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> According to records, it previously melted fully in 1933, 1959, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2017, 2018, 2021 and now 2022. > Before 1933, it is thought to have last me

by bArray 4y ago

> According to records, it previously melted fully in 1933, 1959, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2017, 2018, 2021 and now 2022. > Before 1933, it is thought to have last melted completely in the 1700s. Just to be clear, Scotland is now far more populated and has more resources than it did in the 1700s. It's entirely possible that they were not able to regularly check the environment and records were not kept well then. I think people really need to be careful of "X trend happens, therefore global warming". You could suggest that this _could_ be caused by global warming, but you shouldn't say that it definitely is. (The BBC article carefully avoids making the claim also.) This year for example saw a heat wave in the UK, but at the same time, very cold weather in NZ (snow in the South island which is rare). So overall it appeared to be concentrated heat rather than an increase in global heat.

Marazan 4y ago
No, global temperatures are up this year. As for checking snow in Scotland its pretty easy, there's a limited number of places of "perpetual snow". EDIT: Not that "checking on snow in the past was harder" helps your argument in any way. If it was harder to check for snow a couple of hundred years ago then that makes it more likely that all snow _hadn't_ melted which is teh opposite of what you need to argue to argue against global warming.
- jandrese 4y ago
  Global temperatures are up every year.
  - Marazan 4y ago
    Yes, its getting warmer, globally.
- bArray 4y ago
  > No, global temperatures are up this year. I haven't checked, but I also don't doubt it. The point is that it's unlikely to have been this specific event. There has likely been many similar events in the past, for example when some of the rivers dried up, there were warnings from people hundreds of years ago carved into the stones. > As for checking snow in Scotland its pretty easy, there's a limited number of places of "perpetual snow". This may not have always been common knowledge, or if it was, something not of interest or worthy of daily check-ups. > EDIT: Not that "checking on snow in the past was harder" helps your argument in any way. If it was harder to check for snow a couple of hundred years ago then that makes it more likely that all snow _hadn't_ melted which is teh opposite of what you need to argue to argue against global warming. It was harder not only because of environment, but also because there was no interest in modern global warming back then, there was not the investment to pay people to investigate it. Lastly, I'm not arguing against global warming. I'm arguing that we should be more careful about attributing every single abnormal environment change to it.
smcl 4y ago
This is about patterns though, not single events. The point isn’t just that Scotland is snow-free with record-breaking heat this year, but that it has been increasingly snow-free and hotter in recent times. Has NZ been getting colder at the same time rest of the world is heating up, or did they just have one colder winter than normal?
- bArray 4y ago
  > This is about patterns though, not single events. I agree, and I don't think we know enough. > The point isn’t just that Scotland is snow-free with record-breaking heat this year, but that it has been increasingly snow-free and hotter in recent times. I agree that snow coverage has seen a trend of reduction, my point is this specific event has happened before, and we should be careful about how we handle that. > Has NZ been getting colder at the same time rest of the world is heating up, or did they just have one colder winter than normal? It was one unusually cold winter at the same time as a heatwave in the UK.
arethuza 4y ago
"Scotland is now far more populated and has more resources than it did in the 1700s" I suspect the wilder parts of Scotland are actually far less populated than they used to be - the original populations of many areas being systematically removed by landowners in favour of sheep or deer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances Edit: Of course, as well as the clearances there is the fact that lots of remote spots just aren't sustainable as they used to be. Working out how to keep viable populations in remoter areas is something Scotland struggles with to this day.
- KineticLensman 4y ago
  > Working out how to keep viable populations in remoter areas is something Scotland struggles with to this day Not just Scotland. I travelled in the Loire valley (France) recently and was struck by how dead many of the small villages and towns were. Of course, if you get the answer wrong in the other direction, then you get local populations swamped by incomers, with affordable local housing replaced by multiple AirBNBs (e.g. parts of the SW of England).
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  This isn't the case. Less people are living there relative to the 1800s, but there are still a lot of people living there because so many people choose to retire there (the Islands are largely populated by the English now). And these places are still tourist destinations. The actual wilder parts, like the Cairngorms, were never populated because you can't survive there. The clearances happened in areas that are still populated today, and had some degree of arable/pastoral activity.
  - arethuza 4y ago
    The glens in the Cairngorms have quite a lot of old shielings - where people would live with their livestock in the summers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shieling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shieling
    - 4y ago
_ph_ 4y ago
It is always possible, that a measurement of any kind is flawed, though I consider it highly unlikely (I was very suprised, that there were any spots in Scotland, which have snow all year around at all, so they are probably fameous and any melting would be easily noticed). But that isn't the point. It could rather be a local phenomenum. It is always likely, that the local climate of a spot develops somewhat independent of the global climate. The thing is: we can't "measure" the global climate. The global climate is the result of thousands of independant measurements. Like the one presented here. And they speak a very clear message, which to no suprise follows the raise of CO2 in the atmosphere.
- irthomasthomas 4y ago
  It feels like you really cherry picked his comment to reach that conclusion. What about 1933 and 1959? And snow in NZ?
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    I am really not understanding what you want to say. And of course you would have had years without snow in the past, as there are always warmer and colder years in any region, there are always fluctuations. But the average temperature determines whether a year where the snow completely melts off is rather likely or unlikely. So the frequency of the snow-free years is a direct measure of the average temperature in that region of the world. And snow in NZ doesn't tell anything at all on its own. It might just have been a cold year in that region, it could even be, that climate change would mean a cool down for that region. Climate change is about the temperature increase in the sum over all the world. It doesn't mean that every part of the globe equally warms up. A lot of the local temperatures are determined by geographical features and resulting stable weather influences. Take the gulf stream. That makes Europe much warmer than the equivalent parts of the nothern America. But if that fails due to climate change, temperatures in Europe would considerably go down.
- bArray 4y ago
  > [..] so they are probably fameous and any melting would be easily noticed). Famous in the 1700's? I believe the Scottish life was a lot more humble than it is now. I imagine these all-year snow locations would be more remote, harder to access and not a leisurely walk. > The thing is: we can't "measure" the global climate. Surely we can? It shouldn't be too difficult to have many weather stations around the world to make such measurements. Even satellite data could be quite accurate. > And they speak a very clear message, which to no suprise follows the raise of CO2 in the atmosphere. I'm not sure there is a clear message. I remember reading a while back of the effect of methane vs carbon dioxide on global warming, and methane by tonne was exceptionally worse. Maybe we should be concentrating efforts on ozone?
xbmcuser 4y ago
UK has been so hot and dry this year that you are getting wild fires in England. WTF is wrong with people here are you guys so brainwashed by all the propaganda from oil and gas companies that you need to qualify every data point about global warming as maybe. In the last year we have got a huge number of data points from around the world showing effects of global warming but each article on hackernews about it top comment is a qualifying statement. Stop being ostriches and burying your head in the sand.
- xbmcuser 4y ago
  Even the oil and gas companies realise they cant gaslight people anymore about the obvious signs of global warming so have changed the argument to global warming being man made or or not. Not that global warming is not happening.
  - jfengel 4y ago
    People are slow to get the message. I still see every stage of denialism. And the denialists at each stage never argue with each other, because none of them actually care about what's real. All they care about is the conclusion, that anybody who wants to do anything is an alarmist, and nothing in fact needs to be done.
    - junofan 4y ago
      It should be possible to advocate for solutions that more people actually want. Fifty years of preaching eco-asceticism hasn’t gotten us where we need to be.
      - jfengel 4y ago
        Which is totally unrelated to fifty years of people declaring that absolutely nothing at all must be done, no matter how reasonable, as it got harder and harder to fix.
    - throwawaylinux 4y ago
II2II 4y ago
Stories like this are intended to illustrate the probable effects of global warming in a fashion that most people can visualize since most people would be unable to understand the consequences when the data is presented in the form of "a X degree increase in global mean temperature." Heck, even people who do research in climate change would have difficulty visualizing the impact since local variations in temperature across the year is effectively noise that is about two orders of magnitude greater than the signal. This is an illustration, not proof. If it is being used as a data point in any research, it is one among many.
- bArray 4y ago
  Fair point. To make the global impact more clear, I would say something like: "Scotland is amongst many locations this year around the world with reduced snow coverage, including X, Y, Z.". That makes a stronger case for global warming in my opinion, and is still understandable locally.
zztop44 4y ago
NZ South Island is a popular skiing destination that sees snow every year and has glaciers. Or do you mean snow at sea level or something? Edit: I did some googling. It seems that snow at sea level in October is rare but not unprecedented.
- bArray 4y ago
  It hasn't happened in a while, and coincided with the opposite side of the world experiencing a heatwave.

by bArray 4y ago

Marazan 4y ago

No, global temperatures are up this year. As for checking snow in Scotland its pretty easy, there's a limited number of places of "perpetual snow". EDIT: Not that "checking on snow in the past was harder" helps your argument in any way. If it was harder to check for snow a couple of hundred years ago then that makes it more likely that all snow _hadn't_ melted which is teh opposite of what you need to argue to argue against global warming.

jandrese 4y ago
Global temperatures are up every year.
- Marazan 4y ago
  Yes, its getting warmer, globally.
bArray 4y ago
> No, global temperatures are up this year. I haven't checked, but I also don't doubt it. The point is that it's unlikely to have been this specific event. There has likely been many similar events in the past, for example when some of the rivers dried up, there were warnings from people hundreds of years ago carved into the stones. > As for checking snow in Scotland its pretty easy, there's a limited number of places of "perpetual snow". This may not have always been common knowledge, or if it was, something not of interest or worthy of daily check-ups. > EDIT: Not that "checking on snow in the past was harder" helps your argument in any way. If it was harder to check for snow a couple of hundred years ago then that makes it more likely that all snow _hadn't_ melted which is teh opposite of what you need to argue to argue against global warming. It was harder not only because of environment, but also because there was no interest in modern global warming back then, there was not the investment to pay people to investigate it. Lastly, I'm not arguing against global warming. I'm arguing that we should be more careful about attributing every single abnormal environment change to it.

smcl 4y ago

This is about patterns though, not single events. The point isn’t just that Scotland is snow-free with record-breaking heat this year, but that it has been increasingly snow-free and hotter in recent times. Has NZ been getting colder at the same time rest of the world is heating up, or did they just have one colder winter than normal?

bArray 4y ago
> This is about patterns though, not single events. I agree, and I don't think we know enough. > The point isn’t just that Scotland is snow-free with record-breaking heat this year, but that it has been increasingly snow-free and hotter in recent times. I agree that snow coverage has seen a trend of reduction, my point is this specific event has happened before, and we should be careful about how we handle that. > Has NZ been getting colder at the same time rest of the world is heating up, or did they just have one colder winter than normal? It was one unusually cold winter at the same time as a heatwave in the UK.

arethuza 4y ago

"Scotland is now far more populated and has more resources than it did in the 1700s" I suspect the wilder parts of Scotland are actually far less populated than they used to be - the original populations of many areas being systematically removed by landowners in favour of sheep or deer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances Edit: Of course, as well as the clearances there is the fact that lots of remote spots just aren't sustainable as they used to be. Working out how to keep viable populations in remoter areas is something Scotland struggles with to this day.

KineticLensman 4y ago
> Working out how to keep viable populations in remoter areas is something Scotland struggles with to this day Not just Scotland. I travelled in the Loire valley (France) recently and was struck by how dead many of the small villages and towns were. Of course, if you get the answer wrong in the other direction, then you get local populations swamped by incomers, with affordable local housing replaced by multiple AirBNBs (e.g. parts of the SW of England).
skippyboxedhero 4y ago
This isn't the case. Less people are living there relative to the 1800s, but there are still a lot of people living there because so many people choose to retire there (the Islands are largely populated by the English now). And these places are still tourist destinations. The actual wilder parts, like the Cairngorms, were never populated because you can't survive there. The clearances happened in areas that are still populated today, and had some degree of arable/pastoral activity.
- arethuza 4y ago
  The glens in the Cairngorms have quite a lot of old shielings - where people would live with their livestock in the summers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shieling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shieling
  - 4y ago

_ph_ 4y ago

It is always possible, that a measurement of any kind is flawed, though I consider it highly unlikely (I was very suprised, that there were any spots in Scotland, which have snow all year around at all, so they are probably fameous and any melting would be easily noticed). But that isn't the point. It could rather be a local phenomenum. It is always likely, that the local climate of a spot develops somewhat independent of the global climate. The thing is: we can't "measure" the global climate. The global climate is the result of thousands of independant measurements. Like the one presented here. And they speak a very clear message, which to no suprise follows the raise of CO2 in the atmosphere.

irthomasthomas 4y ago
It feels like you really cherry picked his comment to reach that conclusion. What about 1933 and 1959? And snow in NZ?
- _ph_ 4y ago
  I am really not understanding what you want to say. And of course you would have had years without snow in the past, as there are always warmer and colder years in any region, there are always fluctuations. But the average temperature determines whether a year where the snow completely melts off is rather likely or unlikely. So the frequency of the snow-free years is a direct measure of the average temperature in that region of the world. And snow in NZ doesn't tell anything at all on its own. It might just have been a cold year in that region, it could even be, that climate change would mean a cool down for that region. Climate change is about the temperature increase in the sum over all the world. It doesn't mean that every part of the globe equally warms up. A lot of the local temperatures are determined by geographical features and resulting stable weather influences. Take the gulf stream. That makes Europe much warmer than the equivalent parts of the nothern America. But if that fails due to climate change, temperatures in Europe would considerably go down.
bArray 4y ago
> [..] so they are probably fameous and any melting would be easily noticed). Famous in the 1700's? I believe the Scottish life was a lot more humble than it is now. I imagine these all-year snow locations would be more remote, harder to access and not a leisurely walk. > The thing is: we can't "measure" the global climate. Surely we can? It shouldn't be too difficult to have many weather stations around the world to make such measurements. Even satellite data could be quite accurate. > And they speak a very clear message, which to no suprise follows the raise of CO2 in the atmosphere. I'm not sure there is a clear message. I remember reading a while back of the effect of methane vs carbon dioxide on global warming, and methane by tonne was exceptionally worse. Maybe we should be concentrating efforts on ozone?

xbmcuser 4y ago

UK has been so hot and dry this year that you are getting wild fires in England. WTF is wrong with people here are you guys so brainwashed by all the propaganda from oil and gas companies that you need to qualify every data point about global warming as maybe. In the last year we have got a huge number of data points from around the world showing effects of global warming but each article on hackernews about it top comment is a qualifying statement. Stop being ostriches and burying your head in the sand.

xbmcuser 4y ago
Even the oil and gas companies realise they cant gaslight people anymore about the obvious signs of global warming so have changed the argument to global warming being man made or or not. Not that global warming is not happening.
- jfengel 4y ago
  People are slow to get the message. I still see every stage of denialism. And the denialists at each stage never argue with each other, because none of them actually care about what's real. All they care about is the conclusion, that anybody who wants to do anything is an alarmist, and nothing in fact needs to be done.
  - junofan 4y ago
    It should be possible to advocate for solutions that more people actually want. Fifty years of preaching eco-asceticism hasn’t gotten us where we need to be.
    - jfengel 4y ago
      Which is totally unrelated to fifty years of people declaring that absolutely nothing at all must be done, no matter how reasonable, as it got harder and harder to fix.
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago

II2II 4y ago

Stories like this are intended to illustrate the probable effects of global warming in a fashion that most people can visualize since most people would be unable to understand the consequences when the data is presented in the form of "a X degree increase in global mean temperature." Heck, even people who do research in climate change would have difficulty visualizing the impact since local variations in temperature across the year is effectively noise that is about two orders of magnitude greater than the signal. This is an illustration, not proof. If it is being used as a data point in any research, it is one among many.

bArray 4y ago
Fair point. To make the global impact more clear, I would say something like: "Scotland is amongst many locations this year around the world with reduced snow coverage, including X, Y, Z.". That makes a stronger case for global warming in my opinion, and is still understandable locally.

zztop44 4y ago

NZ South Island is a popular skiing destination that sees snow every year and has glaciers. Or do you mean snow at sea level or something? Edit: I did some googling. It seems that snow at sea level in October is rare but not unprecedented.

bArray 4y ago
It hasn't happened in a while, and coincided with the opposite side of the world experiencing a heatwave.