Rising Temperatures Threaten Thailand's Economy, Tourism, and Future

[ourmanflint]

3 hours ago, BobDobbs said:

 

I guess what I'm missing here and you have not mentioned whatsoever is my part in this.

 

I've been to Nepal, Pakistan Himalaya / Hindu Kush, Ladakh, Spiti, Kinnuar..and Tibet twice. While there is loads of snow and many of these regions. The Tibetan plateau that you've mentioned has little or no moisture / water. This is a total red herring. Tibetan plateau lol

 

Glaciers definitely melting.

 

Edit: Tibetan plateau receives at most 12 in a year in rainfall. You can get that in 3 hours and in a given day in Thailand. It's absolutely nothing.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Plateau

 

Finally sorry.. The Washington Post doesn't print facts.

 

I guess I should give Obama a ring and let him know that his mansion is going to be underwater in 20 years

OMFG! Tibetan plateau is the source of most of the freshwater in Asia every major river begins there. I almost feel sorry for you living day to day being so ignorant of the world around you

[Lacessit]

30 minutes ago, ourmanflint said:

Facts, facts, facts... I think we have to realise that facts, proven facts, are just not evidence enough to someone has seen things " with their own eyes man"

 

 

I sometimes wish there was a vaccine to make me smarter. Then I have to come to terms with the fact there are so many posters on ASEAN that need it much more than I do.

[rickudon]

I really wonder whether someone pays these morons to post that climate change isn't happening/ is nothing to do with Humans.

 

Here is a simple statement about how much the temperature has changed. Easy to understand, even for deniers.

 

Quote

Researchers have found that temperatures have increased in Thailand over the past half-century, though there is some variability in their assessments. Thailand's Department of Meteorology reported that the annual mean temperature in Thailand rose by one degree Celsius from 1981 to 2007.^[4]: 231 Another study found that average annual temperatures in Thailand increased by 0.95 °C between 1955 and 2009, more than the average world temperature increase of 0.69 °C. The annual highest temperature has increased by 0.86 °C and the annual lowest temperature has decreased by 1.45 °C over the past 55 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_Thailand

[Presnock]

3 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

They all have in common that they are not predictable. Many people try, but nobody really knows what will happen. 

AMEN to that!

 

[watchcat]

"Rising Temperatures Threaten Thailand's Economy, Tourism"

 

I thougt tourists like the hot  the hot temperatures in Thailand according to the photos of them on the beach, Incould be wrong though.

[VincentRJ]

5 hours ago, Cory1848 said:

I think you’re obfuscating the issue. The vast consensus among climate scientists with respect to the effects of human activity is incontrovertible; it’s not something the media just made up. And I think the scientists have gotten pretty good at modeling. Many effects that were predicted decades ago are now happening.

 

As for your comparing inaccurate weather forecasts with long-term models created by climate scientists, now you’re the one mixing up “weather” and “climate.” Do I really need to point out that projecting the long-term effects of continued CO2 emissions is quite different from predicting whether or not it’s going to rain tomorrow?

"The vast consensus among climate scientists with respect to the effects of human activity is incontrovertible"

Where did you get that information from? The media? 

 

If you had an enquiring mind and did your own research, you'd find lots of controvertible evidence about the effects of CO2 on the climate. The problem is, the alarm about human CO2 emissions has become a type of religion, and as we know from history, questioning religious faith has had dire consequences.

 

There are numerous scientific studies which provide controvertible evidence, but the results tend to be ignored in the media or dismissed, and the authors are often censored, which is the antithesis of the true 'methodology of science' where every bit of controvertible evidence should be fully examined.

 

"Do I really need to point out that projecting the long-term effects of continued CO2 emissions is quite different from predicting whether or not it’s going to rain tomorrow?"

 

No, you don't. The weather predictions for the next day are reasonably accurate. Usually greater than 50%. However, climate is defined as an average of weather events over a 30 year period. Accurate predictions of the 'average of weather events', 30 years, 60 years, 90 years, and so on, into the future, is not possible.
 

[Will B Good]

1 minute ago, VincentRJ said:

The vast consensus among climate scientists with respect to the effects of human activity is incontrovertible"

Where did you get that information from? The media?

 

Plus scientific journals, university papers, research papers....

 

Where do get your information....YouTube and Christmas crackers?

[VincentRJ]

13 minutes ago, Will B Good said:

 

Plus scientific journals, university papers, research papers....

 

Where do get your information....YouTube and Christmas crackers?

 

"Where do get your information....YouTube and Christmas crackers?"

 

Don't be silly! I'm not a Christian, and YouTube videos are far too slow for my learning purposes. I prefer to read the transcripts and/or the pdf versions of actual scientific studies.

[sandyf]

On 8/10/2024 at 7:47 AM, JimHuaHin said:

This will attract criticism, but ...

 

Firstly, the Earth is about 4.5 billions years old, has had an atmosphere for about 2-3 billion years, during which time the climate has been constantly changing.  What is of concern now is the very rapid rate of climate change to human-induced global warming (we are referring changes over decades, not millions of years).

 

Secondly, about 3-4 decades ago there were a few articles in the Thai media about Bangkok "sinking"; articles based on Thai academic research which has been largely ignored.  At least Indonesia now has firm plans to move its capital city, which is also "sinking".  In Thailand, mai pen rai.

 

Finally, for the last 1-2 decades there have been numerous reports of the potential impact of global warming on global economies and communities; reports that have alarmed some and been largely ignored by the powers-that-be.  Some of these reports, parts of which I have read, detail potential changes in Thai weather patterns and their social and economic impact.  Again, ignored by the powers that be.

 

If NASA discovers an asteroid/comet what will directly impact earth in the year 2100, say, global governments would respond.  But Earth-destroying global warming, not my problem.

The real problem here is that foreigners want Thais to think the same way they do - never going to happen.

As a nation, the Thais know how to survive much better than most. They recovered from the 1997 crash relatively quickly, took the Tsunami in their stride and dealt with Covid much better than the west.

I would have thought that foreigners should be looking closer at there own countries rather than what Thailand is doing, after all if things do get tough we could all be kicked out under the first rule of survival.

[BritScot]

On 8/10/2024 at 1:47 AM, JimHuaHin said:

This will attract criticism, but ...

 

Firstly, the Earth is about 4.5 billions years old, has had an atmosphere for about 2-3 billion years, during which time the climate has been constantly changing.  What is of concern now is the very rapid rate of climate change to human-induced global warming (we are referring changes over decades, not millions of years).

 

Secondly, about 3-4 decades ago there were a few articles in the Thai media about Bangkok "sinking"; articles based on Thai academic research which has been largely ignored.  At least Indonesia now has firm plans to move its capital city, which is also "sinking".  In Thailand, mai pen rai.

 

Finally, for the last 1-2 decades there have been numerous reports of the potential impact of global warming on global economies and communities; reports that have alarmed some and been largely ignored by the powers-that-be.  Some of these reports, parts of which I have read, detail potential changes in Thai weather patterns and their social and economic impact.  Again, ignored by the powers that be.

 

If NASA discovers an asteroid/comet what will directly impact earth in the year 2100, say, global governments would respond.  But Earth-destroying global warming, not my problem.

You were on the right track until you fell into the "human causing climate warming". Very arrogant to think we humans can cause anything on earth due to the fact we are but an ants fart on the back of a buffalo. The big shiny thing in the sky causes over 97% of weather/global tempretures etc, animals less than 1% and volcanoes cause far more changes. Co2 levels have been more than double the current levels and as for sea levels the have been far higher and lower. Then there are inconvenient facts like the industrial revolution and world wars. Just stop and take a look at the properties owned by those so called elite screaming about climate change and their property portfolio's which include multi million $ beach front properties or island that 20 years ago they were saying would be covered by water. Ask the question, can you get 30 year mortgages in London or even Bangkok etc? Every single climate scare has failed to materialise, so how many before you can call it a Hoax?

[Cory1848]

21 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

If you had an enquiring mind and did your own research, ...

 

That’s all I need to know. “Doing your own research” means reading articles on the internet that you like reading, that reinforce what you think you already believe. This reminds me of a meme that was floating around, which addressed vaccines and not climate science, but the psychology is the same. The first picture is labeled “vaccine research” and shows a group of people in lab coats, doing work in a lab setting with test tubes and other equipment. The second picture is labeled “antivax research” and shows a woman with her pants down, sitting on a toilet and staring into her phone.

[Lacessit]

22 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

"The vast consensus among climate scientists with respect to the effects of human activity is incontrovertible"

Where did you get that information from? The media? 

 

If you had an enquiring mind and did your own research, you'd find lots of controvertible evidence about the effects of CO2 on the climate. The problem is, the alarm about human CO2 emissions has become a type of religion, and as we know from history, questioning religious faith has had dire consequences.

 

There are numerous scientific studies which provide controvertible evidence, but the results tend to be ignored in the media or dismissed, and the authors are often censored, which is the antithesis of the true 'methodology of science' where every bit of controvertible evidence should be fully examined.

 

"Do I really need to point out that projecting the long-term effects of continued CO2 emissions is quite different from predicting whether or not it’s going to rain tomorrow?"

 

No, you don't. The weather predictions for the next day are reasonably accurate. Usually greater than 50%. However, climate is defined as an average of weather events over a 30 year period. Accurate predictions of the 'average of weather events', 30 years, 60 years, 90 years, and so on, into the future, is not possible.
 

I can accurately predict the oceans are going to get warmer. I can accurately predict storms - hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones - will become more violent. Ask any meteorologist what happens when water is warmer.

 

I can say the CO2 level in the atmosphere was 300 ppm for millennia. It has increased to 440 ppm in less than 300 years, from when the Industrial Revolution started. Saying the increase is not due to human activity is as dumb as they come.

 

My first two sentences are an inevitable consequence of the laws of thermodynamics. I suggest you learn about them and understand them, instead of researching material which fits your cognitive bias.

 

Inquiring mind my aching butt.

[placeholder]

On 8/11/2024 at 10:38 AM, VincentRJ said:

This is in complete contrast to the IPCC statement that, "The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible." 

What you don't seem to understand is that in this context climate states is not synonymous with climate.  This is the kind of mischaracterization that is to be found on denialist websites and in tweets and such.

 

Fact check: 2001 climate change statement misrepresented to disparage climate models

The word "climate" refers to the range of expected weather conditions, including temperature and precipitation levels. Conversely, "climate states" refers to the presence or absence of relatively discrete weather events like a rainstorm...

"What this quotation is about is the limits on weather forecasts and forecasts of other variability, like El Niño," Baylor Fox-Kemper, an associate professor at Brown University and an author on a 2021-22 IPCC report, told USA TODAY.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/05/23/fact-check-climate-models-reliable-ipcc-statement-misrepresented/9618298002/

 

So while it may not yet or maybe ever be possible to predict how many thunderstorms will occur in a given locale over a period of time, it is entirely possible to predict the rise in global temperature. In fact, most of the models created in the 1960s and 1970 created very accurate algorithms to predict the rise in global temperatures for example.

 

Climate models are often attacked, but most of the time they're remarkably good

After years of hearing critics blast the models' accuracy, climate scientist Zeke Hausfather decided to see just how good they have been. He tracked down 17 models used between 1970 and 2007 and found that the majority of them predicted results that were "indistinguishable from what actually occurred."

"By and large our models have gotten it right, plus or minus a little bit," said Hausfather, a UC Berkeley scientist who is climate and energy director at the Breakthrough Institute.

https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-theyre-remarkably-good.html#:~:text=After years of hearing critics,indistinguishable from what actually occurred."

 

The models also predicted that average temperatures at the polar regions would rise faster than elsewhere and that as the lower atmosphere warmed, the stratosphere would actually get cooler as a consequence of the heat trapping power of the rising levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. The latter prediction is especially remarkable and rules out the claims of some that the current rapid rate of climate change is due to solar cycles.

 

 

[VincentRJ]

22 hours ago, Cory1848 said:

That’s all I need to know. “Doing your own research” means reading articles on the internet that you like reading, that reinforce what you think you already believe. This reminds me of a meme that was floating around, which addressed vaccines and not climate science, but the psychology is the same. The first picture is labeled “vaccine research” and shows a group of people in lab coats, doing work in a lab setting with test tubes and other equipment. The second picture is labeled “antivax research” and shows a woman with her pants down, sitting on a toilet and staring into her phone.

 

"That’s all I need to know. “Doing your own research” means reading articles on the internet that you like reading, that reinforce what you think you already believe. "

 

That's a good point which merits addressing. It might mean that for some people, but not for me. I do research on any topic that interests me, in order to learn more about the subject.

 

When the scare about anthropogenic global warming became prominent in the media in the late 1990's and eary 2000's, and after listening to interviews of climate experts on the media, such as James Hansen and James Lovelock, I assumed it was a serious threat. Why should I not?
I'm sufficiently educated in Physics and Chemistry to understand that CO2 is a 'greenhouse gas' because it absorbs infrared radiation, and I understand that CO2 can dissolve in water to produce carbonic acid. I also understood that an ocean which is too acidic might not be good for sea life in general.

 

However, at the time, I knew very little about past climate changes and the many processes that cause climate to change, and the information I gained from the media, mostly through interviews of scientists on the media, raised some perplexing questions in my mind.

 

In order to find the answer to these questions, I began searching the internet, including Google Scholar, Wikipedia, NASA, NOAA, BOM, and The Working Group 1 part of the IPCC reports (which addresses the science rather than the politics), and what I discovered, surprised me. In order for this post not to be too long, I'll just give one example, but I have many.

 

After hearing many reports of the alarming effects of ocean acidification, I began to wonder what is the normal pH of the oceans. Are the oceans slightly acidic, or slightly alkaline, or possibly neutral. 
I understood that 'acidification' meant 'becoming more acidic', which would suggest the oceans are normally either acidic or neutral. I also understood the pH system, which is important if you do gardening, because most plants thrive in slightly acidic to neutral soils, but some also thrive in slightly alkaline soils. If one adds too much lime to increase the calcium content of the soil, the soil can become too alkaline and the growth of certain plants will slow down. A pH of 7 is neutral. Less than 7 is acidic, and greater than 7 is alkaline.

 

I was puzzled why the media never mentioned what the pH of the oceans are, and how much they have changed since industrialization. So I began to search for the answer on the internet.
What my research revealed is that the average pH of the oceans' surface (up to a depth of 500 metres) is 8.1, which is significantly alkaline, and that most estimates claim that during the past 150 years or so, since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the average pH has fallen from 8.2 to 8.1. Wow! It's no wonder that the media never mentioned that. That's definitely not alarming. 🤣

 

Digging deeper into the issue, I also discovered research that shows the pH of the ocean's surface, at any particular location, can vary by more than 0.1 pH on a daily basis, and on a seasonal and regional basis it can vary between pH 7.9 and pH 8.3. Furthermore, coastal waters can routinely vary even more, between a pH of 7.5 and 8.5.

 

Why should anyone be alarmed about a rather uncertain estimate of a 0.1 change in average pH over a 150 year period, in the top 500m of the sea, and a rather uncertain rise in average global temperatures of 1 degree C during a similar period?

 

The best answer I could find is the following quote from Stephen Schneider who was a Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University.

 

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both."
 

Sounds a bit like politics. 

[VincentRJ]

On 8/13/2024 at 7:16 PM, placeholder said:

What you don't seem to understand is that in this context climate states is not synonymous with climate.  This is the kind of mischaracterization that is to be found on denialist websites and in tweets and such.

 

Fact check: 2001 climate change statement misrepresented to disparage climate models

The word "climate" refers to the range of expected weather conditions, including temperature and precipitation levels. Conversely, "climate states" refers to the presence or absence of relatively discrete weather events like a rainstorm...

"What this quotation is about is the limits on weather forecasts and forecasts of other variability, like El Niño," Baylor Fox-Kemper, an associate professor at Brown University and an author on a 2021-22 IPCC report, told USA TODAY.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/05/23/fact-check-climate-models-reliable-ipcc-statement-misrepresented/9618298002/

 

So while it may not yet or maybe ever be possible to predict how many thunderstorms will occur in a given locale over a period of time, it is entirely possible to predict the rise in global temperature. In fact, most of the models created in the 1960s and 1970 created very accurate algorithms to predict the rise in global temperatures for example.

 

Climate models are often attacked, but most of the time they're remarkably good

After years of hearing critics blast the models' accuracy, climate scientist Zeke Hausfather decided to see just how good they have been. He tracked down 17 models used between 1970 and 2007 and found that the majority of them predicted results that were "indistinguishable from what actually occurred."

"By and large our models have gotten it right, plus or minus a little bit," said Hausfather, a UC Berkeley scientist who is climate and energy director at the Breakthrough Institute.

https://phys.org/news/2019-12-climate-theyre-remarkably-good.html#:~:text=After years of hearing critics,indistinguishable from what actually occurred."

 

The models also predicted that average temperatures at the polar regions would rise faster than elsewhere and that as the lower atmosphere warmed, the stratosphere would actually get cooler as a consequence of the heat trapping power of the rising levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. The latter prediction is especially remarkable and rules out the claims of some that the current rapid rate of climate change is due to solar cycles.

 

 

"So while it may not yet or maybe ever be possible to predict how many thunderstorms will occur in a given locale over a period of time, it is entirely possible to predict the rise in global temperature. In fact, most of the models created in the 1960s and 1970 created very accurate algorithms to predict the rise in global temperatures for example."

 

Sorry I haven't responded to your comment until now. I've been rather busy, and it's taken me some time to dig up some reliable scientific studies on this issue. However, I've found a few that may 'tickle your fancy'. 

 

Here's a recent article in Nature magazine, written by Gavin Schmidt who is a climatologist and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, so I guess you would consider him reliable.

 

WORLD VIEW 19 March 2024
"Climate models can’t explain 2023’s huge heat anomaly — we could be in uncharted territory."
"For the past nine months, mean land and sea surface temperatures have overshot previous records each month by up to 0.2 °C — a huge margin at the planetary scale. A general warming trend is expected because of rising greenhouse-gas emissions, but this sudden heat spike greatly exceeds predictions made by statistical climate models that rely on past observations. Many reasons for this discrepancy have been proposed but, as yet, no combination of them has been able to reconcile our theories with what has happened."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00816-z

 

Here's another article from an independant Climate Research publisher.

 

"Given the host of uncertainties and unknowns in the difficult but important task of climate modeling, the unique attribution of observed current climate change to increased atmospheric CO2 concentration, including the relatively well-observed latest 20 yr, is not possible."
https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/cr/v18/n3/p259-275/

 

And here's another from a Hydrological Sciences Journal.

 

"Here we compare the output of various models to temperature and precipitation observations from eight stations with long (over 100 years) records from around the globe. The results show that models perform poorly, even at a climatic (30-year) scale. Thus local model projections cannot be credible, whereas a common argument that models can perform better at larger spatial scales is unsupported."
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1623/hysj.53.4.671

 

And here's another study which claims the evidence suggests that increases in CO2 levels are an effect of temperature rises rather than the cause.

 

"All evidence resulting from the analyses suggests a unidirectional, potentially causal link with T as the cause and [CO2] as the effect. That link is not represented in climate models, whose outputs are also examined using the same framework, resulting in a link opposite the one found when the real measurements are used."
https://www.mdpi.com/2413-4155/5/3/35

 

And yet other one.

 

"The reliability of general circulation climate model (GCM) global air temperature projections is evaluated for the first time, by way of propagation of model calibration error. An extensive series of demonstrations show that GCM air temperature projections are just linear extrapolations of fractional greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing. Linear projections are subject to linear propagation of error. A directly relevant GCM calibration metric is the annual average ±12.1% error in global annual average cloud fraction produced within CMIP5 climate models. This error is strongly pair-wise correlated across models, implying a source in deficient theory."
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/earth-science/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00223/full

 

And here's another study addressing Sea Surface Temperatures (SST).

 

"We estimate climate sensitivity from observations, using the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the concurrent fluctuations in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing radiation from the ERBE (1985–1999) and CERES (2000–2008) satellite instruments. Distinct periods of warming and cooling in the SSTs were used to evaluate feedbacks.
The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13143-011-0023-x