?

Where I happen to be at the moment is much colder than it was 10 days ago.

But the earth is, globally speaking, getting hotter.

BUT THE SOUTH POLE YOU PROGRESSIVE CULTIST.

[Gunnar]

Maybe we can just eat kudzu.
From - https://www.nationalgeographic.com/envi ... ming-south

Can the iconic Georgia peach keep growing in a warming South?

Few places have the generational love of a single crop that Georgia has for the peach. It’s a love that’s motivating farmers and scientists alike to make sure the Georgia peach never dies, since peach trees require cold weather to produce fruit and climate change is warming winter weather in the southeastern United States.

Speaking of peaches. I have long found it hilarious that Georgia is still called the Peach State when it is at most a distant third in total peach production. South Carolina and California both produce more peaches than Georgia, and California alone produces more peaches than all of the other states combined!

The top four states in peach production are California, South Carolina, Georgia and New Jersey. In 2017, California supplied nearly 56 percent of the United States fresh peach crop and more than 96 percent of processed peaches (NASS, 2018).

When I was a youth, working in peach orchards and peach canneries were among my summer jobs, and also in almond harvesting and at a prune drying factory.