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An example of climate change


Doug1066

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  • 2 weeks later...

I recently completed a chronology for the Chickasaw Tribal Park near Sulphur, Oklahoma.  The chronology uses a set of 29 post oak cores collected in 1974 to estimate inches of rainfall and Palmer Drought Severity Index summer values from 1707 to 1974.  If you're familiar with the park, the collection came from the hill south of Thibouldt Pond.  There's another collection from the south end of Lake of the Arbuckles. (1726-1995) near Catfish Point that I plan to use in another chronology.

Just to see how I did in the above post, which was made from memory, here are the drought years for Thibouldt Pond using PDSI<-1.5 as the definition of "drought."  

1707-1708, 1713-1720, 1722, 1724-1725, 1730, 1732, 1736-1737, 1742, 1746, 1749, 1752-1756, 1759, 1762, (No drought in 1763), 1765, 1767, 1770, 1772 (Got that one right), 1779, 17841786, 1792, 1794, 1800-1801, 1805, 1805, 1808, 1812, 1824 (That's the 1823-1825 one), 1828-1829, 1839, 1842, 1845, 1855 (That's the 1854-1855 "Resting Summer" drought), 1859-1963 (Civil War Drought), 1874, 1879, 1886-1887 (Same as 1884-1887 drought), 1889, 1893 (Gay Nineties Drought), 1900-1901, 1909, 1911, 1917-1918, 1922, 1936 (Dust Bowl), 1939, 1952, 1956 (1950s Drought) and 1966.  Note that there are fewer droughts since 1958.

Indian history hides show the Resting Summer of 1855.  Journals of early explorers show sand seas where there is now prairie.  No doubt about it, it's getting wetter.  And that means more eastern red-cedar.

Doug

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I just read a story the other day which is also an example of Climate Change.  There was once this time in our planet's history called the Ice Age...and then over a long period of time, the Earth warmed back up.  An absolutely fascinating story.

So I think we can all agree Climate Change happens!

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42 minutes ago, joc said:

I just read a story the other day which is also an example of Climate Change.  There was once this time in our planet's history called the Ice Age...and then over a long period of time, the Earth warmed back up.  An absolutely fascinating story.

So I think we can all agree Climate Change happens!

I think the problem is that in the pre-industrial times it happened very slowly, and people had time to adjust. But now it happens rapidly and people die from floods and landslides (and droughts).

It's not an issue of natural occurence, but of speed. A speed we are responsible for.

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11 hours ago, zep73 said:

I think the problem is that in the pre-industrial times it happened very slowly, and people had time to adjust. But now it happens rapidly and people die from floods and landslides (and droughts).

It's not an issue of natural occurence, but of speed. A speed we are responsible for.

Yeah, but is it really the speed of occurrence?  Or is it the speed of measurement and reporting?  I mean,  you gotta keep in mind too that during the pre-industrial times,  we weren't a world wide anything.  There was a good bit of the world we didn't even really know existed and what happened certainly wasn't reported the next day to every media outlet on the globe.  There have always been floods, there have always been landslides, and there have always been droughts.  

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On 12/10/2022 at 6:47 PM, joc said:

Yeah, but is it really the speed of occurrence?  Or is it the speed of measurement and reporting?  I mean,  you gotta keep in mind too that during the pre-industrial times,  we weren't a world wide anything.  There was a good bit of the world we didn't even really know existed and what happened certainly wasn't reported the next day to every media outlet on the globe.  There have always been floods, there have always been landslides, and there have always been droughts.  

Frequency might have been a better word.
We started recording natural disasters as early as the late 1700's, and those records are still here, so we can compare. Just because people didn't hear about it, they still happened. Just not as often as now.
The increased temperature makes more water evaporate, resulting in heavier and longer showers and storms coming more frequently, and the accumulated heat also accelerates wind speeds.
I think we can agree that the average temperature has risen recently, and has those effects, so what is it that we disagree about? The cause?

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22 minutes ago, zep73 said:

Frequency might have been a better word.
We started recording natural disasters as early as the late 1700's, and those records are still here, so we can compare. Just because people didn't hear about it, they still happened. Just not as often as now.
The increased temperature makes more water evaporate, resulting in heavier and longer showers and storms coming more frequently, and the accumulated heat also accelerates wind speeds.
I think we can agree that the average temperature has risen recently, and has those effects, so what is it that we disagree about? The cause?

You would have to define 'storms'.   Storms come and storms go...sometimes it rains alot sometimes it doesn't.  As far as major storms like hurricanes, the numbers are pretty consistent:

1940     8  hurricanes

1950   11  hurricanes

1960     4  hurricanes

1970     7  hurricanes

1980     9  hurricanes

1990     8  hurricanes

2000     8  hurricanes

2010    12 hurricanes

2020    14 hurricanes

2022      8  hurricanes

The difference is not in frequency but in how they are reported.  Any hurricane is played up as scary as it can possibly be by the mainstream press.  And if it is a major hurricane...it gets 24/7 coverage.  Not to mention the hype of Climate Change thrown into all the reporting.  Not to mention that 'climate change' used to be called Global Cooling but then they changed it to Gobal Warming...and when it was obvious the earth isn't actually getting warmer, they changed it again to Climate Change.

The Earth is a fluid environment...always changing, the climate therefore is always changing.  There is no cause/effect going on at all...it just does what it does, outside forces like Solar Storms and such.  But even if we are causing the planet's climate to change...so what?  Do we all go back to the stoneage...no electricity, no coal, no cars, no planes?   If we are the cause, then we get what we get and we don't throw a fit.  But I for one, am not going to sit back and glom onto a trendy position of all electric cars will solve the problem.  

Oops...I kind of went on a tangent there didn't I?  My bad.  :hmm:

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@joc from two very different perspectives, we do seem to agree that it doesn't really matter what we do. We're past the point of no return, whether we caused it or not.

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7 hours ago, zep73 said:

Frequency might have been a better word.
We started recording natural disasters as early as the late 1700's, and those records are still here, so we can compare. Just because people didn't hear about it, they still happened. Just not as often as now.
The increased temperature makes more water evaporate, resulting in heavier and longer showers and storms coming more frequently, and the accumulated heat also accelerates wind speeds.
I think we can agree that the average temperature has risen recently, and has those effects, so what is it that we disagree about? The cause?

The Greeks and Romans, then later Dark Age and Medieval clergy recorded certain natural disasters.

.........and I'm not talking about ****ing Atlantis. :angry:

Edited by Piney
Atlantis is a brain fart
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15 hours ago, joc said:

You would have to define 'storms'.   Storms come and storms go...sometimes it rains alot sometimes it doesn't.  As far as major storms like hurricanes, the numbers are pretty consistent:

1940     8  hurricanes

1950   11  hurricanes

1960     4  hurricanes

1970     7  hurricanes

1980     9  hurricanes

1990     8  hurricanes

2000     8  hurricanes

2010    12 hurricanes

2020    14 hurricanes

2022      8  hurricanes

The difference is not in frequency but in how they are reported.  Any hurricane is played up as scary as it can possibly be by the mainstream press.  And if it is a major hurricane...it gets 24/7 coverage.  Not to mention the hype of Climate Change thrown into all the reporting.  Not to mention that 'climate change' used to be called Global Cooling but then they changed it to Gobal Warming...and when it was obvious the earth isn't actually getting warmer, they changed it again to Climate Change.

The Earth is a fluid environment...always changing, the climate therefore is always changing.  There is no cause/effect going on at all...it just does what it does, outside forces like Solar Storms and such.  But even if we are causing the planet's climate to change...so what?  Do we all go back to the stoneage...no electricity, no coal, no cars, no planes?   If we are the cause, then we get what we get and we don't throw a fit.  But I for one, am not going to sit back and glom onto a trendy position of all electric cars will solve the problem.  

Oops...I kind of went on a tangent there didn't I?  My bad.  :hmm:

I used that line all the time while raising my daughters.  :D

I also feel that it is too late to do anything to reverse things.   I certainly do not fall for the guilt and such that those in power try to put on me while they fly their personal jets around the world.  

It will be interesting to see how the world changes.   Which dry places will receive more rain.  How much permafrost will thaw allowing humans to use it as farmland and to find more things to study.  

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On 12/10/2022 at 11:47 AM, joc said:

Yeah, but is it really the speed of occurrence?  Or is it the speed of measurement and reporting?  I mean,  you gotta keep in mind too that during the pre-industrial times,  we weren't a world wide anything.  There was a good bit of the world we didn't even really know existed and what happened certainly wasn't reported the next day to every media outlet on the globe.  There have always been floods, there have always been landslides, and there have always been droughts.  

CO2 from ice cores show measurable increase beginning in 1856.  There was a dip in the late 1930s and early 40s, but otherwise there has been a continuous increase with that increase becoming exponential about 1960.

In Oklahoma, the worst and most-frequent droughts occurred in the 1720s (My tree ring chronologies aren't reliable before about 1700.).  Journals by early explorers noted active sand dunes in areas now covered by grass.  Since then, our climate has become progressively wetter, with major droughts ending in 1958.  Wetter makes sense:  as the climate warms, there is increased evaporation from the Gulf of Mexico which falls as rain on Oklahoma in April, May and June.

6 hours ago, Myles said:

I also feel that it is too late to do anything to reverse things.

Global warming will continue through our lifetimes, but we can slow and eventually reverse it.  Oklahoma is now generating 35% of its energy from wind.  The country as a whole, is generating 25% of its energy from renewables.  We are making progress and Biden's wind initiative will fund construction of more.  It will take 68,000 windmills to produce the energy we are using now and we'll probably need more as energy needs increase.

6 hours ago, Myles said:

The difference is not in frequency but in how they are reported. 

What matters is the total energy dissipated by storms.  That can happen with 20 large hurricanes, or 200 small thunderstorms.   Reporting only hurricanes misses most of the picture.

Doug

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9 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

 

Global warming will continue through our lifetimes, but we can slow and eventually reverse it.  Oklahoma is now generating 35% of its energy from wind.  The country as a whole, is generating 25% of its energy from renewables.  We are making progress and Biden's wind initiative will fund construction of more.  It will take 68,000 windmills to produce the energy we are using now and we'll probably need more as energy needs increase.

 

Doug

I disagree.  When China and other countries are building new coal fired power plants as we speak, I don't think it makes a big difference what we do.  It is like when the politicians tell us to use less fuel but take a private jet across country and use more fuel than I will in a lifetime.  

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1 hour ago, Myles said:

I disagree.  When China and other countries are building new coal fired power plants as we speak, I don't think it makes a big difference what we do.  It is like when the politicians tell us to use less fuel but take a private jet across country and use more fuel than I will in a lifetime.  

China is currently the world's largest producer of wind and solar energy.  It has the largest workforce dedicated to conversion to wind, water and solar (WWS) energy.

China does not believe it should sit in the dark in order for us to have a cooler planet.  We created the problem not them.  They think we should be the ones to solve it.

China has already phased out its use of coal-fired railroad steam engines as of April 25 this year and replaced them with diesels and electrics.  We are still running several coal-fired excursion trains.

China's stated policy is to replace all its coal-fired plants with WWS once they have completed electrification.  They started the process 60 years behind us.  They will join our efforts once they have provided electricity to most of their people.  The problem for them is that they can't build windmills and solar fast enough.  Coal is a temporary solution as they have a lot of cheap coal.

Clean energy is what the Three Gorges Dam was all about.

FYI:  Coal generated about 22% of us power in 2021, down from 39% in 2014.  We are making progress.

Doug

Edited by Doug1066
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Wind Power in China: A cautionary tale

This report takes a closer look at the drivers behind the impressive wind power development in China in order to understand the complex connection between the policy goals, policy measures and development impact. In particular, it considers two related issues that have been encountered—curtailment of generation and delays in connection of projects—and how these are being addressed. The report aims to identify the lessons to be learned to inform future policy measures in China and elsewhere.

The analysis finds that there are technical, governance and economic factors that have given rise to these two prominent issues. With respect to delayed connection, the technical factor is that the expansion of national wind power resources has outpaced the construction of transmission. On the governance side, we see that construction plans for wind farms and grids are not aligned, grid construction was not emphasized enough, and there was insufficient state-level oversight and coordination between the national and state levels.

Economically, grid operator supports are weaker than those for power development. With respect to curtailment, there is a mismatch between supply and demand of power. The technical factor here is that curtailment has occurred in areas when growth in power demand has not matched power supply growth, leading to a “spillage” of power. Limited transmission capacity also prevents moving energy from regions of supply to where demand is greatest.

Technical issues with ramping up and down conventional coal power (meaning it is slow/difficult to do) also mean that wind is often easier to curtail if curtailment is needed. A lack of integration in governance, similar to the situation in delayed connection, is a contributing factor, leading to delays in identifying and addressing this problem, including through enforcement of regulations.

Additionally, at a fundamental level, the government has always targeted capacity as opposed to generation. There are also no economic incentives for grid operators to dispatch wind over other forms of generation to offset operational risks. Fixed payments provide no additional reward for thermal generators to act as reserve to wind or act in a flexible manner to support increased wind power (or at least prevent curtailment).

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12 hours ago, joc said:

 

Wind Power in China: A cautionary tale

This report takes a closer look at the drivers behind the impressive wind power development in China in order to understand the complex connection between the policy goals, policy measures and development impact. In particular, it considers two related issues that have been encountered—curtailment of generation and delays in connection of projects—and how these are being addressed. The report aims to identify the lessons to be learned to inform future policy measures in China and elsewhere.

The analysis finds that there are technical, governance and economic factors that have given rise to these two prominent issues. With respect to delayed connection, the technical factor is that the expansion of national wind power resources has outpaced the construction of transmission. On the governance side, we see that construction plans for wind farms and grids are not aligned, grid construction was not emphasized enough, and there was insufficient state-level oversight and coordination between the national and state levels.

Economically, grid operator supports are weaker than those for power development. With respect to curtailment, there is a mismatch between supply and demand of power. The technical factor here is that curtailment has occurred in areas when growth in power demand has not matched power supply growth, leading to a “spillage” of power. Limited transmission capacity also prevents moving energy from regions of supply to where demand is greatest.

Technical issues with ramping up and down conventional coal power (meaning it is slow/difficult to do) also mean that wind is often easier to curtail if curtailment is needed. A lack of integration in governance, similar to the situation in delayed connection, is a contributing factor, leading to delays in identifying and addressing this problem, including through enforcement of regulations.

Additionally, at a fundamental level, the government has always targeted capacity as opposed to generation. There are also no economic incentives for grid operators to dispatch wind over other forms of generation to offset operational risks. Fixed payments provide no additional reward for thermal generators to act as reserve to wind or act in a flexible manner to support increased wind power (or at least prevent curtailment).

Thanks for posting that.  We can see that China has the same problems as everybody else, but a little more of them.

Once they get their new wind towers connected to the grid (and the grid upgraded) their dependence on coal will fall off.  It would help to have wind farms located where they can be most efficient, too.

Doug

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I completed a shortleaf pine chronology for the Babylon Ranch south of Henrietta, Oklahoma.  Babylon Ranch has one of the eight Pine Islands, isolated stands of shortleaf pine that are often miles from the nearest other stand.  Back in 2010 I was wandering around on the ranch collecting cores and discovered I had enough for a chronology.  The new chronology runs from 1817 to 2009.  Shows pretty much the same thing as the Thibouldt Pond one.  Doesn't go back far enough to get the two major droughts, but does show the increase in moisture conditions that happened in 1958.

Bluestem Pond near Pawhuska is next.

Doug

Edited by Doug1066
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Found a mistake in detrending for Thibouldt Pond and Babylon Bluff.  Went completely over them again.  The mistake was inconsequential as I have not used the results (yet).  In any case, it would have been minor.  But it cost me a whole day on Bluestem Lake.  I expect to complete Bluestem today.  It will serve as a climate record for the Osage Tribe from 1739 to 1982.

Next will be Bokhoma Log Pond in the extreme southeast corner of the state.  That's Choctaw country, but the project was funded by OSU.  We found 24 shortleaf pine sawlogs in the mud of an abandoned log pond.  Thinking we might find some extremely old trees, we fished them out, prepared series and determined dates:  1772 to 1912.  Not exceptional.  BUT:  there was a fire in 1870 that scarred many of the logs, causing distortions in the growth rings.  That renders most series unusable after 1870.  So the climate record will be 1773 to 1869, unless I can pull a signal from the unburned logs, of which there are only four or five.  Another problem is that precip records only go back to 1895, so I have only 17 years of data from which to determine a climate signal.  I have been fighting with this chronology since we pulled those logs out of the mud (September 2014).  The battle continues.

Doug

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China may be improving a bit but they are still burning and helping other countries burn coal.

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/859266/number-of-coal-power-plants-by-country/

image.thumb.png.14f626b7bf868868e71f5292f3c636b5.png

 

A year after President Xi Jinping promised China would stop building coal power plants overseas, the country has completed 14 such facilities beyond its borders and will finish another 27 soon, according to a new report.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-22/china-has-built-14-overseas-coal-plants-since-vowing-no-new-ones?leadSource=uverify wall

 

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Thanks for posting that.

I don't know the backstory on this, so here's not much to say.

Doug

P.S.:  26 (out of 40) were cancelled.  "Dozens" of others are in limbo.  China has come quite a ways in fulfilling that.  When you're almost ready to start operations and the policy changes, do you throw away what you've just built?

Doug

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6 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

When you're almost ready to start operations and the policy changes, do you throw away what you've just built?

You do if you are NASA

Edited by Desertrat56
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4 hours ago, Myles said:

China may be improving a bit but they are still burning and helping other countries burn coal.

They are selling Chinese coal to those other countries.  Communist capitalism at work.

Doug

 

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I just finished the Bluestem Lake Chronology.  I won't have time to add the climate data today or tomorrow, so I'll have to wait until Friday to see if there's a detectable long-term climate change.

So far, long-term increases in precip about cancel out long-term decreases.  So it looks like shorter-term changes are going to be important.

Doug

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Tested Bluestem Lake for systematic changes.  It's getting wetter.

Tested Thibouldt Pond and Babylon Bluff.  Thibouldt Pond is VERY slowly getting dryer and Bablyon Bluff is getting wetter, but not as fast as Bluestem Lake.

It's starting to look like Oklahoma has different climate regions, as determined by tree ring chronologies.  Haven't quantified the changes yet, but that's coming eventually.

Starting on Bokhoma Log Pond.  Probably be several days before I can get the chronology assembled.  I don't have enough weather data for it, so I will have to do McCurtain County and estimate the weather conditions for Bokhoma from that.  Accuracy will probably not be very great.  But here goes.

Doug

Edited by Doug1066
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2 hours ago, Doug1066 said:

Tested Bluestem Lake for systematic changes.  It's getting wetter.

Tested Thibouldt Pond and Babylon Bluff.  Thibouldt Pond is VERY slowly getting dryer and Bablyon Bluff is getting wetter, but not as fast as Bluestem Lake.

It's starting to look like Oklahoma has different climate regions, as determined by tree ring chronologies.  Haven't quantified the changes yet, but that's coming eventually.

Starting on Bokhoma Log Pond.  Probably be several days before I can get the chronology assembled.  I don't have enough weather data for it, so I will have to do McCurtain County and estimate the weather conditions for Bokhoma from that.  Accuracy will probably not be very great.  But here goes.

Doug

Is there someone in New Mexico doing what you are doing in Oklahoma?    I feel that the whole state is getting wetter based on what I remember as a child and the kind of weather we get now, even though we are classified as being in a drought.   We have had more cloudy days in the last 2 years than in the previous 10+ years.   New Mexicans used to brag about having 350 days of sunshine.  Now it seems more like 120.

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1 hour ago, Desertrat56 said:

Is there someone in New Mexico doing what you are doing in Oklahoma?    I feel that the whole state is getting wetter based on what I remember as a child and the kind of weather we get now, even though we are classified as being in a drought.   We have had more cloudy days in the last 2 years than in the previous 10+ years.   New Mexicans used to brag about having 350 days of sunshine.  Now it seems more like 120.

Not that I know of, but Connie Woodhouse has done a lot of work on New Mexico's river flows.  She might have something.

Doug

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