The Sixth Extinction (Environmental News)

[linus]

Godspeed in Crazytown, Linus.

Perhaps you're one of the 200 millions climate refugees spoonie, I'll just discount the empty-handed, nasty-ass ad hominem to the strain you must have encountered from this.

Even if you haven't read my posts, I hope you might have learned something from looking at the pretty pictures.

[San Bernardhinault]

That US wildfire graph looks wildly off, from what I've heard. I thought that firefighters tried to kill off every blaze from about 1940 to 1980 (which looks right), but then realised what a fuck-up that created and had a ton more controlled burn, or left-to-burn areas that weren't close to inhabited areas. Perhaps because these are "controlled", they don't show up in your data?

[Lang Spoon]

It was a low blow, Linus. Apologies. But I won’t apologise for continuing to believe in man made climate change. I really fail to understand what logic lies behind your This Is Fine ideology on climate change and the whole Trump unspeakableness.

[San Bernardhinault]

Oh, and the MSL stuff is the worst kind of cherry-picking. Almost as bad as your cherry picking - earlier in the year- on how few Cat 3-5 hurricanes have hit US soil in the Western Atlantic since the last year that had multiple hits...

[San Bernardhinault]

Just to be clear - look at the graph towards the end of Linus's MSL rant, and you'll see that there's been at most 2m of rise in the last 2 millennia.

Have a look, now, at this data I was working with earlier in the year



There are areas where sea level trend is nearly 1cm/year, and globally it's 3.3mm year over the last couple of decades.

Which means that the current rate is 4 times as fast as what appears to show up for the previous few thousand years.

It's Not Fine.

[Lang Spoon]

Doggerland isn’t some esoteric hidden thing either. I think plenty folk realise that ‘the Islands’ were once connected to Europe in the long long ago.

[linus]

Oh, and the MSL stuff is the worst kind of cherry-picking. Almost as bad as your cherry picking - earlier in the year- on how few Cat 3-5 hurricanes have hit US soil in the Western Atlantic since the last year that had multiple hits...

Any way you slice it, US hurricane activity has been down in the last two decades over the earlier baseline. This season has been an active one, but it was preceded by a decade of historically low hurricane activity. Emphasis on big hurricane (Cat 3-5) is not without relevance as those are the ones that yield significantly greater damage. For you benefit, here is the total hurricane activity in the US, including lower-intensity hurricanes:





Zooming out geographically, total hurricane activity in the Northern Atlantic:




...and globally:

[San Bernardhinault]

The fact that you're focusing on "US hurricanes" is absolutely massive cherry picking. The fact that you focus on Cat 3+ makes the sample so small for any bunch of a few years to be broadly meaningless.

[linus]

SB, in the long term, sea level rise should even out everywhere, sea water is fungible, gravity being universal, with some very minor (but consistent) variations depending on latitude and landmass presence... Measuring sea levels is much more challenging offshore, and it's a relatively new process, whereas the data from the littoral has been collected since the 19th century, so it's a more reliable tool for identifying any changes in the rate of sea level rise.

[San Bernardhinault]

Data from the littoral is inherently unreliable because (as you mention, there are all kinds of coastal actions at play, such as erosion and glacial rebound and so on).

The data from the satellites, meanwhile, is far better because it (a) covers the entire planet; (b) can get cross-correlated with other data: using gravitational measurements to see the change in mass of the icesheets, and thermal measurements to predict the thermal expansion of the oceans, actually match the observed sea level rise. It's accurate, and it's global.

Sure, water is fungible, and the localised differences shown in the above map aren't necessarily meaningful (except to the locals - if the gulfstream weakens, that will boost up the sea levels in Florida locally). But the global average are global.

[linus]

It was a low blow, Linus. Apologies. But I won’t apologise for continuing to believe in man made climate change. I really fail to understand what logic lies behind your This Is Fine ideology on climate change and the whole Trump unspeakableness.

Cheers Spoon.

I think the climate debate has been completely politicized, to a point where people have formed their opinion on purely subjective grounds, in a visceral, tribal manner. The more I've researched the subject, the more skeptical I've become on CAGW. About a fifth of the scientific community is also skeptical, the 97% Consensus does not reflect this state, it is the reflection of its very broad binary framework. Scientists like Judith Curry have been pushed out from the academic establishment and marginalized.

As to Trump, I don't think things were better under Obama, or would have been better under HRC. The American war machine has kept growing under Obama, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Honduras all happened under his watch, as did the ratcheting of indiscriminate droning in Pakistan and elsewhere. Whole countries destroyed, over a million dead. On the domestic front, an ever encroaching security state and the $9 trillion banking industry bailout handout was a complete disaster, the largest taxpayer wealth transfer transaction in history. In some ways, politicians like Obama or Tsipras are able to do more damage with their more benign image.

[linus]

That US wildfire graph looks wildly off, from what I've heard. I thought that firefighters tried to kill off every blaze from about 1940 to 1980 (which looks right), but then realised what a fuck-up that created and had a ton more controlled burn, or left-to-burn areas that weren't close to inhabited areas. Perhaps because these are "controlled", they don't show up in your data?

My understanding/interpretation of the US fire graph is that (1) they didn't have modern firefighting tools and resources pre-war, (2) the 1930s/40s were significantly hotter (esp in the summers, most of the maxima records from that era still stand today) and (3) lower populations esp across the arid west, so they let distant fires burn and didn't actively manage forests as much.

As to the hurricanes, the last two figures were as broad as possible, N. Atlantic and global charts.

[San Bernardhinault]

Your N Atlantic hurricane graph shows that 4 of the only 6 years with in excess of 15 tropical storms have been in the last decade and a bit.

But, I'm not sure that's meaningful either - there are no good,reliable observations of storms that didn't make landfall before the 70s, so there's just no real data to compare.

[anton pulisov]

I don't get it. Linus, are you saying that CO2 is not s greenhouse gas?

[anton pulisov]

Oh, and all sea level models from the 1980s and early 90s which predicted massive sea level rise for the next two centuries have been either bang on in their predictions for the past thirty years, or underestimated the sea level rise.

Oh yeah and sea level did indeed rise by 120 m after the last Ice age. Just goes to show what this planet's oceans are capable of when you adjust the thermostat.

[tuckwat]

I don't get it. Linus, are you saying that CO2 is not s greenhouse gas?

Strange isn't it because without CO2 in the atmosphere to keep some of the heat from the sun escaping back to space the earth would be just another barren rock. Increased amounts of CO2 would mean the world warming up. Something scientists in the 19th Century recognised. So come on answer the question are you saying CO2 isn't a green house gas.

[Eggchaser]

I see the US Government's contribution to the Bonn climate negotiations is to change a public event they are putting on from a discussion about renewable energy to "The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation."

It would be funny if it wasn't so horrible.

[anton pulisov]

These people always say we need fossil fuel is because renewables are too expensive and unreliable. I don't agree with that, but ok, it's a coherent argument. But then the same people promote nuclear power, which is literally the most expensive and cumbersome power source you could think of.

[anton pulisov]

That's a very individualistic view of the human race. Sure, if you are 90 years old and your city is has been slowly flooding more and more throughout your life then go through grieving. But for the children who are born into such a world it is total normality. How can they grieve the loss of something they never had?

Anyway, I'm already grieving the loss of coastal cities here and now. Inundated by a flood of hipster and yuppie wankers.

[Eggchaser]

On a slightly positive note, the good fight against Trump's evisceration of the EPA is in the courts and his "Obama did it so bin it" approach to matters is apparently less than above board when it comes to due process.

[Eggchaser]

Scummy cunts at it again.

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-uk-protesters

What the fuck is wrong with these people? How were they brought up to view everything as nothing more than a balance sheet to be tipped into their already bloated pockets?

[Gangster Octopus]

Kill all solicitors. That should do it.

[Eggchaser]

Hey!

[Kevin S]

Sudan, the last male white rhino, has died. Just two females remain of the species.

[Ginger Yellow]

Technically the last northern white rhino, and a subspecies. There's still relatively many southern white rhinos around. Still a tragedy of course. If we can't even save charismatic megafauna, what chance do others have?