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Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Tue 29 Nov 2016, 18:21:34
by GHung
pstarr wrote:Isn't the current killa' drought hysteria in the American Southeast?


Oh,, I figured you were talking about N. California. Sorry. I've been all over the world and I've never met a greater assemblage of classless white trash utterly devoid of anything that could be considered as culture or character as I did when I lived in N. California and the Pacific Northwest. They don't even have anything that could be called an accent. I figured that must be it. The most bland fucking group of people I've ever known; like living among plain stale oatmeal. Even their music is grungy depression-infused waste, for the most part. It's no wonder they have to grow good weed and eat mushrooms; hoping to develop something like a personality.

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Wed 30 Nov 2016, 09:09:35
by GoghGoner
pstarr wrote:
Newfie wrote:I think the salient point is the increasing frequency and severity of drought. Which, if I am correct, is not to be denied.

I sure don't deny an increasing chaotic weather regime. I only question its overall severity and consequences.

Barring a runaway event (which IPCC-5 and myself find highly unlikely) these hurricanes, droughts, floods etc are of little importance, nothing compared to runaway human population growth and resource depletion. And will most certainly be mitigated by a homeostatic Earth Mother and peak oil.


When it is the cornfields burning up, I guess you will see it a bit differently. Record-setting droughts and floods are wreaking havoc now and will only get worse as the Arctic warms. It has been obvious to me since 2010 what we are up against after I personally had to deal with consequences of a slowing jet stream fighting both historically significant droughts and floods while starting a veggie farm. I gave up.

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Wed 30 Nov 2016, 09:16:34
by Newfie
Well Pstarr gets resource depletion and over population.

While I don't quite understand the obsession of arguing endlessly climates change I do get the point that he thinks other factors will take us out first.

He may be right. I suspect that, as indicated in LTG, once one indicator breaks bad the will all follow shortly ( decades.) That will make identifying the causal event difficult, as if it would matter.

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Wed 30 Nov 2016, 11:03:15
by GoghGoner
Yeah, newfie, I think along those lines, too. Everything is interconnected: climate, resources, and finance.

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Dec 2016, 09:37:17
by onlooker
With Temperatures Hitting 1.2 C Hotter than Pre-Industrial, Drought Now Spans the Globe

https://robertscribbler.com/2016/11/30/ ... the-globe/

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Tue 20 Dec 2016, 14:17:13
by vox_mundi
Dust Bowl would devastate today's crops, study finds

Image

The study, published Dec. 12 in Nature Plants, simulated the effect of extreme weather from the Dust Bowl era on today's maize, soy and wheat crops. Authors Michael Glotter and Joshua Elliott of the Center for Robust Decision Making on Climate and Energy Policy at the Computation Institute, examined whether modern agricultural innovations would protect against history repeating itself under similar conditions.

When the researchers simulated the effects of the 1936 drought upon today's agriculture, they observed roughly 40 percent losses in maize and soy yield, while wheat crops declined by 30 percent. The harm would be 50 percent worse than the 2012 drought, which caused nearly $100 billion of damage to the U.S. economy.

The forecast grew even more dire when the researchers looked at the effect of elevated temperatures on U.S. crop yields. An increase of four degrees above today's average temperatures—a possible scenario by the mid-21st century—doubled the effect of a 1936-level drought, reducing crop yields by as much as 80 percent. Even under non-drought years with normal precipitation, the hotter weather produces declines in crop yield as severe as those experienced during the Dust Bowl.

"By mid-century even a normal year in precipitation could be as bad as what we saw in 1936," Elliott said. "And a year with even a 10 to 20 percent loss of precipitation becomes extraordinarily damaging."
“Technology has evolved to make yields as high as possible in normal years,” said Glotter. “But as extreme events become more frequent and severe, we may have to reframe how we breed crops and select for variance and resilience, not just for average yield.”

"We expected to find the system much more resilient because 30 percent of production is now irrigated in the United States, and because we've abandoned corn production in more severely drought-stricken places such as Oklahoma and west Texas," said Elliott, a fellow and research scientist at the center and the Computation Institute. "But we found the opposite: The system was just as sensitive to drought and heat as it was in the 1930s."

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Tue 20 Dec 2016, 20:10:54
by ritter
@Vox,

I've always felt that feeding ourselves will be the real problem with climate change, not heat, drought, deluge and sea level rise. While challenging in their own ways, those are mere symptoms of our shortsightedness. Thanks for posting this.

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Tue 20 Dec 2016, 23:31:03
by clif
we are smarter than that.


beg to differ,

remember we have elected a narcissistic carnival barker for pResident

Central Europes Drought

Unread postPosted: Wed 15 Feb 2017, 06:50:59
by M_B_S
Image

Welcome to the European Drought Observatory!

Drought or bad weather means lesser food supply in Europe.
**************

Hey Brussel/Berlin we have a problem!
http://www.itv.com/news/utv/update/2017 ... in-europe/

If you let more and more eaters into your "house" we all together will pay the price!

M_B_S

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Mon 13 Mar 2017, 10:05:55
by dohboi
Queensland in highest level of drought ever recorded there

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-13/d ... ns/8349056

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Tue 14 Mar 2017, 00:29:52
by dohboi
Drought, Deforestation Set to Propel Vicious Amazon Die Off

Thirty-eight percent of the Amazon Basin is at risk due to a self-amplifying process of drought and forest die off — which is made worse by industrial-scale agricultural production.


Reduced rainfall across the Amazon basin is causing large areas of forests to die, which could be amplifying drought conditions across the region.

Researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research believe that this process, known as self-amplifying forest loss, could cause a vicious circle of drought and further forest loss across the Amazon region, according to a study published in Nature Communications.


http://www.seeker.com/drought-deforesta ... 72248.html

and now...this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... sIB81sLe2w

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Tue 21 Mar 2017, 22:28:02
by dohboi
Surprise, surprise...

India is still in trouble:

https://robertscribbler.com/2017/03/21/ ... ry-season/

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Thu 23 Mar 2017, 13:21:09
by dohboi
Under the Dead Sea, warnings of dire drought

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 143139.htm

Nearly 1,000 feet below the bed of the Dead Sea, scientists have found evidence that during past warm periods, the Mideast has suffered drought on scales never recorded by humans — a possible warning for current times.

Thick layers of crystalline salt show that rainfall plummeted to as little as a fifth of modern levels some 120,000 years ago, and again about 10,000 years ago.

“All the observations show this region is one of those most affected by modern climate change, and it’s predicted to get dryer. What we showed is that even under natural conditions, it can become much drier than predicted by any of our models,” said lead author Yael Kiro, a geochemist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Sun 26 Mar 2017, 06:34:21
by dohboi
Villagers in northern Kenya have begun to burn piles of animal carcasses, hoping to head off an outbreak of disease as their livestock starve to death in the region’s worst drought in five years.

The smell of death hangs heavily over Lake Turkana and dried animal corpses dot the cracked mud where the lake has receded, leaving boats stranded on the dry land.

https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/dr ... -carcasses

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Wed 19 Apr 2017, 17:13:01
by dohboi
It's been very dry in the UK, and the first stirrings of concern are emerging.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04 ... er-driest/

And then there's:

Historic Calif. Drought Wreaked Irreversible, Bizarre Damage
Central Valley sank 3 feet—and won’t be rebounding


Snowmelt and rain are in abundance for the first time in years in Central Valley, Calif., which boasts so much farmland it helps feed much of the world. But the state’s five-year drought was so bad that all those farms sucked up enough groundwater to sink a solid three feet, thereby reducing the region’s water storage capacity, reports a new study out of Stanford University.

“California is getting all of this rain, but in the Central Valley, there has been a loss of space to store it,” says a researcher tells Courthouse News; they used satellite technology to precisely calculate the changes in elevation. “When too much water is taken out of clay, its structure is rearranged at the microscopic level and it settles into a new configuration that has less storage space.


http://www.newser.com/story/241443/cali ... ought.html

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Wed 19 Apr 2017, 18:18:14
by dohboi
Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Postby dohboi » Wed Apr 19, 2017 3:13 pm
It's been very dry in the UK, and the first stirrings of concern are emerging.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04 ... er-driest/

And then there's:

Historic Calif. Drought Wreaked Irreversible, Bizarre Damage
Central Valley sank 3 feet—and won’t be rebounding


Snowmelt and rain are in abundance for the first time in years in Central Valley, Calif., which boasts so much farmland it helps feed much of the world. But the state’s five-year drought was so bad that all those farms sucked up enough groundwater to sink a solid three feet, thereby reducing the region’s water storage capacity, reports a new study out of Stanford University.

“California is getting all of this rain, but in the Central Valley, there has been a loss of space to store it,” says a researcher tells Courthouse News; they used satellite technology to precisely calculate the changes in elevation. “When too much water is taken out of clay, its structure is rearranged at the microscopic level and it settles into a new configuration that has less storage space.


Reposted this, because I'm trying to figure out if there is any bit of the factual information presented here that p is directly denying...or if he just is hand waving because he objects to some imagined tone or attitude in it or in me...

Oh, wait a minute...I just realized....

I don't care... :-D :-D :-D

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Mon 24 Apr 2017, 08:54:19
by vox_mundi
Somali Pirates Being Driven Back to the Seas by Drought and Famine: U.S. Commander

Pirates in Somalia are being driven to the seas by a devastating drought, says the top U.S. military commander in Africa.

General Thomas Waldhauser, the head of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), said food shortages in Somalia were contributing to the resurgence in piracy.

About three million Somalis face food insecurity or famine and a national disaster was declared last month.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis expressed concerns about the resurgence of Somali piracy during a visit to the American military base in Djibouti.

One reason for the increase in the attacks is famine and droughts in the region, as some of the vessels targeted were carrying food and oil, Gen Waldhauser told a press conference.

Somalia is one of four countries and over 20 million people in Africa and the Middle East identified by the United Nations as currently at risk of extreme hunger and famine.

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Mon 24 Apr 2017, 09:23:47
by Revi
Looks like the worst drought area is the Smoky Mountains and North Georgia right now.
The west looks like it's pretty much out of drought for right now.

Meanwhile a new El Nino is forming in the Pacific way ahead of schedule.

We'll see...

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/RegionalDroughtMonitor.aspx

Check out a year ago. Severe drought in the Southwest.

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Mon 24 Apr 2017, 13:08:35
by Newfie
Patience Pete. Let's see what things look like in 10-20 years.

Re: The Drought Thread Pt. 4

Unread postPosted: Mon 24 Apr 2017, 13:35:58
by Newfie
Piracy and drought. A sobering viewpoint.

http://gcaptain.com/no-u-s-military-res ... ys-mattis/