You are ignorant of the actual climate research - so you have no idea what is or is not "panic". To whom? Your refusal to comprehend prevents me from "proving" anything to you. Directly. Not plausibly. Again, you assert as "plausible" something that is directly contradicted by the physical evidence and theoretical arguments of a scientific paper directly in front of you. The research says otherwise. The research paper in front of you does that. It's not I, but the AGW researchers, who found the thresholds and deduced their implications. You have repeatedly claimed as "plausible" what is directly contradicted by published research, and you based your argument on a foolish misreading (or more likely no reading) of the article in front of you. Your argument, btw, was invalid in itself - regardless of the facts. You can't distribute an average evenly like that. I already handed you plenty, in that paper. Read what is in front of you. The AGW researchers - especially in the paper I referred you to - say that is false. According to all the data, evidence, and theoretical calculation, from the researchers in all related fields, the "process" (wrong word, again) will not be continuous, but cross thresholds and pass tipping points and so forth. That's the major conclusion of the article I referred you to. That would of course be normal - the borders of ecosystems very often change suddenly, far more rapidly than the driving parameters, as they first lag and then catch up. The northern boundaries of US tree species, for example, often lag the temperature regime changes until a sudden event (forest fire, say) opens the door. As noted: you are almost completely ignorant of the physical situation. You don't know what the research findings are, you don't know what the expected consequences of AGW are, and everything you claim about them is wrong - wrong in exactly the way the US wingnut media feed puts out. Once again rejecting information, and willfully maintaining ignorance. The question still, whether you will ever be able to answer it or not: Why is the US fascist movement sending its minions - the people who, like Schmelzer, refuse to accept information from any reality based or scientific source - to trash AGW and everyone trying to slow it or adjust to it while time remains?
Sure but at least they had a degrees of certainty as to what to expect year to year. Regular seasons for example. Confidence in their crop planting so they could plan their labor needs etc...
Nonsense. The Nile flooded regularly and predictably. When it failed a couple of years in a row there was famine, and people became refugees. Had Egypt relied on rainfall agriculture it would never have become such an empire, and had Egypt relied on rainfall and then had to deal with multi-year droughts followed by torrential rains and then more multi-year droughts most of its empire population would have had to move or die. One of the major issues around the expected AGW consequences is that it will create climate zones humans have never seen - and it will in many cases create them rapidly, too quickly for agriculture to adjust.
Yes. But the idea that the increased volatility means there will be no regularity at all is nonsensical alarmism too. Move from Europe to the South, and you will observe more volatility in the tropical region today too. Does it follow that there is no regularity in the tropical weather? No. If the tropical climate zone moves North, the corresponding volatility will move North too. And the volatility we see there today is is the volatility we have to expect in that shifted tropical zone. As predictably as the rain in the regions in the South. Where it was quite hot at that time too. Of course, depending on big rivers gives the advantage that it averages over the whole basin of the river. But serious droughts remain serious droughts even with such an averaging. There have been also enough empires which had to rely on rainfall. That one can invent extreme scenarios of volatility which would make life quite hard is obvious. The question is how relevant these extreme versions will be. The other question is how much one needs to develop agriculture in such regions. This, of course, depends on the average rainfall - if there is, in the average, not enough water for agriculture, then there will be none. If there will be, then all what is necessary is to find ways to collect and store enough water of the torrential rains so that it can be used for several years. Often enough, this is done by Nature itself, with groundwater. If there is enough precipitation, the groundwater level will be sufficiently high to be accessible. If there are multi-year droughts, the groundwater level will, of course, decrease. But then comes the torrential rain, and all that one has to care about is that most of the water remains in that region, increasing the groundwater level. So all one has to do is to build local dams and so on. In the mountains, that structure with terraces will do the job. Of course, there are regions already quite hot today, where higher temperature may lead to something never seen by humans yet. So what? There is not that much agriculture now in these regions. Remember, what matters is the world market. All the alarmist scenarios have to presuppose that the world market fails - else, in particular, the migration will be simply the standard one, from rural areas to the local towns, and the food to the towns comes from the world market. This system has to fail, so that, remember, Riyad cannot buy any food on that world market as it does today. But this world market does not depend much on those hottest regions we have today. So what happens there will not make a big difference. The "too quickly for agriculture to adjust" is an alarmist meme of no value. The time scales are different. Of course, the climate change may be fast, even very fast, if comparison with natural climate change events. But this is the sort of hundreds vs. thousands years. If there is a fast climate change, agriculture will not need hundreds of years to adapt. Tens of years will be sufficient. There is no base at all to think that the whole Earth becomes uninhabitable for humans. The problem with Egypt is that there is no rain, so that most of the country is simply desert. This can, in principle, change with warming, last but not least AGW predicts more precipitation. If there will be sufficient rain, so that one can start agriculture where we have desert now, then even much more people will be able to live there. Note that clouds also lead to more moderate climate (less temperature differences between day and night). Actually I see no base for such a move. As explained, what matters in a global world is the average agricultural production. To the reader of your claims. It is not only me who ignores empty claims as cheap alarmism, but would take such claims seriously if supported by quotes from and references to scientific literature. (And, of course, my "refusal to comprehend" is your fantasy, a cheap attempt to hide the absence of counterarguments on your side.) No. This is not how a civilized argumentation works. You make the claim, thus, you have the burden of proof. Thus, you have to find and present a quote which makes the point. So, quote the paper if you think one of my claims is wrong. The point being? I have questioned neither the existence of these thresholds nor that they have some implications. Instead, I have described such implications (sharp borders between different ecosystems, with those visible in the mountains as a particular example accessible to almost every mountain tourist. You have repeatedly claimed as "plausible" what is directly contradicted by published research, and you based your argument on a foolish misreading (or more likely no reading) of the article in front of you. This makes no sense. I have not distributed averages evenly. (I have distributed evenly only expectations about changes, and only under the assumption that there is no additional information available how the changes will be distributed.) Really? Quote them. I'm interested. You completely ignore the explanation I have given. I think you are intelligent enough to understand the difference, so I think you intentionally mislead the readers. In particular, I have not questioned that at a given point in space, the climate change will lead to discontinuous changes of the ecosystems because of these thresholds. But this discontinuity is part of a continuous movement of the border between the different ecosystems. This is about something completely different, and irrelevant. Why do you think I would even try to answer such a completely incorrect question? Why do you beat your children every day?
oh... dear ...it is no invention, it is actually happening... A 17million hectare inferno is one such observation. One could invent normalized scenarios that defy the observations sure...but that is more to do with fear of the reality than anything else. A state of intellectual cowardice fueled by intense emotional insecurity..
It's the central, basic, physical context of the research in the article you have not read, the one I referred to, above. Nothing is more relevant. It's the reason the researchers are warning you - if their findings are correct, if their analyses hold up (they have already been checked and passed peer review and so forth) some important and globally significant consequences of AGW are going to hit suddenly, without much warning, in regions full of people and regions supporting the planet's most productive farming. The farming will be damaged beyond rehabilitation, the millions of people will move or die. Yep. You were trying to "explain" a mistake - I don't care why you made it. Bullshitters "explaining" their bullshit are just leading their target on. No, it doesn't. As you have been told, many times: Distribution, not absolute amount, is the key. There's going to be plenty of extra rain on the planet - more rain than we have now - according to the AGW researchers. The average yearly global rainfall will increase, they predict. This will in general and on average harm, rather than help, agriculture - according to the research findings. This extra rain will not reduce aridity in general or on average - there will also be more severe and more widespread severe drought and desertification (longer and more severe droughts over wider areas, enough to cross one or more of those thresholds over 20% of the land surface of the planet) - but rather add to its damage; again: that's the "expected" event. Of course we could get lucky, planetwide. And there probably won't be in those future regions. They are expected to include a large fraction of the most productive farming regions on the planet, and also of the regions of dense population. Those millions of people will move or die, according to the most likely and expected consequences of AGW if it is not curbed. And when that changes, as expected for 20% of the planet's landscape by the AGW researchers and those in all related scientific fields, the empire falls - the agriculture is destroyed, the people move or die. That is one of the more common ways that empires have fallen in the past. You haven't read the evidence provided you so far (in this or any thread), you don't learn anything from my posts (here or anywhere), and I am not arguing with you - so that's three reasons not to do your homework for you. Do your own homework. Or don't - continue posting rightwing corporate media feeds and carrying water for the scum of the earth. Your choice. And such scenarios becoming much more common and widespread, including showing up and becoming the new normality where they have never been before, is a major expected consequence of AGW according to the research findings - yep. See, they (the AGW researchers) did not have to "imagine" anything - it's the the most likely future reality that fit their research findings. It's one of the "expected" consequences of AGW. It fell out of their data, as soon as they crunched it. It fell out of the data of everybody who had data - even researchers in distantly related fields. And it was serious - scientists are human beings. Many of them have family in the Yangtze River lowlands, personal connections to the vast delta and floodplain that is most of Bangladesh, a liking for the communities and social setups of Mexico, Texas, Alaska, or the American midwest. That's why the people who know what they are talking about are trying to warn the people - like you - who don't. Of course you don't have to listen to them, but as the question recurs: Why would you not? What's up with these minions of US Republican media manipulation?
An entire paper is right in front of you. Read it. All of your claims are wrong. But I have handed you an entire article, chosen for its ability to correct almost all of your wrong claims in a single read - against my stated policy of never falling for your deflections or running errands for you. You're welcome. Now read the article. That description functions as a denial of the findings of a journal article - peer reviewed, published reputably - by AGW researchers. To anyone who has read the article, it reads as an attempt to avoid discussing the findings of the article by misrepresenting them, thereby avoiding their nature and implications. Of course you haven't "questioned" them - you haven't even acknowledged their existence. The "thresholds" in the article are not sharp borders between different ecosystems, and sharp borders between ecosystems are not the "thresholds" in the article. You are using the wrong word, using it after being corrected, and using it to hide a key concept. The concept you are hiding by misrepresentation is central to the article, the matter of most significant finding, the concept of the main point. Nothing you have posted deals with the findings in that article, or AGW research, or anything else in the posts you claim to be answering. You seem to be attempting to deflect the thread down a path of irrelevancies, one confusion leading to another until the subject - AGW and related research, findings and implications - is lost altogether. Briefly: You are bullshitting. The recurrent question is: Why? Why has the US corporate rightwing authoritarians's media wing sent its minions out into the big world to trash AGW, its research and researchers, and anyone who pays attention to its findings and implications?
What about the mutation and rise of new pathogens in different parts of the world, perhaps like what we have now? The ecosystem is an integrated system and when some species are affected, a domino effect begins which eventually spread throughout all biological life. When a biome (of any size) becomes unbalanced, usually bad things begin to happen.
I would recommend you not to speculate about emotional insecurity of other people. It is well-known that such speculations usually tell more about the own emotional state of those who write such things than about the people they speculate about. The question is not if one or another scenario exists, but how relevant is this scenario for the whole world. 17 ha out of 150 mio sq. km = 15 000 mio ha not covered by water is not impressive, it is 0.1%. Only if your trivial misinterpretation of what follows from such thresholds on the ground would be true, there would be no warning. In reality, the borders between different ecosystems will move, and the effect that at some places there will be sudden changes of the ecosystem will be there from the start, and the change of the boundaries will be a warning for all those living close to these boundaries. No, I was explaining you a mistake you have made. But obviously you simply ignore any arguments. Nonsense. The first thing, which matters most, is the absolute amount. The distribution comes, in importance, on the second place. If you would apply some common sense, this would be obvious to you. You obviously don't. Alarmists cannot do it. No. This will somewhere harm, but in general and on average it will be positive. And the research findings you have presented up to now do not show that it will in general and on average harm. (Harm in general and on average out of more rain you can construct only if you focus on the adaptation costs. So, yes, wherever the climate changes, and people have to adapt to the new climate, there will be some costs. This is a triviality too, and the costs will be much lower than in the horror scenarios because most of them will be covered by the costs of maintenance of the infrastructure, but this is another question.) But, ok, let's take a look at what means this 20% number. First of all, let's ask the question what is the part of the land surface which does not go through any such threshold. This would be, say, n% (n for "nothing changes".) It means that in these n% nature remains essentially unchanged, the same ecosystem remains on the same place. If this covers a quite large part, say, 60%, it also means that in these 60% the agriculture does not even have to change. What grows in free, uncontrolled nature remains unchanged, thus, the actual plants of that ecosystem remain the ones adapted best to the new climate too. Thus, for those areas nothing changes, and regarding these areas one can simply forget about climate change. Note that there will be situations where the ecosystem changes everywhere, but you will not even recognize that some climate has changed without any explicit comparisons with old photographies or so. That's the same mountains. Imagine it becomes colder. All the bushes will be down in the area where now is wood, in the areas with bushes today there will be grass, and where we have grass now there will be nothing. Or, if it becomes warmer, the change will happen in the reverse direction. But for the tourists, the whole impression will remain unchanged. He will see, during his trips, the same trees, the same bushes, the same flowers in the grass, simply at different places. So, n will be zero, but the flora and fauna of the whole mountainous region will not change, and the climate change appears simply irrelevant. Agriculture, if it was there, moves together with the grass/bushes/wood, and given that the distances are small, there is not even a necessity to move from the villages. So, a large n means simply a large region where climate change is essentially irrelevant, and this region will be even greater than these n% of the land area. In other words, for a quite catastrophic climate change these n% have to be quite small, almost irrelevant. If the climate change is large, essential, then these n% will be negligible, not? Of course, the number depends on the time scale, Berdugo at al use up to 2100. Do you have any expectations about that n% from your AGW research? If you have them, give them. Whatever, I restrict myself to the consideration of the border cases, with the n% being quite large (then climate change becomes irrelevant, and will certainly not have any catastrophic impact, because the ecosystems in these large parts remain viable), resp. quite small so that we can ignore them. What happens if they are so small that we can ignore them? Then my first, "erroneous" line about a%=20% more arid meaning w%=80% less arid becomes a good approximation. The correct formula would be w% = 100%-a%-n%. Let's formulate it in another way. Together with your 20% of land becoming more arid in such a serious way that thresholds are crossed, we have also n% of land area where the actual ecosystems remain viable and will not be replaced by other ecosystems, so that the consequences of climate change are sufficiently small, and 80%-n% areas which become less arid in such a serious way that these thresholds are crossed in the other direction. The choice of a particular value of the independent parameter n I can leave to you. It would be, of course, nice if you could support this choice with quotes from the scientific literature, the paper where that 20% number originates from would be the appropriate place. In the Berdugo et al paper I have not found it, but once the AGW researchers are not alarmists (at least you claim so), it would be strange if they got a number for the areas becoming more arid so much that they cross some thresholds, but are unable to get one for the areas which don't cross thresholds at all and those becoming less arid so much that they cross thresholds.
So, you reject the elementary base for scientific discussions, namely that the burden of proof for your claims is on your side. And give me, as a homework, the task of finding evidence for your claims. Nice try. Once you are unable to find anything, give it as a homework to your pupils. Not really uncommon that some professors use students to do the serious research, with the results published then in their own papers, and the students may be happy if they become coauthors. The only problem with this is that I'm not your pupil, and you are not in the position to give me homework. I just mention that you have not done your homework, namely to present evidence for your own claims. So, your claims remain alarmist fantasies unsupported by any evidence. (And, of course, the claim that I have not read the article is a wild fantasy of iceaura, as usual.) That's simple. Warnings for some particular areas are reasonable, no problem with this, and important for the people living there. Alarmism is another thing. It creates panic among people even in Sweden, which can only gain from a warming. I would have no problem, if articles about climate change would look like this: "In general, it is predicted that there will be more precipitation. While this can cause some problems in itself, given that there will be also much more heavy rain events, so that the infrastructure has to be improved to handle them, and many things, like crops, have to be changed, this is in general, after adaptation, positive for agriculture. Unfortunately, there will be also some areas, around 20%, which become even more arid than now. In these regions, some problems may arise. In particular, ..." Or so: "Thanks to the actual warming and the increase in CO2, which is necessary for plant growth, the world has, in the average, become greener. Nonetheless, there are also some areas which became less green. This is also bad for these regions, and it is necessary to consider the causes and what can be done to improve the situation. One such region is ...."
What behavior do you consider to be an expression of panic and alarmism? Any informed preventive action in the face of available alarming data is a sign of panic? When did you start to equate prudence with panic and alarmism? https://www.worldometers.info/
CO2 is necessary for all oxygen dependend organisms, including virulent organisms and insects, and predatory organisms. You cannot cherry pick the benign effects without considering what other organisms in general benefit from a greener ecosystem somewhere. You want to live in a tropical rain forest, never mind arid desert? Good luck. Ever had to deal with mold in your attic, to name one common nuisance. https://www.pesticideresearch.com/s...est-mgmt-bulletins/viruses-bacteria-and-mold/
You have said nothing that refutes my point. Deliberately fabricating a normalizing situation when the observations blatantly demonstrate other wise, is considerably more dangerous than any alarmist tendencies others may have. The current state of the now COVID world can be tracked back to those who sort to fabricate normalizing situations, chronically underestimating the reality we face. Countries like Russian, are not immune to this underestimation ( denial ) factor. Underestimating the reality due to fear of that reality is simply denial of that reality. Thus the emotional maturity and honesty of our leaders comes to the fore. So I see no reason to alter my position and you have yet to offer a proper refutation, in fact you have demonstrated that proper, honest and courageous discussion is impossible.
How can intelligent people like Schmelzer remain so hopelessly naive in the face of overwhelming evidence that Global Warming and Climate Change on a global scale will have impact on a global scale! Schmelzer, Can you even comprehend what that means? Climate change on a global scale? You talk about Sweden benefitting from GW? More rainfall here, less rainfall there? Greener here, more arid there? 20% of land becomes uninhabitable for large numbers of population? Land loss due to rising oceans? Displacement of millions of people and wild life crowding in small countries like Sweden? Ever heard of the exponential function? Where have you studied science?
He's not naive. He is actively denying the science. It would destroy his political agenda - so he cannot admit that it's valid.
Or rather, it seems to me that he feels the science actually benefits his political agenda, and therefore he wishes to discourage preventative action.
Of course, not. I have given examples of how one could present information about preventive actions and how to presenting those data which are alarming for some regions in a reasonable way, without creating panic. What do these numbers tell us? In the form you presented, they tell us nothing. They do not even contain the information if such effects are simply the sum of all areas which have become desert, or if it is a balance, so that have been deserts and are no longer deserts now have been substracted. In the first case, these numbers tell us nothing at all. Presenting such large numbers without any clarification how this changes in time, if there are reverse effects and how large they are, and so on is quite typical for alarmism. It works by a simple psychological trick, namely that large numbers give the impression that there is a large problem, completely independent of the real size of the problem. Another liar. I have not denied any science at all here. All I have denied is that iceaura's claims are really scientific results, which is straightforward, given that iceaura does not present any scientific support for his claims. (The one with the Berdugo at al 2020 paper obviously failed to support any of his claims.) This is, indeed, much closer. I think indeed that science supports my views. The proposed "preventive" actions would be very expensive malinvestment and should better be prevented. Learn to read. I care about the effects on the global scale. Instead of taking some negative local events and present the situation as if these are the only effects, without taking into account the positive global effects, like the Earth becoming greener. Different from the alarmists, I take care about the numbers and look at them, instead of exaggerating without base some local negative effects. So, I recognize that there is a difference between becoming more arid so that the ecosystem changes and becoming uninhabitable. Moreover, I take into account that there are also n% where nothing changes and (80-n)% where the situation changes in the favorable direction, with the ecosystem changing into a more green one. And I care about the overall result, which is up to now that the Earth became greener. Which I think is positive. For the considerations here, the exponential function is completely irrelevant, and I also know that it is mostly used to create panic among people who forget to take into account that exponential increase is always only temporary, and the only question is when and where it stops, not if it stops. I have studied science at the Moscow State University, at that time the top university of the whole part of the world accessible for me, with a Fields medalist as one of my teachers. Nice attempt for justification for alarmism. I take into account the overall picture, in particular the results of the Earth becoming greener. You, as an alarmist, focus on some negative tendencies in some small parts of the world. I have not much base for speculations about the emotional maturity and honesty of the leaders of the part of the world which I care about. In China, COVID may have been handled inappropriately initially, but when the problem was big enough to be known on the top, China behaved appropriately. Russia too. The country where I live has also taken early precautions, yesterday even tightened them, while the number of infected is yet quite small. So, the leaders of those countries know about the exponential function too. Refutation of which particular alarmist claim? In fact, I see this as a demonstration from your side that you are not interested in a proper, honest discussion. Your choice. I have anyway already long ago lost the hope that rational discussions will give any results. The only way to "convince" people of whatever is the emotional one, used by populists, and this is the way I refuse to use out of principle. I live in a country full of tropical rain forests. I like it. I have lived in arid desert some years too, but I think tropical forest is preferable. Of course, in both cases I don't live in the desert resp. forest itself, but in some suburb of a large city. I have been wandering through tropical forest, for example, as part of wandering to Annapurna base camp https://traveltimenepal.com/trip/annapurna-base-camp/. At home I have to deal with mosquitoes, but that's tolerable, I don't even use a mosquito net now (even if I have one). Seems, the lizards in my home take care about this. I have also ants at home. Sometimes I fight them with the usual chemical weapons, but not very systematically, I care more about making things inaccessible to them. In the canalization in our street I have already seen a really impressive snake, much larger than whatever exists in Germany. I'm used now to the local spicy meals, and recognize that making food spicy is a way of fighting bacteria and so on in this food. So, I don't cherry-pick. It is nonetheless clear that tropical forest is much better than desert for humans.
Are you aware of the "alarming" climate change events in that region of world? Nepali times While the global media’s attention is on the Greenland ice sheet, the Arctic and eastern Antarctica, a landmark report released this week shows that the Himalaya will face catastrophic meltdown during this century if there is no immediate effort to reduce the world’s carbon emissions. The voluminous 627-page report titled Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment: Climate Change, Sustainability and People put together by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) states that even in the best-case scenario, the Himalayan mountains will lose more than one-third of their ice by the end of the century. An earlier report was even scarier, it said the Mt Everest region would lose 90% of its ice by 2100. src https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/a-terrifying-assessment-of-himalayan-melting/ and: The Diplomat There have been several research reports on the impact of climate change on the Himalayas and all have come up with alarming results. Not only scientific observations, but even scenic observations of the mountain region also clearly show that the snow is melting fast, turning white-capped Himalayan peaks into black rock. A video prepared by the Nepali Times in the second week of December clearly showed the rapid melting. At the one-minute long video put it, the “Himalayan Mountains are melting like ice-cream cones.”src https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/nepal-gets-serious-about-climate-change/ and there are many more if you google for it...
I'll repost them. These are Real Time statistics. If you check the link, you will see the running numbers, which started with 0.00 on Jan 1, 2020 through the time I posted the link. The numbers today will have changed to reflect the accumulated stats as of today 3/31/2020. 3 full months this year. These running real time statistics will continue for every day of the rest of this year. Do the maths...it is alarming! Multiply these numbers by 4 to see what the projected statistics are for 2020. ENVIRONMENT 1,273,147 Forest loss this year (hectares) 1,714,010 Land lost to soil erosion this year (hectares) 8,845,373,892 CO2 emissions this year (tons) 2,937,736 Desertification this year (hectares) 2,397,285 Toxic chemicals released in the environment this year (tons) https://www.worldometers.info/ The monitoring sources are listed in the link. If this surprises you it is because to see the accumulated totals in the various categories as a combined statistical picture, it does become alarming. p.s. About 20 million net population growth this year. The exponential function hard at work. p.p.s. As of today, worldwide: Coronavirus Update (live) Coronavirus Cases: 787,438 view by country Deaths: 37,846 Recovered: 165,935
