Started gardening 5 years ago. Before that I never realized how messed up the climate was. Long period of drought mixed with intetmittent torrents. Last year was also a disaster year due to unusual temperature fluctuations.
That's also the reason back in the 19th century you'd find hydrologists on every important project, no matter what it was about. Hydrologists just had to be really good (and among the first) statisticians.
The Earth, who knew. Family moves from temperate climate to the desert, wonders why it's always so hot, must be climate change. The seas are rising, man checks web cams for sea side resorts around the world and photos from the past several decades, no change in sea levels, doesn't fit the narrative, must be wrong.
These sorts of measurements aren't done on the basis of one person eyeballing some pictures or making observations about the weather around them.
If you're serious about trying to understand the world around you, but don't trust others' data analysis, you can download the raw data & do the calculations yourself.
This is a great reply but these people aren't here because they want to learn; they're here the announce that they're better than you, and know The Truth. So, a person like this will take your tide data and just tell you it's false, or flawed, or ask with a wink whether you really can trust it, etc etc. They're not here for conversation, they're here for a monologue.
I check the data for myself, not interested in either a monologue or your soapbox preaching. Review recent photographs of beaches from around the world from today then compare to historic photos of the same beaches.
his statement isnt denying climate change, its just saying short term freaky weather happens. And people often use short term weather within statistical bounds as evidence of climate change when it is mor of a long term thing that is statistical to measure.
Read his statement with the missing nod to consensus "while climate change is real" at the beginning.
What does it mean when dialogue can’t be had without first incensing the air with the quasi-religious rites of “jabs are safe and effective,” “climate change is real and manmade,” “there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud,” “peace be upon him” etc?
It does seem to be a weirdly ritualistic way of quickly signifying that ‘I am on your team, I am not one of the crazy ones; however, I would still like to talk about [touchy subject] without you making baseless assumptions.’
It's exhausting. His thinking is literally a direct threat to human survival as we know it. Yet somehow, we accept this shit as part of the discourse. I don't see why we don't treat them like flat earthers or cultists.
I live in California and have first-hand experience with water shortages and all kinds of other fun things pertaining to drastic climate changes. I'm not a Global Warming or a Climate Change denier, but I do want to lay some things down. Flat-earthers are people who ignore the laws of physics that make up almost everything that has to do with modern civilization. Global Warming or Climate Change deniers are people who disagree about the effects of humanity on global climate and the policies that are being enacted locally or federally to avoid potential consequences. The first group is full of idiots. The latter group predominantly consists of people who look at bans on plastic straws and farting cows and draw their conclusions from that. I'm sorry, but the only exhausting thing about all of this is people like you who completely dismiss the other side because they somehow beat into their head that this is a simple one-dimensional issue.
> The latter group predominantly consists of people who look at bans on plastic straws and farting cows and draw their conclusions from that.
What about the people who think climate change is real but question the science and ask why 1 study includes X but not Y while another includes Y but not X, and suggest it’s cherry picking data?
It's a bit hyperbolic to say that any one person's thinking is "literally" a direct threat to human survival, unless that person has his finger on the nuclear button. Some person's incoherent opinion on the internet is not literally a threat to anything.
I'm pointing this out because hyperbole and demonization do no one any good, either when trying to correct misinformation or when trying to enact policy.
Is there a data download? Not saying there has to be, but if there is I'm sure it's fun.
Anyone browsing (if there are multiple datasets eventually) probably wants to have some metadata about approximate location and climate of the location.
The first thing I looked for on the link was a download. Apparently not provided. I may (politely) email the author and ask if one is planned in the future.
Why there isnt some "not sexy" statup that provides technology to build artificial lakes / water reservoirs? Just patch them in random places to collect water, plant some trees and it should help. Make it in a way that it just requires a small plot of land, so a group of people can acquire the plot, or even better - force the muncipiality to provide one.
I am nit sure if such small reservoirs can help much, but it is always something.
Last statup I heard was some company that put rubber balls on big water reservoirs in California (?) to try to limit evaporation. I wonder if this helped and if the decaying plastic didnt polute the water.
> Why there isnt some "not sexy" statup that provides technology to build artificial lakes / water reservoirs?
The technology already exists. Bulldozer, excavator, concrete, explosives. Not not-sexy enough for you?
> Just patch them in random places to collect water,
Not sure what "patch" means here, but water is becoming increasingly regulated, and in a lot of places you can't just randomly build lakes and dam water even on property you own.
> plant some trees and it should help. Make it in a way that it just requires a small plot of land, so a group of people can acquire the plot, or even better - force the muncipiality to provide one.
Should help with what? I feel I'm missing the context you're replying to.
THIS. And it's regulated (though often under-regulated) for damn good reasons. Properly designing even a "little" dam is far more difficult that most people appreciate. And both construction and upkeep (which is necessary, forever) are really expensive. Maybe start reading here: https://practical.engineering/blog/2021/10/14/what-really-ha...
They are made from HDPE, with an additive to prevent UV-accelerated breakdown into bromates (which is what they are there to stop forming in the water, as well as to stop evaporation).
You'd think so, but parts of England institute a "hosepipe ban" in dryer summers to reduce water usage - effectively saying "you can't water your garden or clean your car for 1 month" or something. I imagine they're just being overly cautious though because, as you said, it does rain pretty frequently in the UK overall.
It's cheaper for water companies to institute bans than to fix leaks and build capacity. Why waste potential profit! So what if lawns die, farms/gardens lose produce, it's not like the water companies need to care -- what you going to do harvest your own (you're not allowed!).
Same with sewage, they don't bother building the capacity, just pay off the Tories and they allow it to be pumped raw into rivers and onto shores.
1) yes you can have a small 100l tank catching rain water for your garden, but you can not drink it. If it became a big tank it would become subject to planning and building control.
2) you need a permit to harvest ground water by digging a well or borehole.
3) you need a permit to entrap water in a pond and to build a dam for this purpose
The issue here is not really 'droughts' it's that the UK relies on constant rainfall and hasn't much storage infrastructure or, say, mountains producing melt water in summer.
The UK is quite wet and becoming wetter so I think it will be down to adapting to more rain but perhaps less constant.
The water distribution infrastructure is also notorious for being outdated and full of leaks...
Yes… But think about, say, farming. Too much rain (or not enough) at the wrong time of year can devastate crops. Seeing variations on rainfall month by month show how seasonal patterns in the UK are changing.
Too much for an area is often more to do with excess tarmac or compacted soil.
https://metofficenews.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/uk-rainfal...
White is 40-45 inches. That or greater is rare, the only dark blue in England is a national park famous for its lakes and rain. The third element of too much rain is that we like to complain about trivialities.
I do it mainly because it is a tradition of the scientific gentry to take measurements and build almanacs. Think Reed’s (nautical) or Wisden (cricket) but on a much more local scale. It’s probably why the article references the fact that their gauge is made of copper — taking pride in a sense of tradition and solidity by using a brassy looking scientific instrument made of metal. My own gauge is plastic but I mounted it on a solid oak stave. We try to follow in the footsteps of Kelvin, hiking to his waterfall with a hardwood case of glass thermometers etc.
I would probably be into steampunk as an aesthetic if it were more hard scifi and less makebelieve. Compared to steampunk bric-à-brac, a copper rain gauge is steam punk science that is actually scientific, as opposed to an iPhone case with brass cogs glued to it.
It serves a practical purpose too — when you have a privet hedge and a lawn to care for and your climate provides rainfall on an intermittent basis, it’s important to know when the soil needs some artificial millimetres on it to keep the foliage going.
Weather is hyper local. In the US precipitation data are generally available at 1km grid resolution through combination of radar, satellite, and ground truth gauges — these are good areal estimates but pretty much always very bad point estimates. There can be problems in data availability, and quality due to all sorts of things like bird migrations, clouds, and gauge malfunctions. Collecting your own data is cheap and easy.
As farmers, my family has always been interested in the weather for good reason. We have a few rain gauges about a mile apart and the difference between them is significant. You might get a tenth of an inch in one place and a half an inch a mile away.
The synthetic precipitation data might be useful on a large, average scale, but it usually doesn't actually provide a particularly accurate measure of what actually happened on your land.
What is the point in doing anything? Why cook, isn't there already cooks that do that? Why program? Isn't there already programmers who program? Why do woodworking? Walmart sells chairs and other wood products? Why do pottery? I can go to Etsy and buy it? Why own a fish tank? There is an ocean with plenty of fish in it? Why garden? There are huge farms that do that?
Gardening. You can look up stuff for an area, but you might have plants locally with specific needs. Or people with rain catchments.
Our local monsoon season was weeks of great thunderstorms twenty years ago and is now a period of humidity. Stuff like this makes it “real.” Aka resistant to gaslighting.
There was some debate three years ago on whether insect populations were declining, with the prime suspect being modern pesticides.
The most solid data source they found in Germany was a local club of enthusiast entomologists who had been collecting bugs using the same traps, locations, and methodology over the past 80+ years.
The answer btw was yes, there was a marked reduction over that time frame.
The "backstory" was on the Reddit post - the data came from OP's father who was recording daily rainfall just because, probably as an odd-ball hobby or a routine. The OP merely packaged it up in a form of a website.
Rainfall is very, very site specific. So is temperature.
If I drive 1km down the road, the temp goes up 3C in the summer, when it is 35C in the city, and 32C here.
Why? I am close to a river, there are hills around me. Terrain makes a difference.
Sometimes, I can see it rain an few km away, but not here. And the reverse is true, too.
And beyond that, rain is not consistent. It's not as of someone turned on a faucet, and rain is coming from a perfect shower head, all perfectly distributed.
It varies, fluctuates, terrain, makes a difference, for terrain effects wind patterns, causes air to rise or fall, etc etc.
This applies especially in the UK, where it can be pouring with rain for an hour where I live, but beautiful sunshine 2 miles away where my brother lives. The country is an island with hills everywhere and a flat east coast. The Met office data doesn't really have the resolution wanted for some people.
The adage if you don't like the weather in the UK, wait 5 minutes, is also perfectly accurate.
Yes. I live on the South Coast and notice temperature changes from driving just a few mile inlands (e.g. in winter, the difference between car windscreens icing up or not).
> The adage if you don't like the weather in the UK, wait 5 minutes, is also perfectly accurate.
I know what you mean, but three or four hours will almost certainly guarantee a change (especially when raining) as this gives westerly fronts from the Atlantic to pass through.
I used to help record weather measurements from a "weather station" in the UK growing up. It's a cultural thing. Lots of cultures don't have the same long term cooperative investments. Their lack of toil evident by their negative impact on society
In some places. In others, drought. A very complicated system but I think you're right that there's a net increase in precipitation expected overall globally.
"the UK has been on average 6% wetter over the last 30 years (1991-2020) than the preceding 30 years (1961-1990). Six of the ten wettest years for the UK in a series from 1862 have occurred since 1998." [1]
https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/v92fu6/my_...