9 ms·

Giant Middle East dust storm caused by a changing climate, not human conflict

58 points by upen 10y ago

sameoldsameold 10y ago
Dust storm caused by weather. Who'd a thunk?
- soohyung 10y ago
  From the article: "At the time, the storm’s unusual severity was attributed to the ongoing civil war in Syria by media outlets in the Middle East, Europe and the United States. Reports blamed the conflict for changes in land use and cover—and for activities like increased military traffic over unpaved surfaces and farmers reducing irrigation or abandoning agricultural land—that created extreme amounts of dust to fuel the storm." It wasn't really obvious at the time.
  - sameoldsameold 10y ago
    My beef is the obvious confusion of "climate" and "weather" in the article, with the further unsubstantiated assertion that such events will are "going to become more frequent in the future". As they say in Italy: Bologna.
dominotw 10y ago
>combination of climatic factors and unusual weather. > Summer 2015 was unusually hot and dry relative to the last 20 years So data over last 20 yrs is enough to conclude "changing climate" ? > Middle East becomes more arid in the long term due to climate change This article[1] blames it on ' farmers who pump water from limited underground aquifers '. Is there any proof that middle east is becoming more arid and it due to 'climate change' ? 1. http://www.aljazeera.com/video/middleeast/2013/03/2013322185951567273.html http://www.aljazeera.com/video/middleeast/2013/03/2013322185...
- sameoldsameold 10y ago
  Every bad thing must be attributed to climate, and climate must be attributed to man. Otherwise, what excuse will the rent-seekers have? Get with the program...
- yequalsx 10y ago
  I read the article linked to in the submission. I did not read the research paper that the article references. When experts publish a research paper in an area that I have no expertise in I assume the following: 1. They might be wrong. 2. If they are wrong it almost certainly isn't for the reason I think they might be wrong. 3. 2) is especially true if the reason I think they might be wrong came to me within 5 minutes of thinking about the issue. 4. My first glance thought about the paper being wrong most likely is itself wrong. Instead of concluding that the reporter writing " Summer 2015 was unusually hot and dry relative to the last 20 years" means this is the sole reason for the conclusion of the scientists it's better to wonder what all the factor are that led them to their conclusion. What is it that they know that I don't know that makes them believe this conclusion? That's the right starting point for investigation and understanding.
sameoldsameold 10y ago
As usual, mindless assertions that we're all going to die of climate change get plugged; the contrary view gets down-voted because it's not the current orthodoxy. Beautifully stalinist: we have always been at war with EastAsia.
- orf 10y ago
  s/it's not the current orthodoxy/it's not the opinion of the vast majority of people who know what they are talking about and have studied it/
  - sameoldsameold 10y ago
    Sure the vast majority of people know what they are talking about. They get their opinions from journalists and rent-seekers.
    - InitialLastName 10y ago
      You seem to keep saying the same old thing, but don't really say anything notable. It's disingenuous of you to imply that GP is talking about a majority other than the scientific community, who know way more than you or me (or GP) about climate change and its possible anthropogenic causes. [edit: the causes aren't doing impressions of humans]
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- hnhg 10y ago
  Well, because it's the best scientific explanation we have. You're not actually debating, just complaining.
- sctb 10y ago
  Please comment civilly and substantively on Hacker News or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mikeash 10y ago
Interesting how all the climate change deniers come out of the woodwork whenever stories like these are posted, even though HN leans fairly heavily liberal and extremely heavily scientific the rest of the time. Is the HN population actually like that, or are these people trying to push an agenda and otherwise not participating in the site? Either way, I sure wish we could discuss these things instead of getting bogged down in "it's all nonsense" every time.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  The answer is in their comments history. I've seen both cases. Even people with completely reasonable histories.
- nickff 10y ago
  Most topics on HN have people staunchly defending different camps; this is just an obvious one. As an example, Signal is very controversial, so there are a few people who say it's great for privacy, and another group that say it's misleading and less secure than it appears. Full disclosure: I don't have a position on Signal, but I'm a big fan of Moxie. How would you "discuss these things" without having different points of view? Should we all just post 'this climate change is even worse than I thought', then respond 'I knew it was this bad, see my post from 2 years ago'?
  - mikeash 10y ago
    There are plenty of things to discuss within the broad camp of "accepts that climate change is real and a potential problem." For example, the severity, the cause of individual events, the best responses, the potential dangers in the future, etc. Instead, we just get these condescending posts completely dismissing any notion of climate change at all. I do not see this phenomenon with other fact-based topics discussed here. When there's a story about vaccine, we're not flooded with people telling us how vaccines are full of toxins and don't prevent disease. When there's a story about genetics, we're not flooded with people telling us that evolution is a hoax. Physics stories don't get flooded with comments pushing Time Cube or whatever. Yes, we do get some comments like that, but not many. Sure, something like Signal is controversial, but that's something that's naturally based on opinion. Dissent about the tradeoffs of something like Signal is quite different from dissent about the reality of climate change.
climatedenier 10y ago
Common sense says the same thing that caused the dust bowl in the USA (changes, as noted in the article, to the land use, abandoned agriculture, etc.) caused this dust storm. Then a team of <insert previous liberal establishment group that calls for carbon taxes and globalization> comes along to set the record straight with their conspiracy theories about knowing everything, etc. People come by to see what's all the fuss about... labeled as "deniers", a term used to associate people that disagree with anthropogenic climate change conspiracy theories in with holocaust deniers. If you think there is another valid reason to use the word "deniers" when referring to people questioning climate change conspiracy theories, then you probably haven't heard of burden of proof.
- cholantesh 10y ago
  >you probably haven't heard of burden of proof. Seeing as ample evidence has been put forward for AGW, as opposed to the alternatives proposed, this seems unlikely.
- orf 10y ago
  > you probably haven't heard of burden of proof. I don't think the climate systems on Earth care about whether or not you believe in something, or if the considerable amount of proof produced by the vast vast majority of climate scientists meets your always unreachable (and dare I say it uniformed) goalposts.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

58 points by upen 10y ago

sameoldsameold 10y ago

Dust storm caused by weather. Who'd a thunk?

soohyung 10y ago
From the article: "At the time, the storm’s unusual severity was attributed to the ongoing civil war in Syria by media outlets in the Middle East, Europe and the United States. Reports blamed the conflict for changes in land use and cover—and for activities like increased military traffic over unpaved surfaces and farmers reducing irrigation or abandoning agricultural land—that created extreme amounts of dust to fuel the storm." It wasn't really obvious at the time.
- sameoldsameold 10y ago
  My beef is the obvious confusion of "climate" and "weather" in the article, with the further unsubstantiated assertion that such events will are "going to become more frequent in the future". As they say in Italy: Bologna.

dominotw 10y ago

>combination of climatic factors and unusual weather. > Summer 2015 was unusually hot and dry relative to the last 20 years So data over last 20 yrs is enough to conclude "changing climate" ? > Middle East becomes more arid in the long term due to climate change This article[1] blames it on ' farmers who pump water from limited underground aquifers '. Is there any proof that middle east is becoming more arid and it due to 'climate change' ? 1. http://www.aljazeera.com/video/middleeast/2013/03/2013322185951567273.html http://www.aljazeera.com/video/middleeast/2013/03/2013322185...

sameoldsameold 10y ago
Every bad thing must be attributed to climate, and climate must be attributed to man. Otherwise, what excuse will the rent-seekers have? Get with the program...
yequalsx 10y ago
I read the article linked to in the submission. I did not read the research paper that the article references. When experts publish a research paper in an area that I have no expertise in I assume the following: 1. They might be wrong. 2. If they are wrong it almost certainly isn't for the reason I think they might be wrong. 3. 2) is especially true if the reason I think they might be wrong came to me within 5 minutes of thinking about the issue. 4. My first glance thought about the paper being wrong most likely is itself wrong. Instead of concluding that the reporter writing " Summer 2015 was unusually hot and dry relative to the last 20 years" means this is the sole reason for the conclusion of the scientists it's better to wonder what all the factor are that led them to their conclusion. What is it that they know that I don't know that makes them believe this conclusion? That's the right starting point for investigation and understanding.

sameoldsameold 10y ago

As usual, mindless assertions that we're all going to die of climate change get plugged; the contrary view gets down-voted because it's not the current orthodoxy. Beautifully stalinist: we have always been at war with EastAsia.

orf 10y ago
s/it's not the current orthodoxy/it's not the opinion of the vast majority of people who know what they are talking about and have studied it/
- sameoldsameold 10y ago
  Sure the vast majority of people know what they are talking about. They get their opinions from journalists and rent-seekers.
  - InitialLastName 10y ago
    You seem to keep saying the same old thing, but don't really say anything notable. It's disingenuous of you to imply that GP is talking about a majority other than the scientific community, who know way more than you or me (or GP) about climate change and its possible anthropogenic causes. [edit: the causes aren't doing impressions of humans]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
hnhg 10y ago
Well, because it's the best scientific explanation we have. You're not actually debating, just complaining.
sctb 10y ago
Please comment civilly and substantively on Hacker News or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mikeash 10y ago

Interesting how all the climate change deniers come out of the woodwork whenever stories like these are posted, even though HN leans fairly heavily liberal and extremely heavily scientific the rest of the time. Is the HN population actually like that, or are these people trying to push an agenda and otherwise not participating in the site? Either way, I sure wish we could discuss these things instead of getting bogged down in "it's all nonsense" every time.

marcosdumay 10y ago
The answer is in their comments history. I've seen both cases. Even people with completely reasonable histories.
nickff 10y ago
Most topics on HN have people staunchly defending different camps; this is just an obvious one. As an example, Signal is very controversial, so there are a few people who say it's great for privacy, and another group that say it's misleading and less secure than it appears. Full disclosure: I don't have a position on Signal, but I'm a big fan of Moxie. How would you "discuss these things" without having different points of view? Should we all just post 'this climate change is even worse than I thought', then respond 'I knew it was this bad, see my post from 2 years ago'?
- mikeash 10y ago
  There are plenty of things to discuss within the broad camp of "accepts that climate change is real and a potential problem." For example, the severity, the cause of individual events, the best responses, the potential dangers in the future, etc. Instead, we just get these condescending posts completely dismissing any notion of climate change at all. I do not see this phenomenon with other fact-based topics discussed here. When there's a story about vaccine, we're not flooded with people telling us how vaccines are full of toxins and don't prevent disease. When there's a story about genetics, we're not flooded with people telling us that evolution is a hoax. Physics stories don't get flooded with comments pushing Time Cube or whatever. Yes, we do get some comments like that, but not many. Sure, something like Signal is controversial, but that's something that's naturally based on opinion. Dissent about the tradeoffs of something like Signal is quite different from dissent about the reality of climate change.

climatedenier 10y ago

Common sense says the same thing that caused the dust bowl in the USA (changes, as noted in the article, to the land use, abandoned agriculture, etc.) caused this dust storm. Then a team of <insert previous liberal establishment group that calls for carbon taxes and globalization> comes along to set the record straight with their conspiracy theories about knowing everything, etc. People come by to see what's all the fuss about... labeled as "deniers", a term used to associate people that disagree with anthropogenic climate change conspiracy theories in with holocaust deniers. If you think there is another valid reason to use the word "deniers" when referring to people questioning climate change conspiracy theories, then you probably haven't heard of burden of proof.

cholantesh 10y ago
>you probably haven't heard of burden of proof. Seeing as ample evidence has been put forward for AGW, as opposed to the alternatives proposed, this seems unlikely.
orf 10y ago
> you probably haven't heard of burden of proof. I don't think the climate systems on Earth care about whether or not you believe in something, or if the considerable amount of proof produced by the vast vast majority of climate scientists meets your always unreachable (and dare I say it uniformed) goalposts.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]