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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 10, 2014 - 09:20am PT
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Sketch is gone.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 10, 2014 - 09:21am PT
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it is always a good thing to read the report... here are some extracts:
"Drought is of course nothing new to California. Figure 1 also shows that, despite the remarkable nature of the last year and last three years in California’s recorded history, these events are not without precedence. Figure 2 (below) shows the winter half-year precipitation history for all of California. For example the driest winter was 1976-77 and there was an extended dry period in the 1920s and 1930s (Mirchi et al. 2013), which included the second driest winter of 1923-24. The driest three-year period was 1974 to 1977, which included the driest winter and 1975-76, the fourth driest winter. There have also been extended wet periods, including one in the mid 1990s. This preceded a period of steadily declining precipitation up to and including the 2013-14 drought and part of the explanation of the recent drought will involve explaining the decline in winter precipitation over the recent two decades. However, over the entire 120 years of record, there is no clear trend towards wetter or drier conditions."
I added the emphasis to point out that the authors of the report do consider the recent drought to be "remarkable."
"The current depleted state of water supply available to municipalities and agriculture in California arose from a major, if not record-breaking, meteorological drought. Winter 2013-14 was the sixth driest winter since records began in 1895 and the three-winter average precipitation from 2011-12 to 2013-14 was the second lowest on record (behind 1974 to 1977)."
So it would seem the report considers the that there is a remarkable drought in California.
They take a crack at what might happen this year, too:
"During October 2014, the warm SST anomaly in the western tropical Pacific that contributed to the drought of the past two winters disappeared. In November 2014 there is a warm SST anomaly that extends across most of the equatorial and subtropical North Pacific. Further, as shown at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society’s website http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproom/Global/Forecasts/, forecasts predict SST anomalies to remain weak in the western Pacific Ocean and a weak to modest El Niño pattern to develop. To go along with this models are predicting a modestly increased probability of wetter than normal conditions for northern Mexico and the southern U.S. The current (November) Climate Prediction Center forecast indicates an about 45% chance of central to southern California precipitation being in the upper tercile of the historical distribution. . However, if either current conditions persists or if the SST forecasts are correct, the localized warm anomaly in the western Pacific that contributed to California drought the past two winters will not be present this coming winter. It is therefore reasonable to assume that precipitation amounts will very likely be greater than last winter, but not necessarily much above the climatological normal. It should also be noted that even a reasonably strong El Niño event, which seems highly unlikely, does not guarantee a wet California winter. Notably two of the driest winters on record occurred during the 1976-77 and 1986-87 El Niño events!"
it should also be noted that we are debating regional climate on relatively short time forecasting, that is remarkable in its own right... and a very real demonstration of the power of recent advances in climate science.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Dec 10, 2014 - 11:29am PT
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The baby gets tossed with the bathwater.
Certainly a risk when climate statements appear exaggerated, though I think such exaggeration happens more in the media -- whose nature is to exaggerate all sorts of things -- than in the scientific reports themselves. The latter tend to be cautious and full of caveats, because the authors know what they don't know, and they also know their readers (including, competing research teams) are sharp too.
There was a grownup discussion of four recent reports about the California drought over at Skeptical Science recently. Two of these reports saw a role for climate change, while two did not, raising the question of why they seem to differ.
One takeaway is that the NOAA report considers the drought mainly as a (low) rainfall event, and finds that is not unprecedented. However, the actual drought has been not just a rainfall event, but low rainfall combined with high temperatures -- which NOAA evidently did not take into account. Two new papers in Geophysical Research Letters that do take temperatures into account give less reason for assuming there is no climate-change connection. As Griffin & Anchukaitis write,
The current California drought is exceptionally severe in the context of at least the last millennium and is driven by reduced though not unprecedented precipitation and record high temperatures.
Also in GRL, AghaKouchak et al. write
Global warming and the associated rise in extreme temperatures substantially increase the chance of concurrent droughts and heatwaves. The 2014 California drought is an archetype of an event characterized by not only low precipitation but also extreme high temperatures.... We argue that a multivariate viewpoint is necessary for assessing risk of extreme events, especially in a warming climate. This study discusses a methodology for assessing the risk of concurrent extremes such as droughts and extreme temperatures.
Neither of these GRL papers declares the recent drought was definitely caused by climate change, but they are describing what evidence they have.
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crunch
Social climber
CO
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Dec 10, 2014 - 11:58am PT
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Thanks Chiloe, nice explanation. And thanks Ed.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 10, 2014 - 12:06pm PT
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it is interesting to see how it is all going to play out
DMT thinks that 10 years ago a clown said we had 10 years to act, and that because we aren't in a perceptible crises right now that that prediction was wrong. Of course presuming that everything right now is OK.
rick thinks that 40 years ago a clown said that the Earth's population was growing too large and we had to act, and that because we aren't in a perceptible crises right now that that prediction was wrong. Of course presuming everything right now is OK.
But we make a number of presumptions based on incomplete (and in some cases non-existent) information on the state of the globe.
Given that the uncertainty allows for a wide range of opinion on the predictions, one should acknowledge that the definition of "clown" awaits for more complete information (as well as the events to unfold, history to be written, and analyses of what could or should have been done assessed). At that point we can assign the definition of "clown" correctly.
Another very interesting aspect of the current California drought, which has not been incorporated into the analysis of its severity is the rate at which the ground water resources are being tapped to compensate for the lack of precipitation.
We have a general attitude about the ground water that it just sits around waiting for us to use it, and that it plays no other role in the environment. Ground water probably plays a much greater role than we think, and its contributions to the environment could be significantly more important than just being a resource to be tapped by humans.
The current rate of depletion, and the expectation that the precipitation in California will decrease in the coming years, implies that the ground water will also be at historically low levels. The consequences of this are not fully understood.
Maybe some clown will make a declarative statement of alarm...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 10, 2014 - 12:15pm PT
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What I said is some bloke said we had ten years to act. At that very moment I knew he was blowing it out his ass; totally made up number.
how did you know this?
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Norton
Social climber
quitcherbellyachin
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Dec 10, 2014 - 12:45pm PT
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Only 25 posts to the coveted 30,000
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 10, 2014 - 01:01pm PT
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Jesus christ man, STICK TO THE SCIENCE.
Ten years ago, the science did say we have ten years to act.
We have better "science" now, and the window is still closing. The options we had ten years ago are no longer options, the options we now have must deal with not acting for the past ten years.
So you see, even when we do stick to the science, folks claim "sensationalism!" Which delays us in acting.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Dec 10, 2014 - 01:29pm PT
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I think Dingus is catching flak here because this thread has been starved for intelligent discussion, and he stands up looking like a good candidate.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 10, 2014 - 01:46pm PT
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I get the point that Dingus is trying to make (along with the now defunct Sketch): Sensationalism in the MSM does not help the cause of climate scientists who are warning that we're in peril.
Dingus gives the "10 years to act" exclaimation as an example, and also notes that we cannot yet definitively designate any one weather event as being caused by AWG.
But the science is strong on both of these accounts. However, knowing for certain (1) how long we have to act and (2) the absolute cause of any weather event goes beyond what any models can conclude. Simply, there are too many variables.
However, note that the science does point very strongly in the direction of these two claims. Perhaps we did have more than 10 years to act, but the actions we must now take are ever more severe than the ones we had available to us ten years ago.
And the science does say just this.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Dec 10, 2014 - 03:09pm PT
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Globally (UN survey)
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 10, 2014 - 04:14pm PT
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In other words, until I personally felt the effects, I had no particular reason to change.
And this:
The chief's position on the rise of the 3rd world economies and the availability of cheap oil are
spot... fricking... on.
...
Well, 'we' includes 6+ billion people that have circled their wagons around the gas pumps.
Which brings me back to my point about the true cost of goods. It's clear that cheap oil will never be
overridden. The amount of "work" in a barrel of oil is just too great a driver.
The day that the downstream costs of oil and coal are factored into the cost of a gallon of gas or a Kw
of electricity will be the day that those same 6+Billion people will think twice about circling the pump.
Who is going to pull that lever? It ain't gonna be Exxon, I tell ya.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 10, 2014 - 04:50pm PT
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I don't know what the temp rise will be by the year of 2100. I'll warrant no one else does either.
There's always someone who will know .......
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 10, 2014 - 06:17pm PT
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I noticed 30k posts in this thread!
And that's after about 6,000 have been deleted for one reason or other!
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Norwegian
Trad climber
dancin on the tip of god's middle finger
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Dec 10, 2014 - 06:32pm PT
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i'm hoping soon to graduate
from d#@&%ebag to i.u.d.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 10, 2014 - 07:15pm PT
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Not as long as hypocrites as yourself Kaveman keep filling your tank with their product and drive around to crags to go appease your ego.
WTF???
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Dec 10, 2014 - 07:30pm PT
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I see Sketch got shetcanned and DMT is still here. Seems they both EQUALLY violated the NEW law of tit for tat pissing on one another's personal wheaties.
Surely obvious that it pays to be in nut to butt with the tribe elders and have your buddies narc on the other dude for ya.
RJ???
They didn't equally violate the new law, at least as I saw it (hard to say for sure since the relevant posts have been deleted).
DMT was the clear first aggressor: he started with an unproved attack on Sketch in the nature of "your mother" type of stuff.
Sketch called DMT out on it, politely, and DMT responded with increasingly petulant comments about Sketch's mother.
Sketch then retaliated by posting what I presume was a DMT family portrait of sorts (I'll keep my comments on it to myself) and something like "I can pick on your family too."
Then Sketch apparently got the boot.
A good example of ST moderating at work that we all know and love.
Meanwhile (ironically?), DMT seems to assumed a Sketch like roll of being an actively posting skeptic, except he's not as rhetorically skilled or as well informed--he's sort of an inadvertent Simplicio in this nonsensical "debate."
I'd like to hear more about models from DMT--seems like he's got a good handle on them.
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Degaine
climber
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Dec 11, 2014 - 12:57am PT
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DMT wrote:
I just don't fuss over dueling grapoholics on ST.
So the truth finally comes out, I always suspected that you were an anti-GRAPHite!
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Degaine
climber
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Dec 11, 2014 - 01:03am PT
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The Chief wrote:
Not as long as hypocrites as yourself Kaveman keep filling your tank with their product and drive around to crags to go appease your ego.
You've made statements similar to this all throughout the thread.
Honest question, for you is it really all or nothing? If we can't do everything at once then we shouldn't do anything?
In other words, if I'm in favor of reducing and eventually stopping the use of fossil fuels for energy, but still in some way/shape/form consume even one drop of petroleum in my daily life then I'm a hypocrite?
Do you really view everything in such an on/off manner?
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