9 ms·

Centuries-old whaling logs are filling gaps in our climate knowledge

130 points by Thevet 4y ago

ortusdux 4y ago
The wine industry has kept meticulous records of harvest dates and temperatures for centuries. This study leveraged 600+ years of data to show a noticeable increase in temperature and shortening harvest window starting in 1988. https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/15/1485/2019/ https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/15/1485/2019/
- paganel 4y ago
  They used to have very nice vineyards just North of Paris in the 1300s going into the 1500s (I may be slightly wrong on this last date), that sort of info doesn't get repeated often enough in today's climate-obsessed language. Quickly found an online source here [1]: > The Paris region was mostly planted with white, particularly with a variety known then under the name of Fromenteau or Fromentot, which is known today as the Pinot Gris. I had personally gotten that info from reading this very interesting book on the history of rural France during the last 2000 years [2] [1] https://www.wineterroirs.com/2012/12/wine_in_the_middle_ages-.html https://www.wineterroirs.com/2012/12/wine_in_the_middle_ages... [2] https://www.amazon.fr/Histoire-France-rurale-origines-1340/dp/2020173328 https://www.amazon.fr/Histoire-France-rurale-origines-1340/d...
  - jonititan 4y ago
    Apparently there's also records of the Romans growing grapes for wine in Britain.
    - eesmith 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_from_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_from_the_United_Kingdom > The Romans introduced winemaking to the UK, in a period with a relatively warm climate. Their vineyards were as far north as Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, with others in Buckinghamshire and Cambridgeshire, and probably many other sites. The wines were most likely fruity and sweet, fermented with added honey, and drunk within six months.[15] Winemaking continued at least down to the time of the Normans, with over 40 vineyards in England mentioned in the Domesday Book; much of it was communion wine for the Eucharist. > ... When Henry VIII was crowned in 1509, 139 vineyards were recorded, 11 of which produced wine for the royal household ... > The twilight of British winemaking tradition was brought to an end with the onset of the First World War, as the need for crops and food, and the rationing of sugar, took priority over wine production. For the first time in 2000 years, English wines were no longer being produced in Britain. ... > Viticulture was revived in the 1970s onwards ...
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      This isn't as clear-cut as you might like if you're interpreting it as climate evidence. Warm-weather crops were grown in cold areas in the past by setting up artificial environments such as walls built close to the plants to absorb sunlight and radiate heat. We have many ways of modifying the climate to suit our needs, and even if that's not economical today (with cheap international shipping), that doesn't mean it wasn't economical in the past.
    - inawarminister 4y ago
      Yeah, I don't know why you guys don't talk about the macro climate of the era. The Roman Warm Period (coming around Caesar era to 400s, explaining the Migration Age) The Medieval Warm Period And the inverse, the Modern Cooling Period (between 1600-1800, if I'm not mistaken). All three explain macro population movements. Yes, the Germanic tribesmen were climate refugees. So were maybe the European colonists of the New World and other settler colonies.
      - vasco 4y ago
        I don't know anything about the Romans so was giving you the benefit of the doubt but when you said European seafaring were due to climate I knew you were wrong. They had nothing to do with climate and instead with discovering new lands for the pope (regardless if there were people there already and the debate about calling it discoveries).
        inawarminister 4y ago
        That's the explorers, yes, but the settlers? Remember that the 1700s was so cold relatively, the soldiers march even in summer with thick jackets and smokepipes. Though, there was also the introduction of potato, which led to massive demographic explosion in the Protestant Northern Europe. But I do see your point. Still, the Germanic tribes were the first climate refugees that we know, maybe after the 8.2 kya event [0] that led to the first cities in Fertile Crescent [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2-kiloyear_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2-kiloyear_event
        vasco 4y ago
        The settlers were mostly slaves brought from Africa, the few Europeans were there because of the natural resources or because they were deemed to incompetent for administration of the "metropolis". Also discoveries began in the 1400s, calling events of climate of 300 years later a climate induced endeavor is a big stretch.
      - jaratec 4y ago
        > Yes, the Germanic tribesmen were climate refugees. Not quite. Those germanic tribes were fleeing the huns. The crossing of the danube in 376 by the goths (as war refugees) and the crossing of the rhine in the winter 405/406 by the alans and vandals (as invaders) allowed them to escape the huns. There were extreme climate events recorded in the late antiquity, but that happened more than one century later. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536 The Justinian plague occurred 541-549, amplifying the problems of the byzantine empire. Returning to the germans, also in the late antiquity, there is an obscure and unexplained event, in the period 500-550 the vistula and elbe basins were depopulated. Germans migrated from those places or they perished there.
  - mahkeiro 4y ago
    Paris was one of the 3 main wine producing region (with Bordeaux and Bourgogne) till the end of the 1800s. But let's be honest the wine wasn't really good and the main advantage was that it was closer to the consumers.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    Well, the Champagne region is North East of Paris and the reason wine production around Paris declined isn't a change of climate.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    1500s is probably too late of an end date. The little ice age would have put a stop to that sooner. See also: the Norse colonization of Iceland and temporarily Greenland.
- xenonite 4y ago
  After quick glance on the study, I am a bit skeptical regarding proper statistical control of metropolitan temperature. In blunt words: no wonder the temperature rises if it is measured at a place that is surrounded with concrete and stone today.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    How would that explain the harvest date being 13 days earlier?
    - ludston 4y ago
      It wouldn't, but the prevalent climate change denial strategy is to look for flaws in studies rather than for supporting evidence.
      - nyokodo 4y ago
        > the prevalent climate change denial strategy is to look for flaws in studies It’s also the strategy of science and anyone who wants reliable reproducible results.
        smcl 4y ago
        That's giving climate change denialists a bit more credit than they deserve. Scientists look for inconsistencies and potential flaws, and try to understand how significant they are, if they can be controlled for or if they completely invalidate the research they're reviewing. They'll give and accept feedback and criticism, if it's valid they'll take it into account in future study, if it's not they'll explain why they think it's invalid. Climate change denialists only look for inconsistencies in others' work - if they find any whatsoever they discard the entire idea of climate change (a foregone conclusion, they already discarded it). If they find none they manufacture them by wilfully misinterpreting what is being presented. If they are confronted by problems in their own work it is hand-waved away as if it were some conspiracy or stick their head in the sand. That is, if there's any sort of pretense of science whatsoever. A more mainstream sort of climate change denial you will see is right-wing news outlets saying something along the lines of "it is snowing, so much for global warming" during a snowstorm.
tony_cannistra 4y ago
Another good example of this kind of thing is the first day of cherry blossom blooms in Kyoto. Records have been kept since 812 AD. https://www.datagraver.com/case/kyoto-cherry-blossom-full-flower-dates https://www.datagraver.com/case/kyoto-cherry-blossom-full-fl...
- brabel 4y ago
  That's a beautiful chart. It's amazing how over 1,000 years of records can now be easily seen by us, thanks to the incredible discipline and stability of the Japanese society. I also find it incredible that there were several outlier years before, that were quite close to the early blossoms we're seeing in recent years, so the earliest one in 2011 was actually not completely unprecedented... but of course, the pattern is very clear that something is way off since the 1980's and the end line is unequivocaly going down, fast.
mmastrac 4y ago
The continued support for climate change consensus from new research is good to see, but is it having an effect on the final ~25% of Americans that haven't believed in it yet? And as a curiosity, what happened in the late 2000s to cause belief in climate change to drop off a cliff, and then slowly creep back up? https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/americans-climate-views/ https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/am...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ForHackernews 4y ago
  Al Gore made a movie about climate change so the other team was obligated to violently disbelieve in it.
  - mmastrac 4y ago
    Oddly the political view tag suggests that it's an opposing team issue, but even left-leaning folks did have a blip. Maybe it's just a survey issue with the first datapoint? (I can't seem to link to the political view tab directly) The good news is that even the most staunchly anti-climate-change group, conservative republicans, are nearly at 50/50 when it comes to whether it's happening at all.
    - Izkata 4y ago
      > Maybe it's just a survey issue with the first datapoint? (I can't seem to link to the political view tab directly) Probably not because I just spotted something from that link that I find even more interesting: On the radios in the upper-right, switch to "policy support". There was a very sudden shift in 2013, from consistently down to consistently up. ...and now that I think about it, I think that might actually explain it: The sudden drop in the late 2000s might be due to the great recession. They may have accidentally measured "why do I care?" instead of "is it happening?", and maybe it took until 2013 for peoples' lives to stabilize enough to care again.
8bitsrule 4y ago
There is such a list, a wealth of benefits that follow a switch to renewable energies and other planet-greening. And they're fairly inarguable, clearly the future. But climate is much harder to pin down, the perfect red-herring, keeping us arguing minutia distracts us from acting to realize that unifying list. Unlimited universally-available energy, far less pollution, the end of energy colonialism, lowering costs, more wealth for all, better health. And less CO2 to boot. Hell we might even make it to Type 1.

130 points by Thevet 4y ago

The wine industry has kept meticulous records of harvest dates and temperatures for centuries. This study leveraged 600+ years of data to show a noticeable increase in temperature and shortening harvest window starting in 1988. https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/15/1485/2019/ https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/15/1485/2019/

paganel 4y ago
They used to have very nice vineyards just North of Paris in the 1300s going into the 1500s (I may be slightly wrong on this last date), that sort of info doesn't get repeated often enough in today's climate-obsessed language. Quickly found an online source here [1]: > The Paris region was mostly planted with white, particularly with a variety known then under the name of Fromenteau or Fromentot, which is known today as the Pinot Gris. I had personally gotten that info from reading this very interesting book on the history of rural France during the last 2000 years [2] [1] https://www.wineterroirs.com/2012/12/wine_in_the_middle_ages-.html https://www.wineterroirs.com/2012/12/wine_in_the_middle_ages... [2] https://www.amazon.fr/Histoire-France-rurale-origines-1340/dp/2020173328 https://www.amazon.fr/Histoire-France-rurale-origines-1340/d...
- jonititan 4y ago
  Apparently there's also records of the Romans growing grapes for wine in Britain.
  - eesmith 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_from_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_from_the_United_Kingdom > The Romans introduced winemaking to the UK, in a period with a relatively warm climate. Their vineyards were as far north as Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, with others in Buckinghamshire and Cambridgeshire, and probably many other sites. The wines were most likely fruity and sweet, fermented with added honey, and drunk within six months.[15] Winemaking continued at least down to the time of the Normans, with over 40 vineyards in England mentioned in the Domesday Book; much of it was communion wine for the Eucharist. > ... When Henry VIII was crowned in 1509, 139 vineyards were recorded, 11 of which produced wine for the royal household ... > The twilight of British winemaking tradition was brought to an end with the onset of the First World War, as the need for crops and food, and the rationing of sugar, took priority over wine production. For the first time in 2000 years, English wines were no longer being produced in Britain. ... > Viticulture was revived in the 1970s onwards ...
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    This isn't as clear-cut as you might like if you're interpreting it as climate evidence. Warm-weather crops were grown in cold areas in the past by setting up artificial environments such as walls built close to the plants to absorb sunlight and radiate heat. We have many ways of modifying the climate to suit our needs, and even if that's not economical today (with cheap international shipping), that doesn't mean it wasn't economical in the past.
  - inawarminister 4y ago
    Yeah, I don't know why you guys don't talk about the macro climate of the era. The Roman Warm Period (coming around Caesar era to 400s, explaining the Migration Age) The Medieval Warm Period And the inverse, the Modern Cooling Period (between 1600-1800, if I'm not mistaken). All three explain macro population movements. Yes, the Germanic tribesmen were climate refugees. So were maybe the European colonists of the New World and other settler colonies.
    - vasco 4y ago
      I don't know anything about the Romans so was giving you the benefit of the doubt but when you said European seafaring were due to climate I knew you were wrong. They had nothing to do with climate and instead with discovering new lands for the pope (regardless if there were people there already and the debate about calling it discoveries).
      - inawarminister 4y ago
        That's the explorers, yes, but the settlers? Remember that the 1700s was so cold relatively, the soldiers march even in summer with thick jackets and smokepipes. Though, there was also the introduction of potato, which led to massive demographic explosion in the Protestant Northern Europe. But I do see your point. Still, the Germanic tribes were the first climate refugees that we know, maybe after the 8.2 kya event [0] that led to the first cities in Fertile Crescent [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2-kiloyear_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2-kiloyear_event
        vasco 4y ago
        The settlers were mostly slaves brought from Africa, the few Europeans were there because of the natural resources or because they were deemed to incompetent for administration of the "metropolis". Also discoveries began in the 1400s, calling events of climate of 300 years later a climate induced endeavor is a big stretch.
    - jaratec 4y ago
      > Yes, the Germanic tribesmen were climate refugees. Not quite. Those germanic tribes were fleeing the huns. The crossing of the danube in 376 by the goths (as war refugees) and the crossing of the rhine in the winter 405/406 by the alans and vandals (as invaders) allowed them to escape the huns. There were extreme climate events recorded in the late antiquity, but that happened more than one century later. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536 The Justinian plague occurred 541-549, amplifying the problems of the byzantine empire. Returning to the germans, also in the late antiquity, there is an obscure and unexplained event, in the period 500-550 the vistula and elbe basins were depopulated. Germans migrated from those places or they perished there.
- mahkeiro 4y ago
  Paris was one of the 3 main wine producing region (with Bordeaux and Bourgogne) till the end of the 1800s. But let's be honest the wine wasn't really good and the main advantage was that it was closer to the consumers.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  Well, the Champagne region is North East of Paris and the reason wine production around Paris declined isn't a change of climate.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  1500s is probably too late of an end date. The little ice age would have put a stop to that sooner. See also: the Norse colonization of Iceland and temporarily Greenland.
xenonite 4y ago
After quick glance on the study, I am a bit skeptical regarding proper statistical control of metropolitan temperature. In blunt words: no wonder the temperature rises if it is measured at a place that is surrounded with concrete and stone today.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  How would that explain the harvest date being 13 days earlier?
  - ludston 4y ago
    It wouldn't, but the prevalent climate change denial strategy is to look for flaws in studies rather than for supporting evidence.
    - nyokodo 4y ago
      > the prevalent climate change denial strategy is to look for flaws in studies It’s also the strategy of science and anyone who wants reliable reproducible results.
      - smcl 4y ago
        That's giving climate change denialists a bit more credit than they deserve. Scientists look for inconsistencies and potential flaws, and try to understand how significant they are, if they can be controlled for or if they completely invalidate the research they're reviewing. They'll give and accept feedback and criticism, if it's valid they'll take it into account in future study, if it's not they'll explain why they think it's invalid. Climate change denialists only look for inconsistencies in others' work - if they find any whatsoever they discard the entire idea of climate change (a foregone conclusion, they already discarded it). If they find none they manufacture them by wilfully misinterpreting what is being presented. If they are confronted by problems in their own work it is hand-waved away as if it were some conspiracy or stick their head in the sand. That is, if there's any sort of pretense of science whatsoever. A more mainstream sort of climate change denial you will see is right-wing news outlets saying something along the lines of "it is snowing, so much for global warming" during a snowstorm.

tony_cannistra 4y ago

Another good example of this kind of thing is the first day of cherry blossom blooms in Kyoto. Records have been kept since 812 AD. https://www.datagraver.com/case/kyoto-cherry-blossom-full-flower-dates https://www.datagraver.com/case/kyoto-cherry-blossom-full-fl...

brabel 4y ago
That's a beautiful chart. It's amazing how over 1,000 years of records can now be easily seen by us, thanks to the incredible discipline and stability of the Japanese society. I also find it incredible that there were several outlier years before, that were quite close to the early blossoms we're seeing in recent years, so the earliest one in 2011 was actually not completely unprecedented... but of course, the pattern is very clear that something is way off since the 1980's and the end line is unequivocaly going down, fast.

mmastrac 4y ago

The continued support for climate change consensus from new research is good to see, but is it having an effect on the final ~25% of Americans that haven't believed in it yet? And as a curiosity, what happened in the late 2000s to cause belief in climate change to drop off a cliff, and then slowly creep back up? https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/americans-climate-views/ https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/am...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ForHackernews 4y ago
Al Gore made a movie about climate change so the other team was obligated to violently disbelieve in it.
- mmastrac 4y ago
  Oddly the political view tag suggests that it's an opposing team issue, but even left-leaning folks did have a blip. Maybe it's just a survey issue with the first datapoint? (I can't seem to link to the political view tab directly) The good news is that even the most staunchly anti-climate-change group, conservative republicans, are nearly at 50/50 when it comes to whether it's happening at all.
  - Izkata 4y ago
    > Maybe it's just a survey issue with the first datapoint? (I can't seem to link to the political view tab directly) Probably not because I just spotted something from that link that I find even more interesting: On the radios in the upper-right, switch to "policy support". There was a very sudden shift in 2013, from consistently down to consistently up. ...and now that I think about it, I think that might actually explain it: The sudden drop in the late 2000s might be due to the great recession. They may have accidentally measured "why do I care?" instead of "is it happening?", and maybe it took until 2013 for peoples' lives to stabilize enough to care again.

8bitsrule 4y ago

There is such a list, a wealth of benefits that follow a switch to renewable energies and other planet-greening. And they're fairly inarguable, clearly the future. But climate is much harder to pin down, the perfect red-herring, keeping us arguing minutia distracts us from acting to realize that unifying list. Unlimited universally-available energy, far less pollution, the end of energy colonialism, lowering costs, more wealth for all, better health. And less CO2 to boot. Hell we might even make it to Type 1.