Climate Change Discussion

[rogerpenna]

Since almost my whole state was affected by the biggest flooding in history (the state capital is flooded since May 3rd), which displaced from home at least half a million people and hundreds if not thousands of business were also affected, including MANY, MANY of our suppliers, Climate Change is basically what everyone is talking.
Have I mentioned many of our worksites have been affected by either landslides or flooding? And clients are changing contracts (paralyzing many, opening new urgent ones) to deal with the consequences... oh, and several employees were also affected, either by flooded roads or destroyed bridges (so they could not come to work) as well as losing their houses.

So just here, 3 interested parties we have to talk about regarding climate change. On the other hand, it's not difficult to discuss what happened. It's difficult to discuss what will happen.
Will floods be the new normal around here? Climate change deals with global average patterns. Local climate is called weather and it's much more unpredictable.

 

[Randy]

Since almost my whole state was affected by the biggest flooding in history (the state capital is flooded since May 3rd)

Which state is that?

 

[rogerpenna]

Which state is that?

Guess based on the statue

j/k, all 120 HAVAN stores have a Statue of Liberty in front of them.

Rio Grande do Sul
an aerial image of that same Havan store in the city of Lajeado. Notice the bridge underwater. That bridge is over 15 meters above the river level.

ps: this is about the same latitude as Houston in the US, and also a state mostly of grasslands.

 

[Randy]

You don't think that clear cutting of the forest upriver and other programs could be part of the causes?

 

[rogerpenna]

You don't think that clear cutting of the forest upriver and other programs could be part of the causes?

What forest upriver? And what rivers? Taquari, Jacuí, Sinos and Uruguay?
No... it was more related to 700mm of rain falling in 48 hours in the northeast part of the state, all that rain coming from the Amazon along the Andes, in anticlockwise direction then when it should be going northeast along the Atlantic coast, it got trapped over a single state because of the HIGH PRESSURE, hot dry mass bubble over central Brazil, which according to metereologists, was the fault of an unprecedent hot El Nino caused by Global Warming. There were warnings that this unusual warm El Nino would probably cause something like that. Maybe not at the level that happened, which was unprecedent in history.
Just like the temperature of the Earth, which was unprecedent in recorded history.

 

[Golfman25]

You don't think that clear cutting of the forest upriver and other programs could be part of the causes?

Yeah. It’s never rained and flooded before.

 

[rogerpenna]

Yeah. It’s never rained and flooded before.

well, not like that. As I mentioned, it was the largest flood in recorded history here. The closest we had was 1941... a whole half meter less in Porto Alegre. So this one broke all historical records. On the opposite side, our record snowfalls were in the 19th century. Over 1,5 meter snowfall accumulation in the northern part of this state.

I think more important is that I don´t understand what he meant with forests upriver. The Amazon forest is north, not upriver. The Amazon river flows northeast actually, not towards Southern Brazil.
And for context, the distance from the Amazon to the floods. From far away so the US can also be seen, for distances comparison

edit: apparently the forum doesn´t accept IMGUR links. Well, better this way, so we dont occupy here with images. So just the link of the captured screenshot (edit... well, it seems posting the link created a thumbnail, while posting the link in img format resulted in error)

https://imgur.com/N7hX3Jr

 

[Randy]

which was unprecedent in recorded history.

There you go, "recorded history". What about "unrecorded history"? Any records in sediment or on top of hills, mountains detailing large amounts of water in the past? How about temperatures prior to "recorded" history? Was it ever warmer than it is today? Was it ever colder?

I see the flow of the Amazon, my bad you hope, but are there are no forests or rivers north of you that flow south like in from Paraguay or Bolivia?

Again while on the subject, could not extensive clear cutting in the Amazonian forests contribute to higher levels of CO2 due to the diminishing of the photosynthesis process provided by trees and other plant life there containing chlorophyl? Could not a major contributor to GHG/Global Warming not be Brazil itself in its' willful destruction of the Rain Forest which is one of the major sources of O2 and major mechanisms by which the Earth itself helps to cleanse the atmosphere?

Just wondering.

 

[rogerpenna]

There you go, "recorded history". What about "unrecorded history"? Any records in sediment or on top of hills, mountains detailing large amounts of water in the past? How about temperatures prior to "recorded" history? Was it ever warmer than it is today? Was it ever colder?

I see the flow of the Amazon, my bad you hope, but are there are no forests or rivers north of you that flow south like in from Paraguay or Bolivia?

Again while on the subject, could not extensive clear cutting in the Amazonian forests contribute to higher levels of CO2 due to the diminishing of the photosynthesis process provided by trees and other plant life there containing chlorophyl? Could not a major contributor to GHG/Global Warming not be Brazil itself in its' willful destruction of the Rain Forest which is one of the major sources of O2 and major mechanisms by which the Earth itself helps to cleanse the atmosphere?

Just wondering.

Forests are not major sources of O2. Forests only consume CO2 while growing. Then they become stable, releasing O2 and CO2 in equal amounts.
So it's not the diminishing of photosynthesis the problem. It's the release of biomass as CO2 that is the problem. Carbon is trapped in living beings. When living beings die, they release carbon. Phitoplankton carbon got trapped below the sea floor, and we release it when we burn oil. Burning forests certainly also contribute to Global Warming. But we do not live in the Amazon and can do little to change what happens there except for voting in presidents that try to do something about it.

I see the flow of the Amazon, my bad you hope, but are there are no forests or rivers north of you that flow south like in from Paraguay or Bolivia?

There are. But not from the Amazon basin. And none reach my state. My state northern border is wholy formed by the Uruguay river, which flows towards Uruguay and where it joins the Paraná River (the 8th largest river in the world) to form the Plata River, that reaches Buenos Aires.

Rio Grande (Minas Gerais) – Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre

pt.wikipedia.org

But the excess rainfall all fell inside the borders of the state affecting mostly local rivers that flow only internally.

There you go, "recorded history". What about "unrecorded history"? Any records in sediment or on top of hills, mountains detailing large amounts of water in the past? How about temperatures prior to "recorded" history? Was it ever warmer than it is today? Was it ever colder?

It was certainly warmer in the Jurassic and Cretaceous.

 

[Bev D]

@Randy first thank you for your service. I am truly glad that you were able to ‘make it home’. I knew many that didn’t and many that do suffered greatly. I can still remember when my best friend since 7th grade and the mother of 2 of my god sons had 3 blue stars in her front window. Fortunately they all made it home and have done well healing from their time in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now to provide a bit more explanation than @rogerpenna gave. Yes before temperature was routinely recorded there were periods of extreme temps - mostly when humans weren’t around yet. And certainly each of those periods had different vegetation and living creatures. A far different environment than we have now. IF the temperatures continue to rise we will substantially change weather patterns and affect our environment. I’ve explained before that just the small change in the temp in the Atlantic Ocean is causing lobsters to move away from the coast of maine and green crabs to move in to reduce the famous steamer clams. Is it killing us? No, but just that small effect is affecting the livelihood of thousands of people. But has often been explained the weather in the Earth is a very complex system. So while the temperature has an effect it’s the overall energy that is critical. Small things can have very large effects.

Again careful reading will show that I am not explaining anything to do with cause, but I am concerned about the effect of rising temperatures.

An interesting web site is this one.

Let’s all keep the discussion civil and avoid snark and sarcasm. After all many fought and some died to preserve our right to free speech and discourse.