Global warming may have already passed irreversible tipping point

[Nurasu]

The number of desert golf courses is really the dumbest shit. Just make them all sand-based golf courses and create a new sport of sand-golf. Want to move somewhere with nice courses? Move to Scotland, develop a taste for haggis, and call it a day.

I never understood why you would want to travel all over and play on the same... lawn every time. Wouldn't it be more interesting if each course was tailored to its existing environment? Why not just switch to asto terf if you're looking for consistency only.

[Rasulis]

I never understood why you would want to travel all over and play on the same... lawn every time. Wouldn't it be more interesting if each course was tailored to its existing environment? Why not just switch to asto terf if you're looking for consistency only.

Technically golf is a sport. So, there are probably some standards to golf course design and construction. Especially if the course wants to be PGA certified.

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The Land of Water Just Declared Water Shortage

The Dutch government on Wednesday declared a water shortage, following an unusually dry summer with no rain forecast for the coming two weeks.

Brutal heatwaves gripped large parts of Europe and the United States last month, bringing about calls for more efforts to tackle global warming, which scientists say makes spells of extremely hot weather more frequent and deadly.

With two-thirds of the Dutch population living below sea level, droughts can quickly become an acute problem in the Netherlands, leading to rivers silting up and hampering water traffic.

A further problem arises from dikes drying out - many require the weight of water itself to remain strong.

"We have been seeing it get drier in the Netherlands for several weeks now because of evaporation in our own country and very low river flows from abroad," said Michele Blom of the country's Public Works and Water Management agency, appointed to oversee a drought task-force.

At the moment, barges on the lower Rhine - an important route for transporting coal from Rotterdam inland to German steelmakers and power producers - are operating at less than half capacity.

The Dutch ministry of infrastructure and transportation said that as of Tuesday, water was flowing through the Rhine at 850 cubic meters per second at Lobith, the eastern town where it enters the Netherlands, "exceptionally low for the time of year."

Levels were better in the Maas, also known as the Meuse, which flows from France into the Netherlands.

The IJselmeer, a large artificial freshwater lake in the north of the country that was carved out from the North Sea in the 20th century, is reasonably filled and can supply water to the province of Groningen.

However, groundwater levels are sinking and "are very low in places in the south," the ministry said, leading to algae blooms and fish death.

Drinking water is not affected.

Water districts are calling for people to conserve water, with southern provinces of Zeeland and Limburg asking people not to use surface water for watering -- a measure that affects farmers.

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Californians miss water conservation targets again as drought worsens

The Bay Area reduced consumption by 8.5%. Petaluma down by almost 30%.

LA County only went down 1%. Sacramento up 3.7%. San Diego up 8.2%. Ouch. Granted both LA and San Diego are not experiencing water shortage at the moment.

[Ripster42]

Granted both LA and San Diego are not experiencing water shortage at the moment.

They get water from lake mead right? Sure seems like they should be treating it as a water shortage.

[Shadowferal]

The drop in water levels have been pretty revealing in other ways; Archaeologists Find 12,000-Year-Old Human Footprints in Utah

The 88 individual footprints were were discovered on a remote desert Air Force training site that was once a wetland

“As was the case at White Sands, the visible ghost tracks were just part of the story,” Urban says in a Cornell statement. “We detected many more invisible prints by radar.” Altogether, they discovered a total of 88 individual footprints from both adults and children.

The find was surprising; humans haven’t lived in this area for thousands of years, per the Times, and it’s a remote desert military training site. The scientists concluded that the “most logical explanation” is that the footprints were made around 12,000 years ago, during the late Pleistocene, Urban tells the newspaper.
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Mammoth bones and 'ghost' footprints add to heated debate about first humans in North America

The fossilized bones, in particular, could suggest people lived in North America tens of thousands of years before the generally accepted date for the arrival of the first Native Americans of about 10,000 B.C. BCE.

Mammoth bones and “ghost” footprints of ancient people are the latest evidence in a scientific debate about when the first humans reached the Americas.

The fossilized bones, in particular, could suggest people lived in North America tens of thousands of years before the generally accepted date for the arrival of the first Native Americans of about 10,000 B.C.

Researchers say radiocarbon dates of chemicals in the mammoth bones, from a mother and her calf, indicate the animals lived about 37,000 years ago in what’s now New Mexico. Patterns of fractures on the bones show they were butchered by humans, who must therefore have lived there at the same time, the researchers added. But the findings are disputed by some other scientists, who say the fractures could have been caused naturally.

The latest “ghost” footprints, meanwhile, were found a few weeks ago on an Air Force missile range in a desert in Utah. Scientists think they’re about 12,000 years old, but this is only the second time that such footprints have been found, and they support the discovery last year of ghost footprints in New Mexico thought to be at least 21,000 years old — although that finding, too, is disputed.

The researchers say they’re confident of their dating and interpretation that the fractures on them were caused by repeated impacts with sharp objects during their deliberate butchering. They also say there’s evidence that fire was used selectively to cook many of the bones.

“I think it’s a rock-solid radiocarbon date,” said paleontologist Timothy Rowe, a professor at the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas in Austin. “Skeptics will put everything under the microscope, but I think we checked every box.”

Such things never fail to fascinate me.

[Paranoid Android]

Authorities say more human remains have been found at drought-stricken Lake Mead National Recreation Area east of Las Vegas. It’s the fourth time since May 1 that remains have been uncovered at the shrinking reservoir between Nevada and Arizona.

I love news organization always giving us news about the bodies they found in Lake Mead cause of the drought and not that Lake Mead is at unprecedent levels of drought.

@Shadowferal. Yeah that story is cool and all but we are finding these things cause we are loosing glaciers, permafrost and water. Permafrost is helping contribute to our CO2. So all this cool stuff is scary as AF stuff.

Not knocking your post, just the pants on fire rant by me. Cheers.

[Othraerir]

time to fire up those desal plants

[Rasulis]

time to fire up those desal plants

Yes on desalination plants.

We also need recycled water. We treated sewage before dumping it back into the ocean/stream. It does not take much more energy to treat sewage to the level of potable water. Toilet to tap is good.

Water conservation. Las Vegas prides itself on their water conservation. Yet, at the end of the day, the city's population still uses 200 gallons per capita per day. San Francisco only uses 40.

Increase stormwater runoff capture. Wetland and watershed restoration. Use BMP structures for stormwater management. Convert concrete lined channels to unlined channels. Where possible, return man-made channels back to marshlands. All of these will help with groundwater recharge.

Instead of building dam, the right aquifer can also be used for water storage.

Region specific agriculture systems. Fog farming for irrigation is very popular in Santa Cruz. SolarAg allows for farming and power generating at the same time.


My parents went home this morning. So's the last of endless parade of cousins. We did manage one last bike ride with my father and my cousin to Land's End on Sunday.

My cousin from Houston made two comments.

“I could barely keep up with oom.” Oom is uncle in Dutch. That's how he referrs to my father.

“The world burns, and I am shivering.” It was 60F at Land's End and felt like 55F with the windchill.

Land's End, where the land meets the sea and sky, and the sun, wind, cloud and fog coexist in a delicate balance.

[Shadowferal]

Desalination plants aren't exactly environmentally friendly.

[PC2]

Desalination plants aren't exactly environmentally friendly.

The natural environment has never been human/civilization friendly though which is exactly why we have no other choice other than to artificially transform it and then continuously deal with the negative side effects and externalities. The Earth is not anything like a friendly spaceship that was built or evolved to be sustainable for us and therefore it makes no sense whatsoever to focus on perfectly preserving it instead of utilizing it in new ways in order to advance civilization.

[Shadowferal]

The natural environment has never been human/civilization friendly though which is exactly why we have no other choice other than to artificially transform it and then continuously deal with the negative side effects and externalities. The Earth is not anything like a friendly spaceship that was built to be sustainable for us and therefore it makes no sense whatsoever to focus on perfectly preserving it instead of utilizing it in new ways in order to advance civilization.

Why the hell are you even bothering?

[PC2]

Why the hell are you even bothering?

It's because I'm trying to convince misanthropic and pessimistic environmentalists that their worldview is wrong and that they don't need to be afraid of change and overpopulation.

[Mayhem]

It's because I'm trying to convince misanthropic and pessimistic environmentalists that their worldview is wrong and that they don't need to be afraid of change and overpopulation.

No, you're just spreading your dystopian worldview else you'd be able to back up your impossible position.

No one will just trust your word.

[jonnysensible]

It's because I'm trying to convince misanthropic and pessimistic environmentalists that their worldview is wrong and that they don't need to be afraid of change and overpopulation.

you are trying to step over the problem of climate change without addressing it

[Shadowferal]

It's because I'm trying to convince misanthropic and pessimistic environmentalists that their worldview is wrong and that they don't need to be afraid of change and overpopulation.

And you imagine you can do that without facts, truth, evidence...proof. Y'know, stuff that you don't believe in.

[Endus]

The natural environment has never been human/civilization friendly though which is exactly why we have no other choice other than to artificially transform it and then continuously deal with the negative side effects and externalities. The Earth is not anything like a friendly spaceship that was built or evolved to be sustainable for us and therefore it makes no sense whatsoever to focus on perfectly preserving it instead of utilizing it in new ways in order to advance civilization.

Because you've got the relationship completely backwards, somehow.

We've evolved to be adapted to the Earth and its conditions. That's how evolution works. Not just us, literally every species.

Our civilization changing that Earth to this degree is what causes its conditions to no longer be something we've adapted to, and if it occurs too rapidly for evolutionary shifts to account for those changes (generally, millions of years as a timescale), species die out.

The Earth isn't going to get killed. But we might absolutely render it uninhabitable for humanity and cause our species' extinction, or at least the global collapse of civilization.

Somehow, you've gotten the very basic concepts of evolutionary science completely backwards, and it's led you to believe completely ridiculous things.

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It's because I'm trying to convince misanthropic and pessimistic environmentalists that their worldview is wrong and that they don't need to be afraid of change and overpopulation.

You'd need to have an argument.

You don't have one. You have science denialism. Ironically, in pursuit of goals that will lead to significant increases in human mortality and suffering, while accusing those opposing you for being "misanthropes".

[Rasulis]

Desalination plants aren't exactly environmentally friendly.

Several factors to consider.

Desalination plants will only be part of the solution. We won’t only depend on desalination plants entirely to solve the problem. Also, there are ways to reduce the environmental impacts of desalination plants.

NASA ocean salinity map shows that there are regions where the ocean water salinity levels are 25% to 33% below the average (3.5% to 3.6%). The coastal region from central to northern California coasts is an example of that. Coastal regions with lower salinity levels are ideal for desalination plant. Less salt intake meant lower brine concentration.

We also have the option of withdrawing the intake water from the coastal underground instead of directly from the sea. The ground will act as filter and reduce the salt intake even further.

Desalination plant can also be paired with industrial salt processing plant. Or a power plant which allows the brine to be dispersed with the cooling water from the power plant.

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We also need to rethink our approach to city planning. Our cities have become islands of heat.

Here is some good reading materials on the subject.

The Hottest Place in the Whole U.S.A.
Hotter than Death Valley, hotter than Devil’s Island, and, ladies and gentlemen, you’re living in it.

Our cities have become islands of heat. In hot and miserable Texas, they are the hottest and most miserable places. Indeed, when all environmental factors are taken into account, parts of Houston have a much higher effective temperature than the lower Rio Grande or even the lower Amazon.

So many things about a city—cars, concrete, clusters of tall buildings, population density, pollution—make them insufferable in the summer. Indoors, air conditioning may help, but outside, the billions of BTUs released into the atmosphere each day by air conditioning units actually add to the outdoor heat load. “In the long run, we’re not making ourselves any less miserable,” says Dr. Irina Cechova, environmental researcher with the University of Texas School of Public Health. “Things are only getting worse.”

Scientists call the offending phenomenon “urban heat islands.” These are pockets of extra-hot air that tend to collect and remain over or near the central city. Depending on the size of the metropolis, they can average anywhere from four to twenty degrees hotter than the surrounding countryside. The University of Texas School of Public Health is conducting the first extensive heat island study of a Texas city—Houston. Only preliminary data are in, but the results so far are astonishing.

“Our data show that in Houston, nocturnal and early-morning temperatures in the central and southeast parts of the city are about ten to fifteen degrees hotter than the suburbs,” reports Dr. Cechova, who heads the study. “Last October, we found the Gulf Free way to be up to 22° hotter than the suburbs in the late evening. The freeway and the industrial plants along the ship channel are probably the hottest locations. The point is, even in our modern city, which we might expect to be well ventilated because of its location near the Gulf, we have major temperature differences from section to section.”

The effects of these “temperature differences” can literally be deadly. A study of the effects of the July 4, 1966, heat wave on Saint Louis found that the death rate due to heat was five-and-a-half times greater inside the city limits than in the suburbs. The total number of central city Saint Louis residents killed by heat that weekend: 209. A study of New York City during that same heat wave attributed 539 excess deaths to the heat. The researchers determined that 178 of these may have been caused by the central city “heat island” effect alone. The study also points out that deaths due to heat rise dramatically once the temperature passes 90°, and the normal heat-related death rate increases 75 per cent at 100°. Most of these heat-related excess deaths are caused by heart failures, but a recent Environmental Protection Agency study has concluded that cancer deaths rise too.

It is not the sun itself which causes the problems. In fact, heat from the sun is actually less intense in the city; urban areas receive 20 to 30 per cent less direct solar radiation than rural areas. But this is at best a small comfort. Cities get less sunlight largely because of air pollution, which actually adds to the urban heat load through what scientists call the “greenhouse effect.” The best way to understand the greenhouse effect, if you do not already understand how a greenhouse works, is to think of the pollution layer (and the atmosphere) as both a shield and a blanket; although it can reflect heat from the outside like a shield, it also keeps heat in like a blanket. The more the pollution, the thicker and more wind-resistant the blanket—and the hotter the city. Scientists have yet to determine exactly how much pollution adds to the thermal burden, but they are certain that it does increase urban temperature miseries.

What really intensifies the effect of urban heat is the way a city is built. Clusters of tall buildings reduce breezes by as much as 65 per cent at street level. Meanwhile, window glass reflects and intensifies heat and sunlight. Some measure of the possible extent of this effect is the increase in air-conditioning bills the mirrored United Gas Building brought to its downtown Houston neighbors—a hike building superintendents estimate to be ten to fifteen per cent.

But it’s concrete that really makes the difference. Concrete is one of the best heat absorption surfaces known. Most buildings exposed to sun are at least twelve to fourteen degrees hotter than even unshaded grassy areas; furthermore concrete streets and stone or steel buildings don’t cool off nearly as fast as grass, either.

The result is that a city full of concrete stays hot at night—just when you’d expect and hope for some relief. A recent study of urban and rural temperature differences for Dallas County showed that despite all the added heat-producing factors, the city is only slightly hotter than the rural areas dur-ing the day—but around 7 p.m. the rural areas start cooling off while the city just stays hot. By sunrise, this differences has reached its extreme. Such urban and rural differences have aver-aged ten to fifteen degrees in studies conducted in summer and fall.

In addition to sun and pollution and city structure, industrial and commercial activity contribute to the heat load. One heat-producing machine is the very device designed to eliminate heat—the good old air conditioner. The wonder gas that absorbs heat and makes cooling possible is Freon. But Freon must be pumped through the coils of the air conditioner inside, and that’s the role of the heat-producing compressor outside.

Although environmental researchers recognize that air conditioning makes cities hotter, there have as yet been no complete, systematic studies of its total effect. But some idea of air conditioning’s effects may be gleaned from a look at Houston, the self-proclaimed air-conditioning capital of the country. According to the Houston Chamber of Commerce and air-conditioning industry officials, a conservative estimate of the total air conditioning necessary to cool Houston’s downtown office buildings would be in the neighborhood of 150,000 tons. This estimate includes some units like the typical 3-ton units found in most average-sized homes, but mostly units like the 4500-ton installation that cools One Shell Plaza. Not included are the 50,000-ton plant at the “suburban” Greenway Plaza complex or the 6600- ton plant at the Astrodome. It takes about 26,000 BTUs of heat energy to produce each ton of air conditioning. But each ton also gives off about 12,000 BTUs of heat from its compressor. The result is that while Houston’s 150,000 tons of air conditioning cool the city’s office buildings, they also put out about 1.8 billion BTUs of heat. And that’s each hour. For an eight-hour day, the total is an astronomical 14.4 billion BTUs or enough heat to boil ten kettles of water the size of the Astrodome.

Where does all this heat go? That’s right, straight up into the atmosphere. But not too high up. Remember the “greenhouse effect.” Well, all the pollution, which these 150,000 tons of air conditioning increase by using over 31 billion BTUs of power and energy each eight-hour day, has the effect of keep-ing the heat bottled up near the surface for all of us to feel.

The people who get it the worst are core city residents, especially the poor who can’t afford to have air conditioners in their homes. But air conditioning doesn’t just make it harder on the have-nots. People who do have air conditioning may find that it is reducing their natural capacity to acclimatize—which is the process that makes possible the tolerances of extremes. But acclimatization only occurs through exposure—not too much exposure, but gradually in-creasing amounts. If we stay in air conditioning all the time, we won’t get any exposure. Except, that is, on jaunts out-side, and then the heat is a shock. This problem is of particular concern to Dr. Cechova and her research associates at the UT School of Public Health.

[cubby]

Several factors to consider.

Desalination plants will only be part of the solution. We won’t only depend on desalination plants entirely to solve the problem. Also, there are ways to reduce the environmental impacts of desalination plants.

NASA ocean salinity map shows that there are regions where the ocean water salinity levels are 25% to 33% below the average (3.5% to 3.6%). The coastal region from central to northern California coasts is an example of that. Coastal regions with lower salinity levels are ideal for desalination plant. Less salt intake meant lower brine concentration.

We also have the option of withdrawing the intake water from the coastal underground instead of directly from the sea. The ground will act as filter and reduce the salt intake even further.

Desalination plant can also be paired with industrial salt processing plant. Or a power plant which allows the brine to be dispersed with the cooling water from the power plant.

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We also need to rethink our approach to city planning. Our cities have become islands of heat.

Here is some good reading materials on the subject.

The Hottest Place in the Whole U.S.A.
Hotter than Death Valley, hotter than Devil’s Island, and, ladies and gentlemen, you’re living in it.

That's a terrific article. And I would agree that in general, and in the big picture, we need to totally rethink city planning - from the ground up.

Unfortunately, until it almost literally "all falls apart", we (at least the United States) won't do that. Money, political will (half our country is literally in climate change denial), and the needed sacrifices just aren't there.

(that article has some weird inconsistencies, or I'm just misunderstanding their point - good info overall though)

[Milchshake]

If only Boomers actually headed the article headed the article, when it was printed in 1975.
But instead they ignored it, and went all-in on cheap land and development.

At least they can brag to their grandkids about their robust real-estate investment holdings!

[Rasulis]

If only Boomers actually headed the article headed the article, when it was printed in 1975.
But instead they ignored it, and went all-in on cheap land and development.

At least they can brag to their grandkids about their robust real-estate investment holdings!

This boomer heeded the article. We never strayed more than 30 miles off the Pacific Coast.

All kidding aside, I agree with you. The data is a loud wake-up call. Business-as-usual development not only accelerates climate change, but it also puts more pressure on limited water supplies and makes it harder for aquifer, springs and rivers to recover from drought conditions.

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Out of curiosity, what would you consider to be too hot?

Places like Phoenix, Las Cruces, Las Vegas, 29 Palms and Palm Springs were already too hot for us in the 80s.

Miami & Texas used to be borderline acceptable. Not anymore.

San Diego used to be perfect. Now it is a bit too warm in the summer for us.

Obviously, there are many factors to consider. We ate outdoor lunch at a dim sum place in Pleasanton over the weekend. It was 85F heading up to 90F. However, there was a westerly breeze which kept it comfortable. The breeze made all the difference between too hot and comfortable.

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Heat wave hitting the Bay Area.

Monday: San Francisco, 78; Oakland, 82; San Jose, 90; Santa Rosa, 92; Livermore, 98; Discovery Bay, 105.
Tuesday: San Francisco, 78; Oakland, 84; San Jose, 95; Santa Rosa, 94; Livermore, 103; Discovery Bay, 109.

The high for San Francisco is based on downtown weather station. The west side never broke 65 today.

[Nymrohd]

If only Boomers actually headed the article headed the article, when it was printed in 1975.
But instead they ignored it, and went all-in on cheap land and development.

At least they can brag to their grandkids about their robust real-estate investment holdings!

Most eco-socialists at that point in time focused on urban planning because it was clearly the most cost effective and utility producing plan to improve our ecological impact. To be fair some ideas have been embraced in many places of the world, though almost always heavily moderated; e.g. a focus on public transport.