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Author Topic: Extreme weather  (Read 111456 times)

Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #660 on: August 29, 2019, 10:54:09 am »

The Bible.

Alan, philosophical beliefs aside, if you take it as your guide, then tell me when next the Red Sea gets parted and it rains for forty days and nights in a row, and who has the plans for a wooden boat that both floats, maintains its shape without collapsing of its own weight and cargo, and is big enough to carry one pair of each of everything that breaths, eats, copulates and lives on this planet at the same period of time, plus the food to feed 'em and the pails to "bucket and chuck it" whilst afloat.

Weather events. Nothing at all to do with civilized man. Hell, you might as well blame your personal version of God then, right? Your insurance company would have no difficulty trying that!

Of course you are about to get hit: for your neck of the woods, it's normal. Which is the bloody point: for us, it is not normal, never has been!

You unfortunately got hit similarly last year and 10 people died.  It seems it's more normal than you believe.

Ray

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #661 on: August 29, 2019, 10:56:38 am »

The oxygen released by plants comes not from CO2 but split water molecules during photosynthesis.  the oxygen of the CO2 is fixed into sugars during the Calvin Cycle.

That's interesting. How do you determine that an oxygen molecule emitted by a plant comes from the water it has absorbed and not the CO2 it has absorbed? Molecules of the same elements don't have individual name tags do they?  ;)

The following article explains the process.

https://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=2860

"Plants use energy from the sun to turn CO2 (carbon dioxide) and H2O (water) into sugar (C6H12O6) with oxygen (O2) left over. This is photosynthesis.

6CO2 + 6H2O gives C6H12O6 + 6O2

Count up the number of carbon atoms on each side of the arrow. If you have six on one side, you need six on the other. Now count the hydrogen atoms. (6 X 2) on one side and 12 on the other. How many oxygen atoms are on the left side?
(6 X 2) + (6 X 1) = ___. Now how many oxygen atoms are in the glucose? 6.

So you have oxygen atoms left over. That is where the O2 comes from. It is the left over material from making sugar. Just like when you make something, the scraps you cut off do not disappear. The plant breathes out the oxygen, which is good for all of us animals because we need oxygen, as you know."
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #662 on: August 29, 2019, 11:08:41 am »

That's interesting. How do you determine that an oxygen molecule emitted by a plant comes from the water it has absorbed and not the CO2 it has absorbed? Molecules of the same elements don't have individual name tags do they?  ;)

I do not have the answer to that, but I could imagine that an experiment with Oxygen isotopes (the 18-O / 16-O ratio) could give a clue.
So in a way, they can have "name tags".


Cheers,
Bart
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Rob C

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #663 on: August 29, 2019, 12:43:47 pm »

You unfortunately got hit similarly last year and 10 people died.  It seems it's more normal than you believe.

I was here. I have been here for almost thirty-eight years. I know what is normal. Neither event was normal.

That's the entire point we are trying to illustrate for you and other doubting persons.

During that period described above, I have seen winters change from regular, dramatic thunder and lightning-filled events, to not much of anything seasons. Temperatures have risen in winter, with the annual snow-topped mountains display lasting no more than a week at most. I also know it personally from the distinct relief from the pain in my hands that my Raynauds brings about in very cold weather. I used to sit here and type wearing gloves without fingertip; no need for that now. Even my electricity bills have dropped noticeably.

On the other side of the coin, regular winter rainfall has largely disappeared, in a land that relies heavily on two large reservoirs in the mountains. In its place we have witnessed these freak conditions where the clouds burst and overpower all the natural and man-made clearance systems.

The island is criss-crossed with torrentes, naturally carved gullies that drain rainfall away from the mountains and hills, down to the flatlands and the sea. These are dry all summer, fill with weeds, shrubs and even trees that seldom get removed, and then when the rain hits hard, the floods arrive to everyone in the local townhall's surprise! Locally, those in power at the sharp end have developed the blind eye that, as you know, has killed.

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #664 on: August 29, 2019, 02:05:50 pm »

In a country (with a large part of it below sea-level) that has been used to getting the water (rain and Alpine meltwater flowing through the rivers) out of the country as quickly as possible for centuries, we are now redesigning the way we manage water by buffering it in local storage facilities. This is can be put to good use in periods of prolonged drought, during which dikes shrink and become unstable and the pressure of the seawater salinates the inlands. It also allows reducing the risk of overstressing the dikes during extreme downpours. There are now town squares that are designed to be flooded to store excess water, and give it more time to sink in the soil or be transported out by the sewer system at a slower pace.

The local weather extremes have begun causing all sorts of new issues.

Cheers,
Bart
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Rob C

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #665 on: August 29, 2019, 02:55:23 pm »

In a country (with a large part of it below sea-level) that has been used to getting the water (rain and Alpine meltwater flowing through the rivers) out of the country as quickly as possible for centuries, we are now redesigning the way we manage water by buffering it in local storage facilities. This is can be put to good use in periods of prolonged drought, during which dikes shrink and become unstable and the pressure of the seawater salinates the inlands. It also allows reducing the risk of overstressing the dikes during extreme downpours. There are now town squares that are designed to be flooded to store excess water, and give it more time to sink in the soil or be transported out by the sewer system at a slower pace.

The local weather extremes have begun causing all sorts of new issues.

Cheers,
Bart

Yours is a relatively wealthy country. The challenges are also very obviously existential, which focusses minds a lot! See that happening now in the last few days pre-Brexit! Probably too little too late. How I pray I am mistaken.

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #666 on: August 29, 2019, 03:29:54 pm »

Yours is a relatively wealthy country. The challenges are also very obviously existential, which focusses minds a lot! See that happening now in the last few days pre-Brexit! Probably too little too late. How I pray I am mistaken.

I hope that everything will go as well as possible, given the circumstances. But oh, the circumstances (in both situations).
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #667 on: August 29, 2019, 04:42:23 pm »

I was here. I have been here for almost thirty-eight years. I know what is normal. Neither event was normal.

That's the entire point we are trying to illustrate for you and other doubting persons.

During that period described above, I have seen winters change from regular, dramatic thunder and lightning-filled events, to not much of anything seasons. Temperatures have risen in winter, with the annual snow-topped mountains display lasting no more than a week at most. I also know it personally from the distinct relief from the pain in my hands that my Raynauds brings about in very cold weather. I used to sit here and type wearing gloves without fingertip; no need for that now. Even my electricity bills have dropped noticeably.

On the other side of the coin, regular winter rainfall has largely disappeared, in a land that relies heavily on two large reservoirs in the mountains. In its place we have witnessed these freak conditions where the clouds burst and overpower all the natural and man-made clearance systems.

The island is criss-crossed with torrentes, naturally carved gullies that drain rainfall away from the mountains and hills, down to the flatlands and the sea. These are dry all summer, fill with weeds, shrubs and even trees that seldom get removed, and then when the rain hits hard, the floods arrive to everyone in the local townhall's surprise! Locally, those in power at the sharp end have developed the blind eye that, as you know, has killed.

Apparently the 2018 and 2019 storms weren't the whole storm history you speak of.  In 2015 there were tornadoes there.  They also had major flooding.  And in 2010 as well as 2013, there were hailstones in the nearby mainland that killed a lot of flamingos, the poor things.  Of course, hail isn't part of warming, so it's all very confusing.  Maybe your memory isn;t so good any more? 
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3220946/The-terrifying-moment-TORNADOES-struck-coast-Ibiza-storm-sent-boats-crashing-rocks-uprooted-trees-damaged-houses.html

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #668 on: August 29, 2019, 04:46:09 pm »

Apparently the 2018 and 2019 storms weren't the whole storm history you speak of.  In 2015 there were tornadoes there.  They also had major flooding.  And in 2010 as well as 2013...

Alan, this is really a recent history, doesn't add anything to your argument. Something like 100 or 500 years back might work.

Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #669 on: August 29, 2019, 05:13:23 pm »

Alan, this is really a recent history, doesn't add anything to your argument. Something like 100 or 500 years back might work.
Google doesn;t seem to go back that far. :)  It's the best I can find so far.  Any help would be appreciated. :)

In any case, Rob's complained it only happened once, this year.  I was just pointing out that memories fade, even recent memories.   ;)

Rob C

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #670 on: August 29, 2019, 05:17:48 pm »

Apparently the 2018 and 2019 storms weren't the whole storm history you speak of.  In 2015 there were tornadoes there.  They also had major flooding.  And in 2010 as well as 2013, there were hailstones in the nearby mainland that killed a lot of flamingos, the poor things.  Of course, hail isn't part of warming, so it's all very confusing.  Maybe your memory isn;t so good any more? 
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3220946/The-terrifying-moment-TORNADOES-struck-coast-Ibiza-storm-sent-boats-crashing-rocks-uprooted-trees-damaged-houses.html

Hail has damaged every car I have owned in Spain; it's nothing new and it's not the problem: the problem is the change in the timetable of these events. Can't you understand the difference that signifies?

Local flooding: our block was flooded to a depth of 62 cms, twice, back in the 80s. Fortunately, the architects understood that possibility, and the property is built higher than ground level, and so we were not troubled inside. But guess what: the flooding had nothing to do with the usual, expected winter rains: it had everything to do with the local, 100 yards away, torrente that had been neglected by the town hall and allowed to fill up with rubbish, thus defeating the thing's natural function as historical drain down to the sea.

And hail is a part of cooling and warming; that's what forms it in the first place. Warming sends it up into the sky as vapour and cooling converts it into ice. Did you imagine that polar warming would only affect the poles? That change in temperature affects everything that water and air circulation reaches.

Rob C

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #671 on: August 29, 2019, 05:22:32 pm »

Google doesn;t seem to go back that far. :)  It's the best I can find so far.  Any help would be appreciated. :)

In any case, Rob's complained it only happened once, this year.  I was just pointing out that memories fade, even recent memories.   ;)

Alan, congratulations on being given your own, personal edition of LuLa. I have to make do with the standard issue which obviously is far different to the one you receive.

Rob
« Last Edit: August 30, 2019, 04:17:06 am by Rob C »
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Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #672 on: August 29, 2019, 05:53:10 pm »

Apparently, storms have been occurring for a long time by Ibiza in the Balearic Sea., at least before 1980 the date of this mariner's forecasting aid.  Maybe Rob wasn't there to witness them so assumes the weather has always been pleasant there.  I'm still looking for the mariner's aid that Odysseus used as that goes back more than 500 years long before the industrial revolution.  Unfortunately, Google hasn't come up with anything so far.

Handbook for Forecasters in the Mediterranean, Part 2
REGIONAL FORECASTING AIDS
FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN BASIN
= __
L. R. Brody and LCDR M. J. R. Nestor, RN
Naval Environmental Prediction Research Facility
r'-'",-,
DECEMBER 1980

(from page I-20)

CYCLONIC ACTIVITY, BALEARIC SEA, RULE 27
27. Surface cyclones generally weaken while traversing the Iberian
Peninsula. These lows deepen rapidly, however, when they reach the east coast
of Spain.
CYCLONIC ACTIVITY, MISCELLANEOUS, RULES 2,. 29
28. In the Mediterranean region it is important to track the remnants of
old cold fronts closely. Several cases have been documented in which cyclogenesis originated along one of these fronts -- even after the cloudiness
associated with these fronts had disappeared -- when an upper-level, short-wave
trough (SD minimum) has approached from the west.
29. Periods of gale force norLheasterly winds (speeds up to 40 kt) occur
off the east coast of Spain as far as Ibiza when a migrating low moves over
souther.1 Spain into the area west of the Greenwich Meridian.

Alan Klein

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #673 on: August 29, 2019, 05:53:36 pm »

Ray

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #674 on: August 29, 2019, 09:31:27 pm »

I do not have the answer to that, but I could imagine that an experiment with Oxygen isotopes (the 18-O / 16-O ratio) could give a clue.
So in a way, they can have "name tags".


Maybe so, but look at the number of oxygen atoms in the sugar formula: 6CO2 + 6H2O = C6 H12 O6 (sugar) + 6O2 (waste)

The sugar molecule 'numerically' contains all the hydrogen atoms and all the oxygen atoms that comprise the six water molecules used, plus all the carbon in the six CO2 molecules used. The amount of surplus oxygen exactly matches the number of oxygen molecules in the six CO2 molecules, that is, six O2.

Also, the number of oxygen atoms that are emitted as waste, exceeds the number of oxygen atoms in the water used to make a sugar molecule, so therefore, regardless of isotope measurements, at least half of the waste oxygen must come from the CO2.

In other words, the total amount of waste oxygen that is released in this process, amounts to twice the amount of oxygen atoms in the water molecules that comprise the sugar molecule.

Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see an isotope study which showed that the waste oxygen released was all of the oxygen in the water, plus only half of the oxygen in the Carbon dioxide.

Have I successfully debunked Alan Goldhammer's claim?  ;D
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Ray

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #675 on: August 29, 2019, 10:27:32 pm »

I was here. I have been here for almost thirty-eight years. I know what is normal. Neither event was normal.

That's the entire point we are trying to illustrate for you and other doubting persons.

You are missing the most fundamental point about climate, Rob. It's always changing and always has, for reasons that are very complex and not fully understood.

Over any period, in any particular region, the average of weather events (climate) will change to some degree. Some regions will get hotter and drier, other regions will get hotter and wetter. Some regions will get colder and some regions will experience more frequent storms. Some regions will experience devastating droughts that have never been as bad in the past 40 years, and other regions will experience fairly benign and consistent weather.

However, if you look at the historical records, if you can find them, you will discover that most of the extreme weather events that have occurred in recent decades are not unprecedented, although it's to be expected that sometimes an extreme weather event in a particular region might be the worst since reasonably accurate measurements were taken, say the past 150 years.

If you go back further than 150 years, you have to rely upon proxy records and media reports which show that devastating changes in weather patterns, such as long periods of droughts, excessive heat waves, and extremely cold periods which caused the river Thames to freeze over in winter, have occurred in the past.

Why should anyone expect that we now live in an era where no severe and devastating weather events should occur, and if they do, it must be our fault for emitting CO2?
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LesPalenik

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #676 on: August 29, 2019, 11:34:07 pm »

Global warming or warming in certain geographical areas causes also more allergies. CBC reported tonight on the increased pollen levels which is a new problem not limited only to Canada.

Quote
The number of allergy sufferers has grown, research shows. One in 10 Americans struggled with hay fever in 1970, and 3 in 10 did by 2000. Asthma, which can be made worse by exposure to pollen, has become more common too, with higher rates among kids, low-income households and African Americans. Experts think climate change shares some of the blame for this. Warmer temperatures increase the level of airborne pollen because, scientists say, the growing season has, well, grown.

Between 1995 and 2011, fewer freeze-free days meant 11 to 27 days added to pollen season for most of the United States, research shows. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, which does an annual survey of allergy season, noticed that it's been growing each year. With warmer temperatures, parts of the country are going to get even worse for allergies because plants like ragweed will start migrating north, studies show. New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine will probably see a lot more pollen in the future.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/12/health/climate-change-allergies/index.html
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jeremyrh

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #677 on: August 30, 2019, 02:00:45 am »


Why should anyone expect that we now live in an era where no severe and devastating weather events should occur, and if they do, it must be our fault for emitting CO2?

Bart and I have posted dozens of links to material which shows why this is so. Just saying "oh well, everything changes all the time" is not anything that resembles a sensible argument.
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Rob C

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #678 on: August 30, 2019, 04:40:58 am »

Bart and I have posted dozens of links to material which shows why this is so. Just saying "oh well, everything changes all the time" is not anything that resembles a sensible argument.

Yes indeed, but it becomes a fixed idea that there are no penalties to pay for altering the chemical balance of our atmosphere. I only studied Physics and Chemistry up to Highers level (Scottish), but learned enough to understand that there is no such thing as a one-sided alteration to the status quo: every action brings about a reaction.

That pumping zillions of tons of car exhaust (just one source of pollutant) into the air is not going to have a reaction on that air/atmosphere is cloud cuckoo land. It surprises me that otherwise brilliant people can force themselves to believe that the world can continue doing this without it having any effect. Because nature has given us volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters is not a valid reason to continue happily on our dangerous way; if anything, those events should be seen as what they are: natural disasters, not as some sort of benign contribution to the finer quality of life. We have seen only too clearly what recent eruptions have done to the world. Those eruptions subside, and after a while the solids come back down to Earth, but what about the lighter than air particles and gasses? Imagining that our own contributions to the mess, on a daily basis and with little appetite to desist, can do anything but increase the damage beggars belief. Yet, it's what they argue.

I, for one, could not make that up.

Rob

LesPalenik

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Re: Extreme weather
« Reply #679 on: August 30, 2019, 05:04:08 am »

Yes indeed, but it becomes a fixed idea that there are no penalties to pay for altering the chemical balance of our atmosphere. I only studied Physics and Chemistry up to Highers level (Scottish), but learned enough to understand that there is no such thing as a one-sided alteration to the status quo: every action brings about a reaction.

That pumping zillions of tons of car exhaust (just one source of pollutant) into the air is not going to have a reaction on that air/atmosphere is cloud cuckoo land. It surprises me that otherwise brilliant people can force themselves to believe that the world can continue doing this without it having any effect. Because nature has given us volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters is not a valid reason to continue happily on our dangerous way; if anything, those events should be seen as what they are: natural disasters, not as some sort of benign contribution to the finer quality of life. We have seen only too clearly what recent eruptions have done to the world. Those eruptions subside, and after a while the solids come back down to Earth, but what about the lighter than air particles and gasses? Imagining that our own contributions to the mess, on a daily basis and with little appetite to desist, can do anything but increase the damage beggars belief. Yet, it's what they argue.

I, for one, could not make that up.

Rob

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