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NASA: Increasing Carbon Emissions Risk Megadroughts

An anonymous reader writes: Droughts in the western U.S. have been bad recently, but not as bad as they could be. Researchers from NASA, Cornell, and Columbia are now warning that if we don't slow the rate at which we produce greenhouse gases, then we're dramatically increasing our odds of a drought that lasts upwards of three decades. "The scientists were interested in megadroughts that took place between 1100 and 1300 in North America. These medieval-period droughts, on a year-to-year basis, were no worse than droughts seen in the recent past. But they lasted, in some cases, 30 to 50 years. When these past megadroughts are compared side-by-side with computer model projections of the 21st century, both the moderate and business-as-usual emissions scenarios are drier, and the risk of droughts lasting 30 years or longer increases significantly."

23 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. Climate models by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When these past megadroughts are compared side-by-side with computer model projections of the 21st century,

    How about we fix the climate models before using them to predict things? If they can't predict things, they can't predict things.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:Climate models by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How about we fix the climate models before using them to predict things?

      How about these guys take into account the rising temperatures in oceanic heat reservoirs instead of restricting their analysis to lagging indicators like air temperature?

      If they can't predict things, they can't predict things.

      Can't argue with logic.

    2. Re:Climate models by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Informative

      While we're at it, let's fix the economic models that predicted hyperinflation as a result of the Fed's money creation. Instead, we have a strong dollar. Creating more money makes it stronger. What economic model ever predicted that?

      I don't know if you're serious, but the standard model predicted it. Here is the equation: mv = pq Where m is the total amount of money, v is is the velocity of money (how quickly money gets transferred from person to person), and pq is the total price of everything. Essentially what has happened as the fed prints more money and m increases, the velocity has gone down because banks have been keeping the extra money in their vaults instead of loaning it out. The equation balanced out, just as expected.

      Speaking of hyper-inflation, anyone who predicted that was wrong. The fed can theoretically slip up and create inflation, but to get hyper-inflation you have to continue printing more and more money. The fed wasn't about to do that, and Bernanke had several methods for countering large inflation if it became a problem (those methods hadn't been tested necessarily, I am just pointing out that it clearly wasn't his intention to spur hyper-inflation).

      Also, the dollar is strong relative to the Euro and Yen. Relative to itself, we've had inflation.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:Climate models by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I learned this from the global warming skeptics:

      • 1. If it snows less than a weatherman predicts, it means climatologists are full of shit.
      • 2. If it snows more than a weatherman predicts, it means climatologists are full of shit.
      • 3. If it snows exactly as much as a weatherman predicts, invite him on your show as an expert to explain why climatologists are full of shit.
    4. Re:Climate models by ganjadude · · Score: 3, Funny

      you could use the inverse arguments to describe the AGW zealots as well

      if its colder than predicted - its weather

      if its the same temp as predicted - it shows "the models are right

      if its warmer than predicted - OMG global warming!!!!

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    5. Re:Climate models by cbeaudry · · Score: 4, Funny

      I learned this from the global warming alarmists:

      1. If its warm its global warming, lets have a press release and call for the end of the world.
      2. If its cold its climate change, lets have a press release and call for the end of the world.
      3. If it rains its climate change, lets have a press release and call for the end of the world.
      4. If it doesn't rain its climate change, lets have a press release and call for the end of the world.
      5. If its humid its climate change, lets have a press release and call for the end of the world.
      6. If its dry its climate change, lets have a press release and call for the end of the world.
      7. If we get a breeze its climate change, lets have a press release and call for the end of the world.

    6. Re:Climate models by CaptainLard · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I learned this from the global warming alarmist alarmist:

      Hold all climate forecasts to higher standards than financial reports.
      Equate all predictions as equal to the one with the worst case scenario.
      Interpret all forecast as paranoia that the world is ending.
      Never offer explanations as to why releasing significant amounts of known greenhouse gasses won't disrupt the climate society is adapted to.
      Note that the earth has been much hotter...at a time that was not conducive to human society
      Note that the earth has been much colder...at a time that was not conducive to human society
      Claim humans can adapt to anything but ignore the fact that when they need to do it within a few generations, most of them will die.

  2. Re:In other news by cheesybagel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I watched the video. Pathetic. So there is no record of long droughts in the US. But it is going to get worse! I suggest you ask the Anasazi why they left their lands. Oh geez. A 300 year drought without any SUVs and with less population?

  3. Re:1100-1300 eh? by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ahh no. [posts link to site funded by ALEC, Exxon Mobil, and Richard Mellon Scaife] But yes keep telling yourself that the warm periods weren't global and miraculously just materialized where people could record it.

    Ahh no., I didn't just tell myself.

  4. We are an Impact Player in Earth's balance by rmdingler · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Everything develops by trial and error. You get something a little bit right and then fix the obvious errors. Then you get the product or process a little closer with each repetition of test and correct.

    Climate change science is kind of like that. Something bad is happening, and it is causally linked to our exponential spread over the earth's crust. Current indications are that we are impacting weather patterns to our detriment.

    You don't have to be thankful the work of your planet-saving scientists, but we'll not have a cross word from you neither.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:We are an Impact Player in Earth's balance by ClickOnThis · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This. Science is a process of progressive refinement, with occasional revolutionary paradigm-changes. Newer, broader understandings of nature almost invariably extend previous work, instead of replacing it.

      A good example of the evolution of scientific thought can be found in this essay by Isaac Asimov. TL;DR:

      - We used to think the earth was flat. We found out this was an accurate view for short distances, but failed for longer ones.
      - Then we thought the earth was spherical. This also was an accurate view for many purposes, but more precise measurements revealed that the earth bulges at the equator due to its rotation.
      - Then we thought the earth was an oblate spheroid. This view held until satellites revealed irregularities in the earth's gravitational field due to very slightly larger bulging in the southern hemisphere.

      The point is that each successive refinement of our understanding of the earth's shape did not render previous concepts "completely wrong." Rather, it revealed limits on their applicability.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    2. Re:We are an Impact Player in Earth's balance by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Current indications are that we are impacting weather patterns to our detriment.

      You think the people commenting on this story on a Friday night are going to be swayed by science? Read the comments above. These are people watching Fox News with the sound off hoping that blond hoo-er reading the news re-crosses her legs.

      We got a guy up there who just stated that there can't be no damn droughts in the future because he doesn't remember there being so much rain in years. I'm not joking. He said that.

      You might as well be making the case to your cocker spaniel. You're just as likely to be understood.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  5. Re:1100-1300 eh? by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually 1100 years ago CO2 was pretty much at a high point for the last 1 million years at 280 ppm. During the cycle of glaciations/interglacials that have occurred on an ~100,000 year period for the last 800,000 years the peak CO2 level was 300 ppm or below and during the height of the glaciations it dropped into the 190 ppm range. At 400 ppm now it's higher than it's been in 4 or 5 million years if not longer, before anything resembling modern humans evolved.

  6. Re:In other news by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't remember a year as wet as this one in 30 years.

    Why you stupid sonofabitch. You think because there's been a lot of rain in your zip code that it has anything to do with global climate patterns? And not only that, but you're basing it on your memory of the last 30 years when you can't even remember the difference between weather and climate. How are you even able to turn your computer on in the morning?

    God damn, it's no wonder this country is in such decline. We have people who don't have the sense of a fucking housefly.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  7. Re:What? I don't even by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Informative

    you're confused because this is a rare case of a reverse poe's law

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

    The core of Poe's law is that a parody of something extreme, by nature, becomes impossible to differentiate from sincere extremism. A corollary of Poe's law is the reverse phenomenon: sincere fundamentalist beliefs can be mistaken for a parody of those beliefs.

    rather than fundamentalism though, what is being misunderstood is the sarcasm

    the troll is speaking sarcastically. his position is "like NASA knows shit, and we should all bow down before mighty NASA, what a joke"

    but since the position he is speaking sarcastically about is extreme (that NASA doesn't have anything useful to say), he sounds genuinely earnest about not heeding NASA's warnings. he sounds earnest, by accident

    so i guess a follow up observation to poe's law would be "a sarcastic troll is unintentionally useful and perceptive"

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  8. Re:publishing by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I mean, seriously, how is such pseudo-science possibly falsifiable?

    It's definitely not falsifiable with the red herrings and ad hominems you're using.

    But keep trying. Maybe you'll have a breakthrough.

    From reading your comments since you created your Slashdot account a few weeks ago, I get the feeling that before we're done here, you're going to be calling climate scientists, "SJWs". That might help make you're point, or at least clarify for the rest of us how seriously we should take your comments.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  9. Re:In other news by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These AGW stories keep getting more pathetic as time goes by. I don't remember a year as wet as this one in 30 years.

    That seems.. a somewhat less scientific method of reaching a conclusion than the methods climatologists use to reach theirs.

    --
    ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
  10. Re:In other news by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Funny

    I know Earth history and geology well to know that AGW is bunk, bad science

    Uh huh. Those damn NASA scientists trying to put one over on old cheesybagel, you betcha. And those other scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who confirmed the findings, they're in on it, too. They'll have to get up pretty early in the morning if they want to fool an expert in "Earth history and geology" such as yourself.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  11. Re:apples to oranges by ganjadude · · Score: 4, Insightful

    im not talking about scientists here, im talking about normal people and reporters.

    I saw on the news just yesterday that this cold in the north east "is a clear sign of climate change" meanwhile this happens every single year here

    as for your 15 warmest years on record, I take that with a grain of salt knowing that

    1 - the temps taken >100 years ago cannot be as reliable today

    2 - that the scientists have been adjusting numbers to fit models, rather than fixing models to fit the numbers

    3 - that we have better tech now to better record temps then we have in the past. so that .01-.03 difference that they claim (over the next 100 years) could simply be in the margins of error.

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  12. Re:In other news by binarstu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's an appeal to authority argument PopeRatzo.

    Your parents should have read to you the fable of the Emperor's New Clothes.

    And your arguments seem to be based on appealing to yourself as an authority; e.g. your claim that you "know Earth history and geology well to know that AGW is bunk".

    I find PopeRatzo's appeal to legitimate expertise much more compelling.

  13. Re:In other news by Sardaukar86 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes. Obscuring measurements by lying with statistics is more scientific.

    If you genuinely believe this whole AGW thing is a global conspiracy and that only enlightened ones who can see through the lies (such as yourself) can save us from the deception, then I'll make sure I never waste my time engaging you in conversation again.

    --
    ..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
  14. Re:In other news by binarstu · · Score: 4, Informative

    I watched the video. Pathetic. So there is no record of long droughts in the US. But it is going to get worse! I suggest you ask the Anasazi why they left their lands. Oh geez. A 300 year drought without any SUVs and with less population?

    +5 insightful? What is insightful about this?

    The linked Wikipedia article mentions the supposed "300 year drought" in a single sentence that ends with... wait for it... "citation needed". Nice.

    If you actually bother to read TFA, you will see that the entire point is that droughts in the near future are likely to be similar to those that occured around the time the Anasazi were abandoning their villages. The researchers never claim that "there is no record of long droughts in the US". Their conclusion is that there were long droughts in the past, and we are likely to soon see them again.

  15. What a mess by prefec2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Reading the posts here saddens me. All this hate on climate research telling that NASA is only interested in more funding (sound like MY TAX DOLLARS!!!!), or that man made climate change is a hoax comments, or the science was wrong in the past. This only tells me that all this poster do not understand science or don't want to understand science. And that a deep conservatism has hit the US. So while we try to change our impact on climate and in general on natural resources, you will continue to pollute the world. Too bad that we have to life on the same planet.