Climate-exodus expected in the Middle East and North Africa

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Plazma Inferno!, May 3, 2016.

  1. Plazma Inferno! Ding Ding Ding Ding Administrator

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    The number of climate refugees could increase dramatically in future. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia have calculated that the Middle East and North Africa could become so hot that human habitability is compromised. The goal of limiting global warming to less than two degrees Celsius, agreed at the recent UN climate summit in Paris, will not be sufficient to prevent this scenario. The temperature during summer in the already very hot Middle East and North Africa will increase more than two times faster compared to the average global warming. This means that during hot days temperatures south of the Mediterranean will reach around 46 degrees Celsius (approximately 114 degrees Fahrenheit) by mid-century. Such extremely hot days will occur five times more often than was the case at the turn of the millennium. In combination with increasing air pollution by windblown desert dust, the environmental conditions could become intolerable and may force people to migrate.

    http://phys.org/news/2016-05-climate-exodus-middle-east-north-africa.html
     
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  3. Richtigkeit Registered Member

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    Exodus is already underway, nothing to do with climate, everything to do with murderous genocidal Islamist extremists. Climate may well be changing, has been doing so for 4.5 billion years, deal with it!
     
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  5. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting, if a bit wild, speculation.
    Based on climate models?
    I would take it seriously if they had some data from previous warmer climates to support their speculations.
    But,
    they don't,
    so
    I wont.
     
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  7. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The genocidal extremists have been around for fifty years or more - some say thousands. The recent extreme drought in Syria (matching the climate change alarmist predictions, in location and timing etc) coincides with the exodus.

    Human beings are not marbles - cause and effect in human behavior is always mediated by culture, technology, politics, etc.
    They do.

    They also have fine grained data from several El Nino events, now (to check the statistical predictions regarding increased variance in extremes, durations, etc). Things are looking a bit bleak. Of course we could get very lucky. How much do you want to bet?
     
  8. Richtigkeit Registered Member

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    I have had the good fortune to have wiled away part of my misspent early adulthood living in the Eastern Caribbean and watched the disappearance of small low lying islands, some of which were transported by hyper climate change (hurricanes) and caused bigger, formerly separate islands to join and become one. I now live in Florida, where one may observe beach ridges at a depth of about 200 feet and some at regular levels below that. It may be concluded that over brief geological time intervals that sea levels have fluctuated dramatically with glacial and perhaps other physical phenomenon of which we know little. Is the sea level rising? probably, do we have sufficient good quality data to show by how much or by what mechanism? I think not, do we humans have anything to do with it? maybe, if so how much? we just don't know. Terrestrial tidal datum, the traditional bench marks of sea level are themselves subject to tectonic plate subduction/heaving and glacial rebound, we may some day soon be in a position to accurately gauge the sea level vector, but right now there are way too many variables that we simply do not understand. So when the the Sports Illustrated folk are about to do their next swimwear photo shoot they should check that their island is still there.
     
  9. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Who is this "we", and what exactly is it that this "we" doesn't know?

    For example: if somebody calculates the expected change in salt water volume caused by a given change in temperature profile throughout a water column, someone else measures the temperature profiles of representative ocean water columns for a few decades, yet another party measures the height of the top of the water columns involved to within a fraction of a centimeter or so,

    and all these numbers agree, within reason,

    do they know anything?

    Can they employ this knowledge to help estimate the future effects of ongoing heat trapping by the CO2 currently being discarded into the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion (which other people have likewise calculated and measured and so forth), and get something useful?
     
  10. Richtigkeit Registered Member

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    Yes, I believe that there is always something useful in quality scientific inquiry and it is most satisfying when results are corroborated to some extent.
    In order to model the oceans and atmosphere to a resolution that could be used to predict the rate and nature of a changing global climate the sheer volume of data required and computational gymnastics would be enormous and well beyond our capabilities today. The example that you cite is indeed plausible, but the column would have to be modeled over 70% of the globe with the addition of the atmosphere above, probably by the cubic meter with physical attributes such as you describe in addition to vectored components including temperature, mass, acceleration etc. taking into account of everything from topography of the ocean floor, abyssal currents, ocean floor heating, motion etc.; in other words there is a whole bunch of stuff that we do not know, but in time we will undoubtedly have the computer power to model the atmosphere and oceans to the extent that we can add the land and human components. The computer power may well be out there now, but its probably tied up in the bosun chair of elementary particle physics.
     
  11. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    Well the Israeli population have increased About the drouth I would say Israel's surface is not becoming dry with the drip irrigation . I was in Israel 40 years ago first time and it was a land desert like, and 3 years ago I visited Israel again, The land is productive , trees are planted all the time . I drove into the Palestinian land , and it steel desert like I suppose if the Arabs remove the Israeli then it will become again desert like.
     
  12. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That depends on what resolution and precision - in time and space - you require in your description of "climate". Yearly means and variances reasonably good over few thousand square miles would easily suffice for ordinary "climate change" purposes.
    Of course not. We're not trying to predict the weather day to day, or specific tidal heights at particular times and places with centimeter precision. You don't need minute to minute meter cubed resolution of the globe's atmospheric temperatures to estimate the likely change in the mean yearly sea level of the Gulf of Mexico from an approximate half a degree rise in the mean midlevel ocean water temperatures of that Gulf and the contiguous midAtlantic.
    The Israelis have systematically taken the best watered land and best water sources from the Palestinians, using military force to remove the Palestinians (and Syrians, etc) from this desirable land. This is ongoing - Israel is still expanding, has as yet no fixed borders, and maintains military control over well-watered land to which it has never established formal or legitimate claim. This is kind of a sore point, with the former owners and farmers of that land.

    So if the air heats up some more and the summers get drier in that area, the effect will be seen first in the international news as political unrest. Refugees are likely, then.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2016
  13. timojin Valued Senior Member

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  14. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    My observation in a 40 year gap, tells me you have not seen the area . I did not travel as a tourist in a group , I rented a car and drove into West bank into Palestinian territory, Take example Jerico along the Jordan river , Palestinian have done not much if anything . USA provided a donation to build roads in the area and jet are poorly maintained . The Israeli setup water desalination plant in Gaza .
    One important thing is PLANT A TREE does not exist in the less developed nation in the middle east . The area is well deforestated and that definitively does not contribute to a better clima . Why the rich Arabs don't install an infrastructure to use fossil fuels so people can use there own natural resources ( gas and oil ) so that the land will not be deforested. In an arid land you can not raise sheep or goats and that is their staple .
    In the 1070 to 2000 such large immigration in the middle east was not known , why now , I believe because our policy mangling with their policy have created a big unrest and instability. Democracy does not work for every society . Middle east have survived for thousands of years and it will survive for much more , provided we don't stick our noses into their life
     
  15. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    We are dealing with it. One way of dealing with it is to reduce CO2 emissions so that it doesn't change as quickly.
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The Israelis took the best land in the region, especially the good water sources, away from its Palestinian owners and farmers. At gunpoint.
    Here is part of what has happened to many of the carefully tended olive groves of Palestinian farmland over the past 40 years: from 2002 http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/olive-tree.htm
    ongoing, after replanting attempts: http://www.israelpalestinemissionnetwork.org/main/ipmndocuments/factsheet04.pdf
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ing-of-palestinian-olive-groves-10321936.html

    Palestinians have been farmers and orchardists for many generations. https://ps.boell.org/en/2015/05/12/traditional-farming-palestine
    Please. Something like a third of the entire population of Jordan is refugee from the various wars after WWII. There are 1950 - 2000 refugees from Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and neighboring countries all over the planet. The waves of refugees from the Arab/Israeli wars are famous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre
    Here's a breakdown of the Palestinian refugee situation since 1948: http://www.irinnews.org/report/89571/middle-east-palestinian-refugee-numberswhereabouts
    The main point here is not that this is ignorant and bigoted nonsense. The main point is that wherever you are getting this from is a fountain of ugly lies, and has been for a long time now. Why are you still allowing yourself to be manipulated by such people?

    When the effects of climate change hit, they will be mediated by politics, economics, local human circumstances. Without accurate information about those mediations, one cannot reliably evaluate - or even recognize, often - the effects of climate change, no matter how severe.
     
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  17. Richtigkeit Registered Member

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    The act of human reduction of atmospheric CO2 may appear on the surface to be worth while goal, my point is do we know enough about the CO2 cycle to make life changing decisions for hundreds of millions of human beings? Are we in a position to make such decisions on behalf of humanity and by what authority? Attempts to control the behavior of significant populations based on the threat of an invisible menace have only ended badly in recent history.
     
  18. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think you're as lofty-minded as you put on. I think you're trolling, especially with your pompous handle.

    Besides, didn't you mean 'data', the plural, rather than 'datum', an isolated observation devoid of context?
     
  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Of course. We know that the waste CO2 we discard into the atmosphere stays there and builds up rapidly, and its effects are and will be both significant and largely undesirable for us.

    It's like dumping sewage into your drinking water. You don't know everything about it, from a geological point of view, but you do know you're better off not suffering the short term consequences if you can help it.
    So have attempts to control the behavior of significant populations afflicted with the reality of an unfolding disaster.

    Don't do that, would be the recommendation.

    Handle the invisible menaces - germs, poisons, pollutants - via sound governmental regulation and infrastructure.
     
  20. Richtigkeit Registered Member

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    Yes, you have the answer; sound governmental regulation and infrastructure, what a joy it would be to have such things universally available and accepted by those being so governed.
     
  21. Richtigkeit Registered Member

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    The measurement of height relative to sea level is stated in the United States as the National Geodetic Vertical Datum (NGVD) with the year established being stated i.e. NGVD 1927 or today NGVD 1983. In other countries such as the United Kingdom the equivalent would be their Newlyn (Cornwall) Datum. The term "datum", in this context establishes a physical point where the topographic vertical "Z" component has a physical presence adjacent to a tidal body of water.
     
  22. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks. Still...
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The price of incapable, negligent, or otherwise poor governance is of course a heavy one - much heavier than a sane people would volunteer to pay.

    The measurement of sea level itself would be the key factor in this thread.
     

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