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Centuries-old whaling logs are filling gaps in our climate knowledge

130 points| Thevet | 3 years ago |grist.org

68 comments

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[+] ortusdux|3 years ago|reply
The wine industry has kept meticulous records of harvest dates and temperatures for centuries. This study leveraged 600+ years of data to show a noticeable increase in temperature and shortening harvest window starting in 1988.

https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/15/1485/2019/

[+] paganel|3 years ago|reply
They used to have very nice vineyards just North of Paris in the 1300s going into the 1500s (I may be slightly wrong on this last date), that sort of info doesn't get repeated often enough in today's climate-obsessed language.

Quickly found an online source here [1]:

> The Paris region was mostly planted with white, particularly with a variety known then under the name of Fromenteau or Fromentot, which is known today as the Pinot Gris.

I had personally gotten that info from reading this very interesting book on the history of rural France during the last 2000 years [2]

[1] https://www.wineterroirs.com/2012/12/wine_in_the_middle_ages...

[2] https://www.amazon.fr/Histoire-France-rurale-origines-1340/d...

[+] xenonite|3 years ago|reply
After quick glance on the study, I am a bit skeptical regarding proper statistical control of metropolitan temperature.

In blunt words: no wonder the temperature rises if it is measured at a place that is surrounded with concrete and stone today.

[+] tony_cannistra|3 years ago|reply
Another good example of this kind of thing is the first day of cherry blossom blooms in Kyoto. Records have been kept since 812 AD.

https://www.datagraver.com/case/kyoto-cherry-blossom-full-fl...

[+] brabel|3 years ago|reply
That's a beautiful chart. It's amazing how over 1,000 years of records can now be easily seen by us, thanks to the incredible discipline and stability of the Japanese society.

I also find it incredible that there were several outlier years before, that were quite close to the early blossoms we're seeing in recent years, so the earliest one in 2011 was actually not completely unprecedented... but of course, the pattern is very clear that something is way off since the 1980's and the end line is unequivocaly going down, fast.

[+] mmastrac|3 years ago|reply
The continued support for climate change consensus from new research is good to see, but is it having an effect on the final ~25% of Americans that haven't believed in it yet?

And as a curiosity, what happened in the late 2000s to cause belief in climate change to drop off a cliff, and then slowly creep back up?

https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/am...

[+] melling|3 years ago|reply
Fox News and other media outlets

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/climate-activists-embrace-d...

There’s also not much of attempt on the left to understand climate change better.

Every weather disaster is directly attributed to climate change, even if it scientifically can’t be directly linked.

This convinces deniers that there isn’t a problem and people are being “alarmists”.

[+] OrvalWintermute|3 years ago|reply
Much of the bogus predictions were based on flawed observations and bad ideas like the hockeystick data normalization problem, and a failure to account for the trend of deglaciation which predates industrialization. A general discounting of solar radiance, misunderstanding albedo, and pushing a low CO2 norm was also part and parcel to this hogwash.

We knew there were incorrectly sited weather sensors that fed data into the climate record, just like ASOS, receiving prop blast and jetwash. Some HCN sensors that had been correctly sited became incorrect over time due to urbanization and industrialization. The discongruence between space based observations and in-situ flawed sensors are the clearest indication of this.

This is also why we saw the rise of the HCN-Reference. We also saw a better understanding of the medieval warm period which, although potentially regionalized, is not without precedents.

The process of fixing of these flaws, we call that science. However, this has not stopped the religious cult from a rearguard action defending by whatever name they choose to call it these days.

[+] TEP_Kim_Il_Sung|3 years ago|reply
> what happened in the late 2000s to cause belief in climate change to drop off a cliff

CRU leak?

[+] ForHackernews|3 years ago|reply
Al Gore made a movie about climate change so the other team was obligated to violently disbelieve in it.
[+] BirAdam|3 years ago|reply
Politics caused the split.

The change in course where it slowly creeped up is two fold. First, the warming became completely obvious. People could see in their own living memory very dramatic changes between their childhood and modern day. That just took time. Second, as the left became more and more radicalized toward actions to fight the threat, the right wing could take a less radical position and still claim to be holding the line against radicals. The left shifted the Overton Window left enough that the right could have a politically viable platform that included climate change.

[+] hotz|3 years ago|reply
Ever hear of the boy who cried wolf...
[+] 8bitsrule|3 years ago|reply
There is such a list, a wealth of benefits that follow a switch to renewable energies and other planet-greening. And they're fairly inarguable, clearly the future.

But climate is much harder to pin down, the perfect red-herring, keeping us arguing minutia distracts us from acting to realize that unifying list.

Unlimited universally-available energy, far less pollution, the end of energy colonialism, lowering costs, more wealth for all, better health. And less CO2 to boot. Hell we might even make it to Type 1.