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"Heatwaves and little rain led to rarely seen forest fires in Sweden in July 2018." Rarely seen, as in, seen before, presumably before the current level of cli

"Heatwaves and little rain led to rarely seen forest fires in Sweden in July 2018." Rarely seen, as in, seen before, presumably before the current level of climate change. I wish articles like this would give some context, such as rare: once in 10/100/1000/10000/100000 years? Also, satellite images in the last several years can't be compared with satellite images 100 years ago because man-made satellites didn't exist back then. So this is more of a snapshot with little context. How does this compare with the medieval warming period as far as impact on agriculture?

deleted 7y ago
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Xylakant 7y ago
> How does this compare with the medieval warming period as far as impact on agriculture? It’s been so dry in germany that river levels sunk far enough to make so-called hungerstones visible again. These mark historic low levels that are associated with severe droughts and starvation. The fact that we’re not starving is a testament to how much modern agriculture improved our resilience, but there’s a limit to that. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerstein_(Wasserstandsmarkierung) https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerstein_(Wasserstandsmar...
- yters 7y ago
  I've not understood how this demonstrates unprecedented climate change, since presumably there is past precedent that laid the hungerstones in the first place. This seems to demonstrate this level of warming happened before in the medieval ages, before human caused global warming was possible. Wouldn't this mean hungerstones count as evidence against human caused global warming?
  - peteradio 7y ago
    Depends, how many uncorrelated rare (in the no global climate change hypothesis) events are simultaneously occurring?
    - yters 7y ago
      Yes, that's a good point. But, then what is our basis of comparison? When the hungerstones were laid was there not similar warming going on elsewhere? Without knowing this, it is hard to draw conclusions from the hungerstones.
- tucaz 7y ago
  It's not like we have been wrong about this a hundred and twenty-three times before. In 2014, "science" was telling us for sure that the big lakes would go dry in just a few years due to climate change effects [0]. It is 2019 now and the same lakes that were disappearing, less than five years ago, are now reaching record levels [1]. If something is wrong, someone has to do something, right? We can't just sit on our asses and wait. Hey, government! Go do something! [0] - https://thinkprogress.org/the-great-lakes-go-dry-how-one-fifth-of-the-worlds-fresh-water-is-dwindling-away-e9efe2c72891/ https://thinkprogress.org/the-great-lakes-go-dry-how-one-fif... [1] - https://www.weather.gov/mkx/highlakemichiganwaterlevel https://www.weather.gov/mkx/highlakemichiganwaterlevel
  - mort96 7y ago
    From your first link: > Increasingly, scientists believe that climate change is driving the warming waters and setting up a new regime in the Great Lakes that may lead to lower lake levels and a permanently altered shoreline. ... > “The El Niño-driven warmer temperatures are a surrogate for what the future climate might be. The lower lake levels during that time may be a signal of what might be happening under longer term climate change.” I don't see where it says scientists were saying anything for sure, the claim is just that the lower water level "may" be caused by climate change. The truth is that climate is complex and climate models are imperfect; there's a lot we don't know for sure. What we _do_ know for sure, however, is that atmospheric CO2 has a big influence on the earth's climate, that periods of higher levels of CO2 has historically been at the same time as higher temperatures, and that we are seeing actual measurable changes in things like average temperatures. The effects those changes have on any particular lake, wether its water levels will drop due to increased evaporation, or rise due to wetter summers, is hard to say for certain; we can just strive for making ever more accurate predictive models. Also, the graph in your second link isn't loading, so I can't comment specifically on that. > If something is wrong, someone has to do something, right? We can't just sit on our asses and wait. Hey, government! Go do something! Yeah. Other than a revolution, the most realistic way to make sure that happens is to vote for people who care about this stuff, and against e.g people who claim climate change is a hoax.
    - 7y ago
olivermarks 7y ago
[answer to a flagged comment] Not really, I think the unfortunately monickered mr assblaster makes a valid point free of bias. We are in an era of unprecedented imagery and data access for the first time. We don't know if the last few years when this technology evolution happened overlaps with outlier weather events. There may well be effects from tripling the atmospheric carbon too.
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  That ignores the entire body of climate researches over many decades and probably millenia of person-years of research, ice cores, glacial/polar ice cap melt, etc. It seems like a valid point, but it really isn't. edit: it really isn't. We know the current warming is without precedent in rate, and has an upper limit around the PETM (about 50 Ma). It's like someone who had never seen a car before presuming it was powered by ghosts. It maybe reasonable within their frame of reference, but it is their frame of reference that is flawed in an objective context.
  - assblaster 7y ago
    Remember that the resolution of the data increases with time: ice cores, etc, give a resolution much less than second-by-second temperature data today. Comparing rate change from millions of years ago to today over days/weeks/months/years is impossible.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Xylakant 7y ago

> How does this compare with the medieval warming period as far as impact on agriculture? It’s been so dry in germany that river levels sunk far enough to make so-called hungerstones visible again. These mark historic low levels that are associated with severe droughts and starvation. The fact that we’re not starving is a testament to how much modern agriculture improved our resilience, but there’s a limit to that. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerstein_(Wasserstandsmarkierung) https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungerstein_(Wasserstandsmar...

yters 7y ago
I've not understood how this demonstrates unprecedented climate change, since presumably there is past precedent that laid the hungerstones in the first place. This seems to demonstrate this level of warming happened before in the medieval ages, before human caused global warming was possible. Wouldn't this mean hungerstones count as evidence against human caused global warming?
- peteradio 7y ago
  Depends, how many uncorrelated rare (in the no global climate change hypothesis) events are simultaneously occurring?
  - yters 7y ago
    Yes, that's a good point. But, then what is our basis of comparison? When the hungerstones were laid was there not similar warming going on elsewhere? Without knowing this, it is hard to draw conclusions from the hungerstones.
tucaz 7y ago
It's not like we have been wrong about this a hundred and twenty-three times before. In 2014, "science" was telling us for sure that the big lakes would go dry in just a few years due to climate change effects [0]. It is 2019 now and the same lakes that were disappearing, less than five years ago, are now reaching record levels [1]. If something is wrong, someone has to do something, right? We can't just sit on our asses and wait. Hey, government! Go do something! [0] - https://thinkprogress.org/the-great-lakes-go-dry-how-one-fifth-of-the-worlds-fresh-water-is-dwindling-away-e9efe2c72891/ https://thinkprogress.org/the-great-lakes-go-dry-how-one-fif... [1] - https://www.weather.gov/mkx/highlakemichiganwaterlevel https://www.weather.gov/mkx/highlakemichiganwaterlevel
- mort96 7y ago
  From your first link: > Increasingly, scientists believe that climate change is driving the warming waters and setting up a new regime in the Great Lakes that may lead to lower lake levels and a permanently altered shoreline. ... > “The El Niño-driven warmer temperatures are a surrogate for what the future climate might be. The lower lake levels during that time may be a signal of what might be happening under longer term climate change.” I don't see where it says scientists were saying anything for sure, the claim is just that the lower water level "may" be caused by climate change. The truth is that climate is complex and climate models are imperfect; there's a lot we don't know for sure. What we _do_ know for sure, however, is that atmospheric CO2 has a big influence on the earth's climate, that periods of higher levels of CO2 has historically been at the same time as higher temperatures, and that we are seeing actual measurable changes in things like average temperatures. The effects those changes have on any particular lake, wether its water levels will drop due to increased evaporation, or rise due to wetter summers, is hard to say for certain; we can just strive for making ever more accurate predictive models. Also, the graph in your second link isn't loading, so I can't comment specifically on that. > If something is wrong, someone has to do something, right? We can't just sit on our asses and wait. Hey, government! Go do something! Yeah. Other than a revolution, the most realistic way to make sure that happens is to vote for people who care about this stuff, and against e.g people who claim climate change is a hoax.
  - 7y ago

olivermarks 7y ago

[answer to a flagged comment] Not really, I think the unfortunately monickered mr assblaster makes a valid point free of bias. We are in an era of unprecedented imagery and data access for the first time. We don't know if the last few years when this technology evolution happened overlaps with outlier weather events. There may well be effects from tripling the atmospheric carbon too.

throwaway5752 7y ago
That ignores the entire body of climate researches over many decades and probably millenia of person-years of research, ice cores, glacial/polar ice cap melt, etc. It seems like a valid point, but it really isn't. edit: it really isn't. We know the current warming is without precedent in rate, and has an upper limit around the PETM (about 50 Ma). It's like someone who had never seen a car before presuming it was powered by ghosts. It maybe reasonable within their frame of reference, but it is their frame of reference that is flawed in an objective context.
- assblaster 7y ago
  Remember that the resolution of the data increases with time: ice cores, etc, give a resolution much less than second-by-second temperature data today. Comparing rate change from millions of years ago to today over days/weeks/months/years is impossible.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]