Slashdot Mirror


TV Coverage of Cycling Races Can Help Document the Effects of Climate Change (phys.org)

Researchers from Ghent University were able to detect climate change impacts on trees in Belgium by analyzing nearly four decades of archive footage from the Tour of Flanders. The findings were published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Phys.Org reports: Focusing on trees and shrubs growing around recognizable climbs and other 'landmarks' along the route of this major annual road cycling race in Belgium, the team looked at video footage from 1981 to 2016 obtained by Flemish broadcaster VRT. They visually estimated how many leaves and flowers were present on the day of the course (usually in early April) and linked their scores to climate data. The ecologists found that the trees had advanced the timing of leafing and flowering in response to recent temperature changes. Before 1990, almost no trees had grown leaves at the time of the spring race. After that year, more and more trees visible in the television footage -- in particular magnolia, hawthorn, hornbeam and birch trees -- were already in full leaf. These shifts were most strongly related to warmer average temperatures in the area, which have increased by 1.5 degrees Celsius since 1980.

8 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Climate change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    https://xkcd.com/1732/

    Please explain how temperatures are rising at unprecedented levels then, oh genius

  2. Re: Climate change by Dzimas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's test your "it's been warming since the end of the last ice age" hypothesis. The global land-ocean index has risen by about 1 C in the past 50 years, and it's forecast to warm another 2 C in the 21st Century. At that rate, the planet will be uninhabitable in only several centuries. So I think we can safely conclude that normal climate cycles aren't responsible.

    Oh, fuck it. Let's put it a different way. Imagine that the planet is a fishbowl and the fish have a nasty habit of chain smoking. They've noticed that the water is getting cloudy and their gills are having to work harder to breathe, but they're convinced it must be due to silt from the bottom, not from their dim-witted behaviour in a closed system.

    Why this has to be a political issue is beyond me. It's only a matter of time before the raging masses start challenging the existence of gravity and the laws of physics. Faith based engineering is just around the corner...

  3. Re: Climate change by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Cherry picking links?

    What the funk is wrong with you?

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  4. Re:Blah blah blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    If the solution doesn't involve the government telling you what to do, some money for Democrat constituencies, plus some bonus money for left-wing governments around the world, they're not interested in solving the "problem" that way.

    It's almost as the announced problem isn't what they're actually worried about...

  5. Re:Blah blah blah by religionofpeas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The government doesn't want to actually solve the problem of global warming, they just want to be able to use the threat of global warming as an excuse for what they want to do.

    Funny how all the governments in the world want the same thing, supported by all their scientists.

  6. Re:Blah blah blah by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Blah blah blah yet another post where you ignore reality in order to jerk off nuclear power. All anyone has to know to understand that nuclear is a boondoggle is that it is absolutely slaughtered by basically everything else at cost per watt. Even if there were not lots of other good reasons why nuclear is crap, that would be sufficient.

    P.S. We have a solution for long haul freight using electricity, it's called rail.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. Re:Blah blah blah by blindseer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yep, the nuclear power industry got about one billion dollars year after year for 50 years in government subsidy. Nuclear power also provides 20% of the electricity generated in the USA. Compare this to what wind and solar get in subsidies. I did some searching on this and I've been getting some conflicting numbers, they vary from 7 billion dollars to 15 billion dollars based on who is providing the number and which year is being discussed. That alone is disproportionate subsidies. Consider that wind and solar combined provide less than 10% of our electricity that is very disproportionate. That's something like a 20 times difference in subsidies, based on money spent and energy produced.

    How many have actually been built on time/cost, I couldn't find any, all i can find is massive cost and time overruns.

    Probably because being on time and on budget isn't newsworthy.

    I'll hear people complain about the money spent on Yucca Mountain. A nuclear waste site that's been a money pit for years and still has not been declared fit for disposing of waste. Well, that's what you get with a government run project that's so politically charged. We had US senators approve funds for the building of the site, because that's federal money spent in states where senators can buy a lot of votes. When it comes to funding the inspections and licensing for declaring it suitable for nuclear waste these same senators deny the funds. Now they can play the hero to their voters because dangerous nuclear waste won't be traveling on the roads through the neighborhoods where their kids play. There is no technical reason we can't put waste in this site, it's been held up only by politics. I imagine this money pit is included in the "nuclear industry subsidy" column when it contains no nuclear material, and may never contain nuclear material if it's not maintained. Maintaining it costs money, even if it's just a security detail to keep homeless and pot smoking teens out of it.

    You are living in the land of unicorns

    Yep, and it seems you are as well.

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  8. Re: Climate change by thegarbz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, just your analysis of it. Also posting the data out of context is intentional dishonesty. 30 seconds on Google will tell you exactly why and how GISS data was adjusted. Now go on and refute the actual adjustment itself. We're all waiting to hear your big conspiracy on an adjustment that was completely independent of time itself or temperature measured at the the time, and everything to do with the source of the measurement itself.