Thread for discussing climate change

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Doctor Steuss
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Re: Thread for discussing climate change

Post by Doctor Steuss »

The acid rain comments made me muse about my "older" cars, and their paint. Anecdotal, unscientific, and ultimately probably unrelated and irrelevant, but it’s on my mind, so I am sharing, because bandwidth be damned.

1976 Toyota Carrola. Belonged to my grandparents first. Primarily driven in Southern Utah. Paint was perfect… but the entire bottom was rusted out. Used to get extra musty after driving it in the rain, as the carpet would get soaked.

1979 Ford LTD. Belonged to my uncle. Primarily driven back east (he was in the air force, and I think it was maybe at McGuire). No clear coat to speak of on any top surface (roof, trunk, hood), and there were some areas where the paint had given way as well to bare metal.

1991 Chevy K1500. Belonged to a dude who claimed he drove in mostly in CA, before moving to Southern NV. Roof and hood were rusted. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a late-80’s to early 90’s Chevy body-on-frame vehicle that still had original paint intact on the top though. Those things would probably break down in a museum.

1996 Suzuki Sidekick. The inside, where other cars are usually plastic, were metal, and painted the same cherry red as the outside. I loved that. Looked like it just came off the assembly line. No idea where it grew up. Friend scored it for me at an auction.
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Atlanticmike
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Re: Thread for discussing climate change

Post by Atlanticmike »

Doctor Steuss wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 11:15 pm
The acid rain comments made me muse about my "older" cars, and their paint. Anecdotal, unscientific, and ultimately probably unrelated and irrelevant, but it’s on my mind, so I am sharing, because bandwidth be damned.

1976 Toyota Carrola. Belonged to my grandparents first. Primarily driven in Southern Utah. Paint was perfect… but the entire bottom was rusted out. Used to get extra musty after driving it in the rain, as the carpet would get soaked.

1979 Ford LTD. Belonged to my uncle. Primarily driven back east (he was in the air force, and I think it was maybe at McGuire). No clear coat to speak of on any top surface (roof, trunk, hood), and there were some areas where the paint had given way as well to bare metal.

1991 Chevy K1500. Belonged to a dude who claimed he drove in mostly in CA, before moving to Southern NV. Roof and hood were rusted. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a late-80’s to early 90’s Chevy body-on-frame vehicle that still had original paint intact on the top though. Those things would probably break down in a museum.

1996 Suzuki Sidekick. The inside, where other cars are usually plastic, were metal, and painted the same cherry red as the outside. I loved that. Looked like it just came off the assembly line. No idea where it grew up. Friend scored it for me at an auction.
One of my favorite vehicles was a 90s Suzuki Sidekick. That thang would glide across the sand because it was so light. Never got stuck as long as we let air out of the tires.
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canpakes
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Re: Thread for discussing climate change

Post by canpakes »

Binger wrote:
Thu Dec 02, 2021 11:25 pm
I sorta miss extreme paralyzing fear and paranoia about … the ozone (particularly the hole over Australia) …
Maybe move your fingers down just a bit on that map. Then you won’t miss it. ; )

https://www.huffpost.com/archive/au/ent ... a_21422262
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Jersey Girl
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Re: Thread for discussing climate change

Post by Jersey Girl »

Climate change isn't real. Nope.

A blizzard warning is in effect for Hawaii as the lower 48 contends with a snow drought
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/03/weather/ ... index.html
As of Friday morning, only two states in the US have blizzard warnings -- and they are Alaska and Hawaii. Yes, you read that correctly. In fact, more snow has fallen in Hawaii this season than in Denver, Colorado.
"It's been 224 consecutive days (and counting) since it snowed a measurable amount in Denver, and it has just broken the record for the latest date for a first snowfall -- a record that has held since snowfall records began in 1882," says Derek Van Dam, CNN Meteorologist.
Yep, America's mountain is dry as a bone.
We only get stronger when we are lifting something that is heavier than what we are used to. ~ KF

Slava Ukraini!
Gunnar
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Re: Thread for discussing climate change

Post by Gunnar »

And despite the enormous and still growing and increasingly compelling evidence (much of it frequently presented on this forum), there are still numerous underinformed or mendacious fools and/or charlatans striving mightily to convince themselves and/or others that the climate change concerns are nothing more than a colossal hoax -- often for purely selfish, political and avaricious reasons.
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
Chap
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Re: Thread for discussing climate change

Post by Chap »

Gunnar wrote:
Sun Dec 05, 2021 7:34 am
And despite the enormous and still growing and increasingly compelling evidence (much of it frequently presented on this forum), there are still numerous underinformed or mendacious fools and/or charlatans striving mightily to convince themselves and/or others that the climate change concerns are nothing more than a colossal hoax -- often for purely selfish, political and avaricious reasons.
God almighty, how I wish it was a hoax!
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
Gunnar
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Re: Thread for discussing climate change

Post by Gunnar »

Chap wrote:
Sun Dec 05, 2021 8:22 am
Gunnar wrote:
Sun Dec 05, 2021 7:34 am
And despite the enormous and still growing and increasingly compelling evidence (much of it frequently presented on this forum), there are still numerous underinformed or mendacious fools and/or charlatans striving mightily to convince themselves and/or others that the climate change concerns are nothing more than a colossal hoax -- often for purely selfish, political and avaricious reasons.
God almighty, how I wish it was a hoax!
As do I, and also, I would guess, the vast majority of climate scientists!
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
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ajax18
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Re: Thread for discussing climate change

Post by ajax18 »

How long before our first climate change lockdown?
And when the Confederates saw Jackson standing fearless like a stonewall, the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
Father Francis
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Re: Thread for discussing climate change

Post by Father Francis »

ajax18 wrote:
Mon Dec 06, 2021 11:42 pm
How long before our first climate change lockdown?
About the same time Jade Helm 15 is finally fully realized and you are herded into a FEMA camp...
Chap
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Re: Thread for discussing climate change

Post by Chap »

In the light of the terrible tornadoes that many have recently experienced, a sober look at possible links between such extreme phenomena and global heating is worth reading:

A warming world could add more fuel to tornadoes, scientists say

While the link between global warming and disasters like wildfires and flooding are more definitive, experts say, warmer temperatures could intensify cool-season thunderstorms and tornadoes in the future.


Executive summary: The short-term nature of tornadoes and their dependence on local conditions for initiation makes it difficult to be as sure about the link with global heating as scientists are for "wildfires, heat waves and other climate disasters". The jury is still out, even though the science points that way.

What I would say personally is that if my property had been in the way of once of these, I might prefer to see people (shall we say) thinking hard before deciding to maintain or increase their current rate of carbon emissions.

In the wake of deadly storms that ravaged parts of the South and the Midwest this weekend, scientists had a warning: While the exact link between climate change and tornadoes remains uncertain, higher temperatures could add fuel to these violent disasters.
As rescuers searched Saturday amid the rubble of violent tornadoes that barreled through multiple states, killed scores of people, and leveled homes and businesses, climate scientists said people around the world needed to brace for more frequent and intense weather-driven catastrophes.

“A lot of people are waking up today and seeing this damage and saying, ‘Is this the new normal?’ ” said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University, adding that key questions still remain when it comes to tornadoes because so many factors come into play. “It’ll be some time before we can say for certain what kind of role climate change played in an event like yesterday.”

Still, he said the warm December air mass in much of the country and La Niña conditions created ideal conditions for a turbulent event. Thunderstorms — the raw material for tornadoes — happen when there is warm, moist air close to the ground and cooler, drier air above, creating a path for humidity to travel upward.

The tornadic thunderstorm carved a 250-mile path of destruction through northeast Arkansas, southeast Missouri, northwest Tennessee and western Kentucky, hurling debris into the sky for more than three straight hours. At times, the wreckage reached an altitude of 30,000 feet. As the twister blasted through Mayfield, Ky., it sheared entire homes off their foundations, indicating its top-tier intensity.

Whether or not scientists can pin down a link between this week’s horrific storms and climate change, Gensini said there’s no doubt that the tornadoes will go down as “one of the most devastating long-track tornadoes” in U.S. history — probably the worst since the Tri-State Tornado of 1925, which tore across three states over several hours and killed hundreds of people.

Meteorologists at the National Weather Service are surveying damage to determine whether this week’s storm was a single tornado or several. If it was a single tornado traveling on the ground without interruption for 250 miles, it will rank as the longest tornado track in U.S. history and the first to cross through four states.

As the death toll is expected to swell, it will become the deadliest December tornado outbreak on record and potentially among the most deadly in any month. Until Friday night, the deadliest December outbreak occurred on Dec. 5, 1953, which killed 38 people in Vicksburg, Miss.
Temperatures in the zone ravaged by tornadoes rose into the 70s to near 80 degrees Friday afternoon, providing the conditions for severe thunderstorms to develop that night. Dozens of record highs were set that day in the states hardest hit by the storms: In Memphis, temperatures soared to 79 degrees, breaking a 103-year-old record.

In a warming world, Gensini said: “It’s absolutely fair to say that the atmospheric environments will be more supportive for cool-season tornado events.”

But Gensini and other climate and weather experts noted that tornadoes are among the most difficult events to link definitively to global warming, partly because they are relatively small and short-lived events compared with the wildfires, heat waves and other climate disasters.

“Tornadoes are, unfortunately, one of the extreme events where we have the least confidence in our ability to attribute or understand the impact of climate change on specific events,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist who directs climate and energy programs at the Breakthrough Institute, a climate research center based in Oakland, Calif. “There is not much evidence to date that the number of strong tornadoes is different today than it was over much of the past century.”

The most recent National Climate Assessment, assembled by experts at numerous federal agencies, underscored this dynamic in 2018.

“Observed and projected future increases in certain types of extreme weather, such as heavy rainfall and extreme heat, can be directly linked to a warmer world,” the authors wrote. “Other types of extreme weather, such as tornadoes, hail, and thunderstorms, are also exhibiting changes that may be related to climate change, but scientific understanding is not yet detailed enough to confidently project the direction and magnitude of future change.”

The report went on to say tornado activity in the United States has become “more variable” in recent decades, with a decrease in the number of days per year that saw tornadoes but an increase in the number of tornadoes on these days.

Harold Brooks, a senior research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Severe Storms Laboratory, said extreme tornadoes are becoming “clumpier” over time, meaning they have become more concentrated in day-long bursts. He said it wasn’t clear whether there was a connection to climate change.

And warmer Decembers will probably lead to more December thunderstorms.

“Studies suggest that the frequency and intensity of severe thunderstorms in the U.S. could increase as climate changes, particularly over the U.S. Midwest and Southern Great Plains during spring,” Hausfather said.

The additional factors required to transform a thunderstorm into a tornado — among them, a change in wind speeds at different altitudes, with more intense winds up above — are so complex that scientists have a hard time drawing a straight line between warming temperatures and more frequent tornadoes. In fact, the number of intense tornadoes in the United States “hasn’t changed back into the fifties,” Brooks said, around 500 a year.

There may be some evidence that wintertime tornadoes are becoming more frequent, Brooks said. But the tornadoes are rare enough — and hard enough to measure and classify — that it is difficult to achieve statistical confidence.

What is unequivocal, Gensini said, is that the steady warming of the planet is making a broad array of extreme weather disasters more likely and more intense.

“When you look at these things in the aggregate, it becomes pretty clear that changes are happening,” he said. “There are definitely shifts in the probability of these things happening.”

That includes longer severe weather seasons and more instability in the atmosphere during “shoulder” seasons when such disasters historically would have been less common, he said. It also could include more variability than in the past — some years could be very intense and marked by multiple catastrophes, while others could prove mild when it comes to severe weather.

That is in line with the findings of a major report the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released this summer, which found that as humans have continued to pump planet-warming gases into the atmosphere, weather-related disasters are growing more extreme and affecting every region of the world.

While the report didn’t draw a conclusion about the relationship between tornadoes and climate change, it noted that the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation in the United States was increasing.

One thing that’s different now: More people and more “things” lie in the paths of future tornadoes and other extreme weather events.
“As populations continue to grow, as cities get larger, as we continue to have more things — this is what you get,” Gensini said. “I know for certain there will be more disaster as our human footprint continues to grow.”
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
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