The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[freebeard]

Consider for a moment the 10,000 year flood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_Floods

Glacial Lake Columbia (west) and Glacial Lake Missoula (east) are shown south of Cordilleran Ice Sheet. The areas inundated in the Columbia and Missoula floods are shown in red.

During the ice age floods, Dry Falls was under 300 feet (91 m) of water approaching at a speed of 65 miles per hour (105 km/h).[1]
The Missoula Floods (also known as the Spokane Floods or the Bretz Floods) refer to the cataclysmic floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age. The glacial flood events have been researched since the 1920s. These glacial lake outburst floods were the result of periodic sudden ruptures of the ice dam on the Clark Fork River that created Glacial Lake Missoula. After each ice dam rupture, the waters of the lake would rush down the Clark Fork and the Columbia River, flooding much of eastern Washington and the Willamette Valley in western Oregon. After the rupture, the ice would reform, creating Glacial Lake Missoula again.

During the last deglaciation that followed the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, geologists estimate that a cycle of flooding and reformation of the lake lasted an average of 55 years and that the floods occurred several times over the 2,000-year period between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago.

Geologist J Harlen Bretz first recognized evidence of the catastrophic floods, which he called the Spokane Floods, in the 1920s. He was researching the Channeled Scablands in Eastern Washington, the Columbia Gorge, and the Willamette Valley of Oregon. In the summer of 1922, and for the next seven years, Bretz conducted field research of the Columbia River Plateau. He had been interested in unusual erosion features in the area since 1910 after seeing a newly published topographic map of the Potholes Cataract. Bretz coined the term Channeled Scablands in 1923 to refer to the area near the Grand Coulee, where massive erosion had cut through basalt deposits.
....
After Pardee studied the canyon of the Flathead River, he estimated that flood waters in excess of 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) would be required to roll the largest of the boulders moved by the flood. He estimated the water flow was nine cubic miles per hour, more than the combined flow of every river in the world.[9] Estimates place the flow at ten times the flow of all current rivers combined

Of course now it's all good:

As the water emerged from the Columbia River gorge, it backed up again at the 1 mile (1.6 km) wide narrows near Kalama, Washington. Some temporary lakes rose to an elevation of more than 400 ft (120 m), flooding the Willamette Valley to Eugene, Oregon and beyond. Iceberg rafted glacial erratics and erosion features are evidence of these events. Lake-bottom sediments deposited by the floods have contributed to the agricultural richness of the Willamette and Columbia Valleys. Glacial deposits overlaid with centuries of windblown sediments (loess) have scattered steep, southerly-sloping dunes throughout the Columbia Valley, ideal conditions for orchard and vineyard development at higher latitudes.

[NeilBlanchard]

I think the whole 100 year, 500 year, 1,000 year event idea is vague and hard to understand. I have heard any number of discussions of how problematic it is. As I understand it, this is a way of expressing typical ranges, and a way to compare records and how extreme / unusual things are.

How frequently have you heard of an 8" rainfall in 3 hours - in your lifetime? When was the first time you heard of something this extreme? Or, more extreme?

When I was old enough to pay attention (about 25 years ago), having a rain storm of 1/2" in an hour was considered pretty heavy rain. 1" in an hour was something that happened, but only rarely, and only in a few places on earth.

Now, we get rain storms - not even tropical storms, let alone a hurricane - that are up to 5"+ per hour and this can continue for many hours.

This is what is expected as one of the effects of climate change. More evaporation leads to more precipitation.

The fact that these extreme events are happening more frequently, and in virtually every area on the earth IS THE POINT of understanding climate change.

[oil pan 4]

In Roanoke Virginia 1985 there was 6 to 8 inches of rain fall in an afternoon. The weather man said it was a 100 year flood, hasn't been even close to being repeated there since then. In 1985 a lot of people were blaming things like that flood on the hole in the ozone. Just like now with man made global warming.

I remember reading articles about how man made global warming was going to cause drought. It's turning out to be the catch all for any and every unusual weather phenomenon anywhere.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

I think the whole 100 year, 500 year, 1,000 year event idea is vague and hard to understand.

That was kind of my point. 13-15,000yrs ago the Mizzoula floods came every 60 years. Puncuated equilibrium.

The question become does carbonating the oceans provoke or stave off an Ice Age.

[NeilBlanchard]

Climate change is increasing droughts, and increasing flooding. These are both results of greater evaporation.

More aspects of climate change:

Oil Industry Copes With Climate Impacts As Permafrost Thaws

In Colorado, 6 Wildfires Burn Across The Parched State

[oil pan 4]

The perma frost has been melting for the last 12,000 years with occasional brief pauses in the retreat.
I would be more worried if it were advancing south.

[redpoint5]

The problem with any incident is that you cannot say it was caused by climate change, or quantify the increase in severity. It may just be weather.

The only way to begin to evaluate the effects of climate change would be to accurately track weather events and perform a net analysis of regions that have seen increases in frequency/severity vs regions that have seen decreases in frequency/severity.

Even that is difficult, because things like increasing wildfires might be due to having more trees than 100 years ago, or from fire prevention keeping lower intensity burns from clearing out debris periodically until it gets to dangerous levels.

I'm not saying there is no problem from GW, only that it's nearly impossible to attribute any particular event to it, and we're prone to confirmation bias if we believe GW is driving these events.

[NeilBlanchard]

Weather over time - is climate. We know the climate is changing - and therefore weather is changing. Systemic causation - by definition, the weather is changed, because the climate system has changed.

The so-called "permafrost" was named that for a reason. If you listen to the report I linked, it is staying warm TWO MONTHS longer than it used to. And they now have to use chilling tubes to keep the ground frozen. Someone has a business that only became necessary in the past couple of decades.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

Roadmap to Nowhere puts the reality of the necessary hardware into perspective
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1 million 2.5 MW wind turbines and 5,000 Solarstar sized 500MW solar farms together covering 130,000 square miles. $15 trillion. We already have $20 trillion in national debt that will never get paid back. And there would still be days long selctive black outs due to a very minimal amount of storage as part of the plan. And the electrolytic Hydrogen conversion of all heavy machinery and transport is just wishful thinking. As is the underground thermal storage system that is part of the roadmap. ect.

*It's just talking points.We crawl before we walk.
*Even $20-trillion is just beer money (cigarettes,lottery tickets).
*Their quanta presume stasis with respect to technology and capacities.They'll have to make their case.
*I'm not convinced about black outs.Earth has a rather large geographic footprint.With distributed generation,from different sources,'spinning reserves' can be anticipated in the build out.
*I'm not a devotee of hydrogen, although that'll mean zero to those pursuing it.
*Underground thermal storage? We'll see.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

Two inductive paddles touching each other with zero gap is nothing like trying to discuss inductive charging with coils embeded in the road shining their field up to the underside of a moving vehicle. It doesn't work practically.
.
Modifying all of our heavy rail diesel with an electrified contact however is a no-brainer and should be our first priority in building out electric transport infrastructure. Regular diesel trains could still use the same track. And be retrofitted to run on electric rails where possible and switch to diesel where needed.

Perhaps Robert Lutz will expand on this concept.
The railroads are already electric,so yeah,connecting them to the grid is a natural,unless of course,you're a purveyor of diesel fuel.