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Watching the Pacific Northwest heatwave I can’t help but think that regional climate is going to change much faster than what laymen like myself would expect.

by lumost 5y ago

Watching the Pacific Northwest heatwave I can’t help but think that regional climate is going to change much faster than what laymen like myself would expect. 120 degree dry air temperatures produce desert conditions. I can’t imagine that the temperate rainforest of the PNW would last a decade with that kind of weather.

chrisco255 5y ago
Why would you think that when it was a heat dome produced by an anomalous high pressure system forcing winds downslope over mountainous ridges, increasing pressure and temperature in the process. Texas experienced a single digit week long blizzard this year, but I'm not expecting it to turn into Colorado. Wheat yields are doing fine, despite the alarmism, and you can see for yourself (scroll to wheat and view the PNG graphs by year): https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/index.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/index....
- vegetablepotpie 5y ago
  > Wheat yields are doing fine Your source to support that claim provides 1 year of historical data. The article of this discussion says that since the 1960s, total U.S. agricultural production has dropped by 1/5th due to climate change, negating 7 years of improved yields. Due to increased temperatures and decreased moisture, this will lead to greater diminishment of yields, and it’s possible that agricultural innovation will be unable to keep up.
- qqqwerty 5y ago
  Texas had a blizzard because the polar vortex dropped down from the Arctic due to record warming[1] Climate change is going to make things weird. Not everyone is going to get warmer. Some models show Europe entering an Ice Age due to a slow down of the gulf stream. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/how-the-warming-arctic-helped-drive-a-deep-freeze-into-texas https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/how-the-w...
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    Models are not effective at predicting weather outcomes even four weeks into the future. In non-linear dynamic systems, uncertainty is an exponential function of time. If some models show europe getting colder and some models show europe getting warmer, what are we doing except covering all possibilities? How do you distinguish which model is the most accurate one? For example, I was told from a young age, global warming is going to cause the ice caps to melt, and yet: The arctic sea ice volume is at 30 year median this summer: http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/sea-ice-thickness-and-volume/ http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/sea-ice-thickn... And Greenland is having an anamolously cold summer, gaining in ice instead of losing ice as it normally does to summer melt: http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/ http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/ And Antarctic sea ice is above average: https://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/ https://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentr...
    - adrianN 5y ago
      Don't you think that the scientists who literally dedicate their life to understanding the climate are aware of the difficulties and have developed methods to get useful predictions out of ensembles of models? The predictions used for example in the IPCC reports get their error bars at least in part from the disagreement of the different models. Regarding sea ice: I think a temporary increase is not unexpected. As ice melts the salinity of the ocean goes down, which makes it freeze a bit easier.
    - qqqwerty 5y ago
      That is some nice cherry picking. Similar to how the Texas blizzard worked, the Greenland surface conditions are a result of the heat dome. From your own source[1]. I will be the first to admit that claiming the Texas Blizzard and the Heat dome were both directly due to climate change is a little disingenuous. But these things are definitely not normal, and one impact of climate change is that we will be getting a lot more chaos similar to these recent events. And regrading your concerns about the modeling. I agree, the uncertainty is real and quite frankly that should scare you and everyone else. There is simply no way for humans to fully understand all of the different mechanisms at play. We are entering uncharted territory. We might get lucky and some dampening feedback emerges that we did not account for that moderates the climate impacts. Or we might get very unlucky and kick off a mechanism that results in our oceans boiling off killing all life. Most likely, we will end up somewhere in the middle of those two extremes and it will take quite a while before we get there. But once again, the uncertainty is massive. So we are essentially rolling the dice on the future of humanity all so a handful of fossil fuel executives can continue to line their pockets. [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/PolarPortal/status/1411280517316612103 https://mobile.twitter.com/PolarPortal/status/14112805173166...
- mixologic 5y ago
  The source you linked shows "Spring Wheat" at it's lowest projected production since 2012, which is how far back this goes. Winter wheat was obviously not affected by the heatwave, because it was already harvested by then. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/swmap.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/swmap.... shows that yields per state vary, but anywhere from 22% down in ID to 46.8%. The spring wheat crops are doing very poorly, and is very alarming.
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/awprod.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/awprod... Here's the production charts. We had 1.83 billion bushels last year and 1.75 billion this year. Its only Spring Wheat which was affected but Winter Wheat is at all time highs. See this chart, for example: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/swyld.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/swyld.... 2021 is anamolously bad for spring wheat. 2018 through 2020 were record high years for spring wheat on the contrary. Trend for yield is up and to the right. Weather disasters happen, like the droughts we had in the 1930s that caused the Dust Bowl. At any rate, don't forget to zoom out.
adrianN 5y ago
Yes, people forget that the 2° warming you keep hearing are global averages, including the oceans. If you restrict yourself to temperatures over land, the warming is much stronger. In addition, a small rise in average temperatures leads to a large rise in the number of days with high temperatures. Here for example are charts showing the number of days >30°C in Germany since the fifties: https://twitter.com/DWD_klima/status/1407023635798319106/photo/1 https://twitter.com/DWD_klima/status/1407023635798319106/pho... They have already roughly doubled since the eighties and global warming is just starting to get serious.
throwawaysea 5y ago
The forest part of PNW didn’t experience 120 degree weather. Additionally the event was highly atypical even with climate change and is estimated to be a 1 in 1000 years event due to various unlucky factors coming together. Climate change only contributed a few degrees to the peak temperatures in this recent PNW heatwave. More info about how this weather event came about and the misattribution to climate change from an atmospheric science professor who is the foremost expert on northwest climate: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/was-global-warming-cause-of-great.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/was-global-warming-ca... https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/flawed-heatwave-report-leads-to-false.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/flawed-heatwave-repor...
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  > The forest part of PNW didn’t experience 120 degree weather. Because forests provides cooling. I agree that misinformation is endemic, but I also agree that liberals love to fall on their swords for tiny missteps which is then used as ammo by real deniers which erroneously puts the two on equal footing. We're at the point where yes, maybe misinformative fear is necessary? Eh, maybe not. I dunno. But I hate how scientists nitpick themselves to death while Trumpers trash reality.

by lumost 5y ago

chrisco255 5y ago

Why would you think that when it was a heat dome produced by an anomalous high pressure system forcing winds downslope over mountainous ridges, increasing pressure and temperature in the process. Texas experienced a single digit week long blizzard this year, but I'm not expecting it to turn into Colorado. Wheat yields are doing fine, despite the alarmism, and you can see for yourself (scroll to wheat and view the PNG graphs by year): https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/index.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/index....

vegetablepotpie 5y ago
> Wheat yields are doing fine Your source to support that claim provides 1 year of historical data. The article of this discussion says that since the 1960s, total U.S. agricultural production has dropped by 1/5th due to climate change, negating 7 years of improved yields. Due to increased temperatures and decreased moisture, this will lead to greater diminishment of yields, and it’s possible that agricultural innovation will be unable to keep up.
qqqwerty 5y ago
Texas had a blizzard because the polar vortex dropped down from the Arctic due to record warming[1] Climate change is going to make things weird. Not everyone is going to get warmer. Some models show Europe entering an Ice Age due to a slow down of the gulf stream. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/how-the-warming-arctic-helped-drive-a-deep-freeze-into-texas https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/how-the-w...
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Models are not effective at predicting weather outcomes even four weeks into the future. In non-linear dynamic systems, uncertainty is an exponential function of time. If some models show europe getting colder and some models show europe getting warmer, what are we doing except covering all possibilities? How do you distinguish which model is the most accurate one? For example, I was told from a young age, global warming is going to cause the ice caps to melt, and yet: The arctic sea ice volume is at 30 year median this summer: http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/sea-ice-thickness-and-volume/ http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/sea-ice-thickn... And Greenland is having an anamolously cold summer, gaining in ice instead of losing ice as it normally does to summer melt: http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/ http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/ And Antarctic sea ice is above average: https://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/ https://sites.uci.edu/zlabe/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentr...
  - adrianN 5y ago
    Don't you think that the scientists who literally dedicate their life to understanding the climate are aware of the difficulties and have developed methods to get useful predictions out of ensembles of models? The predictions used for example in the IPCC reports get their error bars at least in part from the disagreement of the different models. Regarding sea ice: I think a temporary increase is not unexpected. As ice melts the salinity of the ocean goes down, which makes it freeze a bit easier.
  - qqqwerty 5y ago
    That is some nice cherry picking. Similar to how the Texas blizzard worked, the Greenland surface conditions are a result of the heat dome. From your own source[1]. I will be the first to admit that claiming the Texas Blizzard and the Heat dome were both directly due to climate change is a little disingenuous. But these things are definitely not normal, and one impact of climate change is that we will be getting a lot more chaos similar to these recent events. And regrading your concerns about the modeling. I agree, the uncertainty is real and quite frankly that should scare you and everyone else. There is simply no way for humans to fully understand all of the different mechanisms at play. We are entering uncharted territory. We might get lucky and some dampening feedback emerges that we did not account for that moderates the climate impacts. Or we might get very unlucky and kick off a mechanism that results in our oceans boiling off killing all life. Most likely, we will end up somewhere in the middle of those two extremes and it will take quite a while before we get there. But once again, the uncertainty is massive. So we are essentially rolling the dice on the future of humanity all so a handful of fossil fuel executives can continue to line their pockets. [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/PolarPortal/status/1411280517316612103 https://mobile.twitter.com/PolarPortal/status/14112805173166...
mixologic 5y ago
The source you linked shows "Spring Wheat" at it's lowest projected production since 2012, which is how far back this goes. Winter wheat was obviously not affected by the heatwave, because it was already harvested by then. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/swmap.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/swmap.... shows that yields per state vary, but anywhere from 22% down in ID to 46.8%. The spring wheat crops are doing very poorly, and is very alarming.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/awprod.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/awprod... Here's the production charts. We had 1.83 billion bushels last year and 1.75 billion this year. Its only Spring Wheat which was affected but Winter Wheat is at all time highs. See this chart, for example: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/swyld.php https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Field_Crops/swyld.... 2021 is anamolously bad for spring wheat. 2018 through 2020 were record high years for spring wheat on the contrary. Trend for yield is up and to the right. Weather disasters happen, like the droughts we had in the 1930s that caused the Dust Bowl. At any rate, don't forget to zoom out.

adrianN 5y ago

Yes, people forget that the 2° warming you keep hearing are global averages, including the oceans. If you restrict yourself to temperatures over land, the warming is much stronger. In addition, a small rise in average temperatures leads to a large rise in the number of days with high temperatures. Here for example are charts showing the number of days >30°C in Germany since the fifties: https://twitter.com/DWD_klima/status/1407023635798319106/photo/1 https://twitter.com/DWD_klima/status/1407023635798319106/pho... They have already roughly doubled since the eighties and global warming is just starting to get serious.

throwawaysea 5y ago

The forest part of PNW didn’t experience 120 degree weather. Additionally the event was highly atypical even with climate change and is estimated to be a 1 in 1000 years event due to various unlucky factors coming together. Climate change only contributed a few degrees to the peak temperatures in this recent PNW heatwave. More info about how this weather event came about and the misattribution to climate change from an atmospheric science professor who is the foremost expert on northwest climate: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/was-global-warming-cause-of-great.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/was-global-warming-ca... https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/flawed-heatwave-report-leads-to-false.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/flawed-heatwave-repor...

SavantIdiot 5y ago
> The forest part of PNW didn’t experience 120 degree weather. Because forests provides cooling. I agree that misinformation is endemic, but I also agree that liberals love to fall on their swords for tiny missteps which is then used as ammo by real deniers which erroneously puts the two on equal footing. We're at the point where yes, maybe misinformative fear is necessary? Eh, maybe not. I dunno. But I hate how scientists nitpick themselves to death while Trumpers trash reality.