I want to put down one of my “ridiculous ideas” here. But am having trouble phrasing it in such a way as to avoid being obviously wrong.

We all agree that global warming is not synonymous with climate change, right?
We also all agreee that global warming is more than 90% due to greenhouse gases, right?

Two main aspects of climate change are ‘extreme events’ and ‘regional changes in rainfall’. It’s fair to say that those are the two aspects of climate change that most affect farmers, right?

Now I’m going to change tack. When doing computatioinal fluid dynamics, a huge concern is how to separate short term fluctuations (turbulence) from long term fluctuations (variation in mean flow). It can’t be done, so we artificially select a time scale to separate the two. The equiations are solved by integrating over that time scale. That isn’t really satisfactory, and a more advanced technique is to use what is called ‘ensemble averaging’, which involves creating alternative theoretical universes where the same experiment can be run over and over again.

Changing tack again. There are at least three different types of “random”. One familiar type of random has a mean and a standard deviation. A second type of random is chaos, where there is a mean but beyond that things get complicated. A third type of random is the random walk. There is no time-independent mean or standard deviation. A familiar example of the random walk is evolution. You can’t stop evolution because you can’t stop mutation. There is no “attractor” (using a term from chaos theory) forcing evolution to tend towards a final state.

How does this relate to climate and climate change?

Climate change is caused by deterministic factors, such as global warming. But some aspects of climate change are also caused by random factors.

Going back to fluid dynamics, how to separate short term fluctuations (weather) from long term fluctuations (climate change). We know that weather is chaotic, and the equations of chaos give us the exponential rate of separation between adjacent ensemble events, often called the butterfly effect.

It’s no stretch of the imagination to allow the butterfly effect to extend to timescales beyond the timescale for the formation of hurricanes to the timescale of climate change, for those aspects of climate change not directly explained by global warming.

Now here comes my “ridiculous idea”.

What if what we actually have here is the “random walk” type of randomness rather than the “chaos” type of randomness? To put is another way, what if the “strange attractor” of chaos only operates on timescales much longer than human experience, on timescales of 100,000 years or a million years or longer?

In a random walk there is no steady state mean, only permanent change. So those aspects of climate change that are not deterministically caused by global warming would be in permanent change.

This could affect most of ‘extreme events’ and ‘regional changes in rainfall’, the two aspects of climate change that most affect farmers.

mollwollfumble said:

I want to put down one of my “ridiculous ideas” here. But am having trouble phrasing it in such a way as to avoid being obviously wrong.

We all agree that global warming is not synonymous with climate change, right?
We also all agreee that global warming is more than 90% due to greenhouse gases, right?

Two main aspects of climate change are ‘extreme events’ and ‘regional changes in rainfall’. It’s fair to say that those are the two aspects of climate change that most affect farmers, right?

Now I’m going to change tack. When doing computatioinal fluid dynamics, a huge concern is how to separate short term fluctuations (turbulence) from long term fluctuations (variation in mean flow). It can’t be done, so we artificially select a time scale to separate the two. The equiations are solved by integrating over that time scale. That isn’t really satisfactory, and a more advanced technique is to use what is called ‘ensemble averaging’, which involves creating alternative theoretical universes where the same experiment can be run over and over again.

Changing tack again. There are at least three different types of “random”. One familiar type of random has a mean and a standard deviation. A second type of random is chaos, where there is a mean but beyond that things get complicated. A third type of random is the random walk. There is no time-independent mean or standard deviation. A familiar example of the random walk is evolution. You can’t stop evolution because you can’t stop mutation. There is no “attractor” (using a term from chaos theory) forcing evolution to tend towards a final state.

How does this relate to climate and climate change?

Climate change is caused by deterministic factors, such as global warming. But some aspects of climate change are also caused by random factors.

Going back to fluid dynamics, how to separate short term fluctuations (weather) from long term fluctuations (climate change). We know that weather is chaotic, and the equations of chaos give us the exponential rate of separation between adjacent ensemble events, often called the butterfly effect.

It’s no stretch of the imagination to allow the butterfly effect to extend to timescales beyond the timescale for the formation of hurricanes to the timescale of climate change, for those aspects of climate change not directly explained by global warming.

Now here comes my “ridiculous idea”.

What if what we actually have here is the “random walk” type of randomness rather than the “chaos” type of randomness? To put is another way, what if the “strange attractor” of chaos only operates on timescales much longer than human experience, on timescales of 100,000 years or a million years or longer?

In a random walk there is no steady state mean, only permanent change. So those aspects of climate change that are not deterministically caused by global warming would be in permanent change.

This could affect most of ‘extreme events’ and ‘regional changes in rainfall’, the two aspects of climate change that most affect farmers.

The distinction between with and without my “ridiculous idea” is illustrated in the following two graphs. Over a short period of time like 50 years, which is the period of time for which we have reliable global weather measurements, regional rainfall or extreme events won’t vary much between the three types of randomness. A slight difference is that chaos more closely resembles periodic than random does, so chaotic has more zero-crossing events.

But follow that on for a longer period of time, like 1000 years, and there can be a huge difference between chaos randomness and random walk randomness. To put it in a provocative way, random walk randomness (in which, like evolution, the future state depends only on the present state) is consistent with the conclusion that the non-deterministic component of “climate” as we know it is an artifact of the very short time period over which we have reliable data. Like this. The first 50 years are a close match, but after that – not.

>Two main aspects of climate change are ‘extreme events’ and ‘regional changes in rainfall’. It’s fair to say that those are the two aspects of climate change that most affect farmers, right?

for my local area, given it’s marginal, any trend toward less rainfall, the average, or the drought periods every decade or so become longer, then the negative effects are probably not linear, it’s precarious at the best of times

an extreme event here is a protracted lack of rainfall or extended period of dry after seeding, say if there was enough rain to put a crop in, which there generally always is, but then it can stop, in which case you might get bad frosts through august, and perhaps into september. There was a year it barely rained after the crop was planted, paddocks all drifted, wind cut the crop off, dunes through fences, across roads, didn’t rain until september, got no crop but the feed for the sheep then grew very high

another time I saw we got an entire year’s rain by end of july (plenty), then it hardly rained again at all, good crops though

getting the crop in the ground can put the pressure on with dry start, some people are putting many thousands of acres in, they do it on a little rain, not much of a window to do it, no ideal break to the season, and they need get it in early as possible to get the longest possible growing period

of course it’s not all about rainfall, it’s the evaporation also, plenty more of that in dry years, and over consecutive dry years, evaporation rate well exceeds rainfall

transition said:

>Two main aspects of climate change are ‘extreme events’ and ‘regional changes in rainfall’. It’s fair to say that those are the two aspects of climate change that most affect farmers, right?

for my local area, given it’s marginal, any trend toward less rainfall, the average, or the drought periods every decade or so become longer, then the negative effects are probably not linear, it’s precarious at the best of times

an extreme event here is a protracted lack of rainfall or extended period of dry after seeding, say if there was enough rain to put a crop in, which there generally always is, but then it can stop, in which case you might get bad frosts through august, and perhaps into september. There was a year it barely rained after the crop was planted, paddocks all drifted, wind cut the crop off, dunes through fences, across roads, didn’t rain until september, got no crop but the feed for the sheep then grew very high

another time I saw we got an entire year’s rain by end of july (plenty), then it hardly rained again at all, good crops though

getting the crop in the ground can put the pressure on with dry start, some people are putting many thousands of acres in, they do it on a little rain, not much of a window to do it, no ideal break to the season, and they need get it in early as possible to get the longest possible growing period

of course it’s not all about rainfall, it’s the evaporation also, plenty more of that in dry years, and over consecutive dry years, evaporation rate well exceeds rainfall

Um, seasonal temperature variations often only need to be slight, to affect flowering and fruit setting.
It is more that they come at the wrong time.

transition said:

>Two main aspects of climate change are ‘extreme events’ and ‘regional changes in rainfall’. It’s fair to say that those are the two aspects of climate change that most affect farmers, right?

for my local area, given it’s marginal, any trend toward less rainfall, the average, or the drought periods every decade or so become longer, then the negative effects are probably not linear, it’s precarious at the best of times

an extreme event here is a protracted lack of rainfall or extended period of dry after seeding, say if there was enough rain to put a crop in, which there generally always is, but then it can stop, in which case you might get bad frosts through august, and perhaps into september. There was a year it barely rained after the crop was planted, paddocks all drifted, wind cut the crop off, dunes through fences, across roads, didn’t rain until september, got no crop but the feed for the sheep then grew very high

another time I saw we got an entire year’s rain by end of july (plenty), then it hardly rained again at all, good crops though

getting the crop in the ground can put the pressure on with dry start, some people are putting many thousands of acres in, they do it on a little rain, not much of a window to do it, no ideal break to the season, and they need get it in early as possible to get the longest possible growing period

of course it’s not all about rainfall, it’s the evaporation also, plenty more of that in dry years, and over consecutive dry years, evaporation rate well exceeds rainfall

I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

>Two main aspects of climate change are ‘extreme events’ and ‘regional changes in rainfall’. It’s fair to say that those are the two aspects of climate change that most affect farmers, right?

for my local area, given it’s marginal, any trend toward less rainfall, the average, or the drought periods every decade or so become longer, then the negative effects are probably not linear, it’s precarious at the best of times

an extreme event here is a protracted lack of rainfall or extended period of dry after seeding, say if there was enough rain to put a crop in, which there generally always is, but then it can stop, in which case you might get bad frosts through august, and perhaps into september. There was a year it barely rained after the crop was planted, paddocks all drifted, wind cut the crop off, dunes through fences, across roads, didn’t rain until september, got no crop but the feed for the sheep then grew very high

another time I saw we got an entire year’s rain by end of july (plenty), then it hardly rained again at all, good crops though

getting the crop in the ground can put the pressure on with dry start, some people are putting many thousands of acres in, they do it on a little rain, not much of a window to do it, no ideal break to the season, and they need get it in early as possible to get the longest possible growing period

of course it’s not all about rainfall, it’s the evaporation also, plenty more of that in dry years, and over consecutive dry years, evaporation rate well exceeds rainfall

I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

US dust bowl image

Tamb said:

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

>Two main aspects of climate change are ‘extreme events’ and ‘regional changes in rainfall’. It’s fair to say that those are the two aspects of climate change that most affect farmers, right?

for my local area, given it’s marginal, any trend toward less rainfall, the average, or the drought periods every decade or so become longer, then the negative effects are probably not linear, it’s precarious at the best of times

an extreme event here is a protracted lack of rainfall or extended period of dry after seeding, say if there was enough rain to put a crop in, which there generally always is, but then it can stop, in which case you might get bad frosts through august, and perhaps into september. There was a year it barely rained after the crop was planted, paddocks all drifted, wind cut the crop off, dunes through fences, across roads, didn’t rain until september, got no crop but the feed for the sheep then grew very high

another time I saw we got an entire year’s rain by end of july (plenty), then it hardly rained again at all, good crops though

getting the crop in the ground can put the pressure on with dry start, some people are putting many thousands of acres in, they do it on a little rain, not much of a window to do it, no ideal break to the season, and they need get it in early as possible to get the longest possible growing period

of course it’s not all about rainfall, it’s the evaporation also, plenty more of that in dry years, and over consecutive dry years, evaporation rate well exceeds rainfall

I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

US dust bowl image

Is much of that due to lack of root structures/undergrowth holding the soil down

Cymek said:

Tamb said:

PermeateFree said:

I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

US dust bowl image

Is much of that due to lack of root structures/undergrowth holding the soil down

The Dust Bowl was the name given to the drought-stricken Southern Plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a dry period in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region.

A week before the Ash Wednesday fires in Victoria, Melbourne had a doozy.

https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=Melbourne+dust+storm&client=firefox-b-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjj7cHyw9TvAhViH7cAHYLJCuEQiR56BAgREAI&biw=1440&bih=739

buffy said:

A week before the Ash Wednesday fires in Victoria, Melbourne had a doozy.

https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=Melbourne+dust+storm&client=firefox-b-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjj7cHyw9TvAhViH7cAHYLJCuEQiR56BAgREAI&biw=1440&bih=739

There are 7 pdf’s here on dust storm frequency and all that.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212094713000248?via%3Dihub

>I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

didn’t just get sand in your eyes then

transition said:

>I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

didn’t just get sand in your eyes then

Why is this happening?

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

>I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

didn’t just get sand in your eyes then

Why is this happening?

I suspect you’ve asked a question to which you already have your own answer, you could of course have stated what you thought upfront, not bothered even asking it as a question

anyway plenty space below, give me your thoughts, i’m a bit of a captive audience possibly, off and on, but will go out move the hose in a moment, routine normal stuff

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

>I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

didn’t just get sand in your eyes then

Why is this happening?

Isn’t it a lack of tree, undergrowth and their associated complex roots structures holding the soil down, plus trees would also help to buffer the wind instead of it just blowing across essential flat featureless land

transition said:

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

>I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

didn’t just get sand in your eyes then

Why is this happening?

I suspect you’ve asked a question to which you already have your own answer, you could of course have stated what you thought upfront, not bothered even asking it as a question

anyway plenty space below, give me your thoughts, i’m a bit of a captive audience possibly, off and on, but will go out move the hose in a moment, routine normal stuff

I just know the result, not the cause, but as it seems to be an annual performance there has to be a better way.

Cymek said:

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

>I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

didn’t just get sand in your eyes then

Why is this happening?

Isn’t it a lack of tree, undergrowth and their associated complex roots structures holding the soil down, plus trees would also help to buffer the wind instead of it just blowing across essential flat featureless land

You usually don’t see many trees in a wheat paddock.

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

PermeateFree said:

Why is this happening?

I suspect you’ve asked a question to which you already have your own answer, you could of course have stated what you thought upfront, not bothered even asking it as a question

anyway plenty space below, give me your thoughts, i’m a bit of a captive audience possibly, off and on, but will go out move the hose in a moment, routine normal stuff

I just know the result, not the cause, but as it seems to be an annual performance there has to be a better way.

I reckon you have some ideas, about the a better way, which suggests (to me) you have ideas about something you think is done wrong, or not the best way

PermeateFree said:

Cymek said:

PermeateFree said:

Why is this happening?

Isn’t it a lack of tree, undergrowth and their associated complex roots structures holding the soil down, plus trees would also help to buffer the wind instead of it just blowing across essential flat featureless land

You usually don’t see many trees in a wheat paddock.

That’s what I mean it used to have trees holding down the soil once gone the wind just blows the soil away especially if the wheats been harvested.

transition said:

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

I suspect you’ve asked a question to which you already have your own answer, you could of course have stated what you thought upfront, not bothered even asking it as a question

anyway plenty space below, give me your thoughts, i’m a bit of a captive audience possibly, off and on, but will go out move the hose in a moment, routine normal stuff

I just know the result, not the cause, but as it seems to be an annual performance there has to be a better way.

I reckon you have some ideas, about the a better way, which suggests (to me) you have ideas about something you think is done wrong, or not the best way

It has gotta be on a downward spiral. Things need to be done differently.

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

PermeateFree said:

I just know the result, not the cause, but as it seems to be an annual performance there has to be a better way.

I reckon you have some ideas, about the a better way, which suggests (to me) you have ideas about something you think is done wrong, or not the best way

It has gotta be on a downward spiral. Things need to be done differently.

you’re getting there, shortly an answer to your own question will emerge, it’ll pop out from the repository of wisdom, lurch out and strike me

save me asking are you being disingenuous and pretending to be naive?

transition said:

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

I reckon you have some ideas, about the a better way, which suggests (to me) you have ideas about something you think is done wrong, or not the best way

It has gotta be on a downward spiral. Things need to be done differently.

you’re getting there, shortly an answer to your own question will emerge, it’ll pop out from the repository of wisdom, lurch out and strike me

save me asking are you being disingenuous and pretending to be naive?

Stop talking in riddles trans and just answer the question or not, as you please.

Huge uptick in lightning over the Arctic in past decade, research shows

Data, mainly for the summer months, showed the average number of lightning strikes in a given year for the entire region rose from approximately 18,000 to over 150,000.

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

PermeateFree said:

It has gotta be on a downward spiral. Things need to be done differently.

you’re getting there, shortly an answer to your own question will emerge, it’ll pop out from the repository of wisdom, lurch out and strike me

save me asking are you being disingenuous and pretending to be naive?

Stop talking in riddles trans and just answer the question or not, as you please.

your proposition was there has to be a better way, so you’re exploring the (possibility of) a better way, which suggests you have ideas about whatever presently being the wrong way, or not the best way, and you’ve invited me into a cough discussion about that

ball’s still in your court

transition said:

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

you’re getting there, shortly an answer to your own question will emerge, it’ll pop out from the repository of wisdom, lurch out and strike me

save me asking are you being disingenuous and pretending to be naive?

Stop talking in riddles trans and just answer the question or not, as you please.

your proposition was there has to be a better way, so you’re exploring the (possibility of) a better way, which suggests you have ideas about whatever presently being the wrong way, or not the best way, and you’ve invited me into a cough discussion about that

ball’s still in your court

My question was simple and unambiguous and I repeat the post again below. You are obviously reading a great deal more into it than was ever intended by me. It sounds like the SA soils getting blown out to sea is a very touchy point with you. So if you want to respond to my question do it, but stop this silly conspiracy that is only in your mind.

>>From: PermeateFree
ID: 1717023
Subject: re: Climate
transition said:

>I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

didn’t just get sand in your eyes then

Permeate Free said:

Why is this happening?

PermeateFree said:

transition said:

PermeateFree said:

Stop talking in riddles trans and just answer the question or not, as you please.

your proposition was there has to be a better way, so you’re exploring the (possibility of) a better way, which suggests you have ideas about whatever presently being the wrong way, or not the best way, and you’ve invited me into a cough discussion about that

ball’s still in your court

My question was simple and unambiguous and I repeat the post again below. You are obviously reading a great deal more into it than was ever intended by me. It sounds like the SA soils getting blown out to sea is a very touchy point with you. So if you want to respond to my question do it, but stop this silly conspiracy that is only in your mind.

>>From: PermeateFree
ID: 1717023
Subject: re: Climate
transition said:

>I think most of the best SA soils have been blown out to sea. Don’t know what you guys do, but most times I have driven through the wheat growing areas there has been a strong wind making visibility next to nothing, even had to pull over because I could not see. Strikes me something very wrong is going on.

didn’t just get sand in your eyes then

Permeate Free said:

Why is this happening?

Decided to check it out myself. The following appear to be major factors.

>>Most of the erosion risk is due to cropping practices such as tillage and stubble burning. Grazing management is also an important factor, especially in dry years and droughts. The highest risks associated with grazing occur in late summer and autumn when feed availability and the cover of annual crop and pasture residues is declining.<<

>>Telephone surveys show that the proportion of crop area sown using no-till methods has increased from 16% in 2000 to 66% in 2011. This trend has occurred in all the major cropping regions. There has also been a corresponding reduction in the use of tillage and stubble burning prior to sowing the crop. The trend in adoption of no-till is levelling off and this may limit further improvement in erosion protection.<<

https://www.environment.sa.gov.au/Knowledge_Bank/Science_research/land-condition-sustainable-management/soil-protection-from-erosion