Last week, or maybe the week before it, I read an article called “the death of snow” in a Danish newspaper called weekendavisen. It bluntly stated that we might need to get used to the idea of being the only Scandinavian country without snow, and how it would change our national identity.
This got me thinking about a story from my childhood. My grandparents told me that my great grandfather used to work as a sleigh driver during winters at the end of the nineteenth century. I hadn’t believed them of course, I mean, how could one occupy such a job, where you would only be needed a couple of times each year. I had forgotten the story until I read the article about our dying snow. Now that I was reminded, however, I decided to find out if it was true. It was, it turns out that we used to get so much snow each winter that sleigh driver was a legitimate job title. At least until some time during the past hundred years.
I’m sure we would have replaced sleigh drivers with modern snow machines by now. Only the truth is that there has only been one or two winters in my life, where we’ve even had enough snow for a sleigh ride to be possible.
I’m afraid the death of Danish snow, and, the drying out Europe’s most important river, is only the beginning of our trouble.
Even just 30-40 years ago - back then a teenager, in the 198x in my hometown in European part of Russia i did a lot of cross country skiing every winter. These days, in the last 15 years, they have mostly had stretches of several snowless winters in row, and the winters which would have snow it would be only minor snow, staying for just a few days, not suitable for anything.
Back then, growing tomatoes (private vegetable gardens were a practical necessity in USSR and has since then became national hobby) was a risky business - early August colds and mists would kill the harvest before it gets ready. The cherries and apricots were stuff of dreams available only at the sky-high prices at the private farmer markets from the traiders coming from the USSR South. These days tomatoes, cherries, apricots grow really well with very good problem-less harvests. Anybody wonders why Russia is so quiet about climate change and just continues pumping the oil non-stop polar bears be damned? With each degree of temperature up, another significant part of the country becomes more suitable to live and overall "cold tax" on the Russian economy becomes smaller (whereis the 2 most recent periods of peak cool climate - 190x and 198x - and associated bad harvests/etc. produced great social instability as a result: the revolution of 1905 and the collapse of USSR)
I'm originally from Basel, where the Rhine river is flowing true and very central to the city's history and appearance. We usually go swimming (it's more letting yourself float) in the Rhine in summer by starting at one part of the city and then getting out at the other.
This year it was quite unusual as the current was extremely slow, the water was very warm and you could see that there is significantly less water flowing through. We always talk about climate change but feeling it in ways like these makes it very relatable and real.
> This year it was quite unusual as the current was extremely slow, the water was very warm and you could see that there is significantly less water flowing through. We always talk about climate change but feeling it in ways like these makes it very relatable and real.
One data point (i.e. a year) should not be taken as a sign of climate change. There are always outliers from time to time. When drawing such observations it is more relevant to track exactly the state of the river over extended periods of time (20, 30 years at least) so that you have a real sense of what is happening.
The article starts out in the present tense, which might give a false impression that this is happening right now. In Cologne, where I live, the Rhine river actually just recovered from a minor flood as you can see on this chart:
I'm originally from the Rhine river area and I still spend time there. It's certainly true that the water level was low this summer, but it was an exceptionally long and hot summer. I found interesting that my grandma labeled the it "a summer like the summers we were used to long time ago".
There's even a famous german song "Wann wird's mal wieder richtig Sommer?" (When will we have a real summer again?).
Btw since it was basically constantly raining from Oct-Dec, the river replenished really quickly.
It was a very hot, but on top of that an exceptionally dry summer. Even in hot summers, Germany would get rain every two weeks or so, sometimes more often. This year, in some regions it didn't rain for months.
2018 was exceptional, the rain was not enough. There's a great episode of Quarks about this. Absolutely recommended if you speak German (unfortunately no translation seems to be available).
I'm not sure if "ironic" is the right word here, but that as a direct effect of climate change, coal power plants had to shut down and cars couldn't be manufactured is certainly an interesting twist.
But also, shipping by barge uses lots less energy than shipping by rail, and far less than shipping by truck. So overall, it's probably positive feedback.
I grew up in the town below the mentioned Lorelei Rock, St. Goarshausen.
When I was born in 1988 it was the year of was the biggest flood in multiple decades. When I went to elementary school I remembered having to leave our house on planks a few years because of the flooding. It happened just once again in middle school. We moved to Frankfurt in 2003, since then my friends that kept living in the area report that the floods left with me moving away and are sometimes joking if we'd left some faucet running back then.
I guess it's just an example of climate change that I could find in my picture albums without realizing. I wonder what else is lurking in those pictures.
As far as I know, Germany did the same as the Netherlands after the 1993/5 flooding. They increased the leeway the water can have and increased emergency pumps. That might be a better explanation than climate change. But they do not rule each other out.
I don't know about your town, but in Cologne there were massive investments in flood protection after the heavy floods in the 90s. I've been living in Cologne for about 10 years, and almost every year the water gets so high that temporary dams are set up. There are a couple of houses outside the protection area and those have been flooded and reachable only by boat or planks on multiple occasions.
With the shutdown of nuclear reactors, Germany is starting to rely more and more on coal plants to provide a stable source of power that isn't dependent on weather patterns (sun for solar panels, rainfall for hydro electric).
There is only so much ice in the Alps. As glaciers retreat, there is less water stored in them. Reduced ice mass means less meltwater, despite warm conditions.
Yes, glacier melting should mean more water. That is not what the graph labeled "The Rhine river has been receding as alpine glaciers at its source melt" shows.
Another alternative is that, because temperatures are warmer and there is less water stored in the glaciers during winter and less melting in summer, there should be a wider depth variation between winter and summer but a similar average. Also not what the graph shows.
It seems like it is just less precipitation. (Which is climate change, possibly due to global warming)
Actually no, didn't return much interesting stuff at all. The bottom of the first page had a britannica article from the 1980s mentioning a long standing canal diversion France did in the 20th century, which I sense had low to no impact on the long-term climate sustained decline in water levels in the river.
The top hit on "Rhine river water diverted" is a story about the impact of decline being so strong, traffic is being diverted to road and rail.
Anytime an article about "climate change" use words like "could" "might" "potentially" and this one "risks" we are in speculation, not demonstration land.
If the science was demonstrated there would be no need to use these qualifiers. As always read these things with a grain of salt.
Yes, there will be consequences from climate change but it's not something we can't deal with and some of them are at least partially good such as added vegetation.
> Anytime an article about "climate change" uses words like "could" "might" "potentially" and this one "risks" we are in speculation, not demonstration land.
Do you not read a lot of scientific journals? Also, the article uses none of the qualifier words you listed except "risk" in an appropriate manner, in the subtitle. The title is "Europe’s Most Important River Is Running Dry." Is that demonstrative enough for you?
Correct, just like when you read an article on HN about how new crypto laws could lead to increased surveillance / decreased privacy, articles like this are trying to promote some sort of change before we end up in somewhere we don’t want to be.
[+] [-] jaabe|7 years ago|reply
This got me thinking about a story from my childhood. My grandparents told me that my great grandfather used to work as a sleigh driver during winters at the end of the nineteenth century. I hadn’t believed them of course, I mean, how could one occupy such a job, where you would only be needed a couple of times each year. I had forgotten the story until I read the article about our dying snow. Now that I was reminded, however, I decided to find out if it was true. It was, it turns out that we used to get so much snow each winter that sleigh driver was a legitimate job title. At least until some time during the past hundred years.
I’m sure we would have replaced sleigh drivers with modern snow machines by now. Only the truth is that there has only been one or two winters in my life, where we’ve even had enough snow for a sleigh ride to be possible.
I’m afraid the death of Danish snow, and, the drying out Europe’s most important river, is only the beginning of our trouble.
[+] [-] cobookman|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
[+] [-] trhway|7 years ago|reply
Back then, growing tomatoes (private vegetable gardens were a practical necessity in USSR and has since then became national hobby) was a risky business - early August colds and mists would kill the harvest before it gets ready. The cherries and apricots were stuff of dreams available only at the sky-high prices at the private farmer markets from the traiders coming from the USSR South. These days tomatoes, cherries, apricots grow really well with very good problem-less harvests. Anybody wonders why Russia is so quiet about climate change and just continues pumping the oil non-stop polar bears be damned? With each degree of temperature up, another significant part of the country becomes more suitable to live and overall "cold tax" on the Russian economy becomes smaller (whereis the 2 most recent periods of peak cool climate - 190x and 198x - and associated bad harvests/etc. produced great social instability as a result: the revolution of 1905 and the collapse of USSR)
[+] [-] cmarschner|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lazyjones|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] freshfey|7 years ago|reply
This year it was quite unusual as the current was extremely slow, the water was very warm and you could see that there is significantly less water flowing through. We always talk about climate change but feeling it in ways like these makes it very relatable and real.
[+] [-] ekianjo|7 years ago|reply
One data point (i.e. a year) should not be taken as a sign of climate change. There are always outliers from time to time. When drawing such observations it is more relevant to track exactly the state of the river over extended periods of time (20, 30 years at least) so that you have a real sense of what is happening.
[+] [-] agumonkey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielh|7 years ago|reply
https://www.elwis.de/DE/dynamisch/gewaesserkunde/wasserstaen...
(Everything above 4.5m is considered a flood)
One side effect of the low water that isn't mentioned in the article is that it exposed multiple bombs and grenades from the second world war.
[+] [-] Jdam|7 years ago|reply
There's even a famous german song "Wann wird's mal wieder richtig Sommer?" (When will we have a real summer again?).
Btw since it was basically constantly raining from Oct-Dec, the river replenished really quickly.
[+] [-] freddie_mercury|7 years ago|reply
Old people often make fact-free claims about how things used to be.
We don't need to rely on faulty human memories. There are actual records of water levels, rainfall, and temperature for all of the 20th century.
It is simply not true that the past summer was something that occurred frequently in the past.
[+] [-] konschubert|7 years ago|reply
Also I haven’t heard of any evidence to support that such droughts are normal for Germany.
To put it bluntly, we’re seeing Climate Change in action.
[+] [-] calcifer|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _ph_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solarkraft|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ch0wn|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirimir|7 years ago|reply
But also, shipping by barge uses lots less energy than shipping by rail, and far less than shipping by truck. So overall, it's probably positive feedback.
[+] [-] Roritharr|7 years ago|reply
When I was born in 1988 it was the year of was the biggest flood in multiple decades. When I went to elementary school I remembered having to leave our house on planks a few years because of the flooding. It happened just once again in middle school. We moved to Frankfurt in 2003, since then my friends that kept living in the area report that the floods left with me moving away and are sometimes joking if we'd left some faucet running back then.
I guess it's just an example of climate change that I could find in my picture albums without realizing. I wonder what else is lurking in those pictures.
[+] [-] consp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Reason077|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeroenhd|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ddebernardy|7 years ago|reply
[1]: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-...
[+] [-] tomrijntjes|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Reason077|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] config_yml|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gpsx|7 years ago|reply
Another alternative is that, because temperatures are warmer and there is less water stored in the glaciers during winter and less melting in summer, there should be a wider depth variation between winter and summer but a similar average. Also not what the graph shows.
It seems like it is just less precipitation. (Which is climate change, possibly due to global warming)
[+] [-] Gravityloss|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yters|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] calcifer|7 years ago|reply
> It's interesting how dissent in these round earth threads is downvoted to death. I wonder what sort of effect this has on the undecided?
[+] [-] fsfsdff56sdf|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] patrickg_zill|7 years ago|reply
A search for say, "Rhine river water diverted" returns interesting stuff to read...
[+] [-] ggm|7 years ago|reply
The top hit on "Rhine river water diverted" is a story about the impact of decline being so strong, traffic is being diverted to road and rail.
[+] [-] inam1990|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ThomPete|7 years ago|reply
If the science was demonstrated there would be no need to use these qualifiers. As always read these things with a grain of salt.
Yes, there will be consequences from climate change but it's not something we can't deal with and some of them are at least partially good such as added vegetation.
[+] [-] EForEndeavour|7 years ago|reply
Do you not read a lot of scientific journals? Also, the article uses none of the qualifier words you listed except "risk" in an appropriate manner, in the subtitle. The title is "Europe’s Most Important River Is Running Dry." Is that demonstrative enough for you?
[+] [-] chillacy|7 years ago|reply