Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

5 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

 

Yeah. Hypercanes and adios ice caps. 7c in warming would leave large parts of the earth uninhabitable, that’s the places that aren’t underwater… But C02 is great!!!!

[HailMan06]

14 minutes ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

Yeah. Hypercanes and adios ice caps. 7c in warming would leave large parts of the earth uninhabitable, that’s the places that aren’t underwater… But C02 is great!!!!

Yeah not to minimize what we will see the rest of this century but living through the 22nd century sure will be a wild time to experience the world.

[gallopinggertie]

17 hours ago, HailMan06 said:

Yeah not to minimize what we will see the rest of this century but living through the 22nd century sure will be a wild time to experience the world.

That’s for sure. Not only global warming, but ocean acidification and microplastic pollution will become huge problems. 

As a random aside, Portland OR (where I live) broke its all-time march record high yesterday, with a high of 82. 

[chubbs]

Earth's storage of water in soil, lakes and rivers is dwindling. And it's especially bad for farming

Their paper, published Thursday in the journal Science, finds that global warming has notably reduced the amount of water that's being stored around the world in soil, lakes, rivers, snow and other places, with potentially irreversible impacts on agriculture and sea level rise. The researchers say the significant shift of water from land to the ocean is particularly worrisome for farming, and hope their work will strengthen efforts to reduce water overuse. Earth's soil moisture dropped by over 2,000 gigatons in roughly the last 20 years, the study says. For context, that's more than twice Greenland's ice loss from 2002 to 2006, the researchers noted. Meanwhile, the frequency of once-in-a-decade agricultural and ecological droughts has increased, global sea levels have risen and the Earth's pole has shifted.

https://phys.org/news/2025-03-earth-storage-soil-lakes-rivers.html

[Typhoon Tip]

6 hours ago, chubbs said:

Earth's storage of water in soil, lakes and rivers is dwindling. And it's especially bad for farming

Their paper, published Thursday in the journal Science, finds that global warming has notably reduced the amount of water that's being stored around the world in soil, lakes, rivers, snow and other places, with potentially irreversible impacts on agriculture and sea level rise. The researchers say the significant shift of water from land to the ocean is particularly worrisome for farming, and hope their work will strengthen efforts to reduce water overuse. Earth's soil moisture dropped by over 2,000 gigatons in roughly the last 20 years, the study says. For context, that's more than twice Greenland's ice loss from 2002 to 2006, the researchers noted. Meanwhile, the frequency of once-in-a-decade agricultural and ecological droughts has increased, global sea levels have risen and the Earth's pole has shifted.

https://phys.org/news/2025-03-earth-storage-soil-lakes-rivers.html

Yeah, I was going to drop this little gem off this morning, myself ... but I see you beat me to it.

This CC apocalypse is slow moving.   Human relative observation doesn't see it moving, but on scales of a 100 years or so, this is moving very fast. 

again again and again and again ... the primary reluctance and/or belated response, and/or denailism ... and/or [add enabling reason not to react here], it is all made possible because people don't respond unless they feel pain.

That simple.  Biology on this planet, from the paramecium to the larger order and everything in between, are programmed to react based up perceptions that are directly fear-triggering some instinctual signal, or what causes discomfort.  

Humans do have a capacity for cause-and-effect awareness, one that far exceeds any other organisms of this world that show any semblance of the same ability - it's what really separates us from the chorus. Not that other shit with tools and language...  But there is just this one nagging flaw, other than the trope of "being human."  We are often in hesitation when that ability to foresee cost, competes with the immediate gratification of reward. This hesitation may be our undoing.   

It would be nice if there really was a kind of super consciousness known as Gaia running the show... and it had any interest in preserving us - but with little or no evidence to the contrary ... it such an agency does exist, it's clearly quite contented with us fucking up the world and leaving the keys on the counter upon exit.   Otherwise, a burning bush may tell us something about the, hey! ... wait a second -

I think it would be astounding if all this trillion dollar history of SETI search efforts at last found a world that had all the aspects of advancing industrial footprints, alas was completely absent of any life above bacterial decay ... Setting foot upon such a world would reveal hollowed winds as the only sound, other than the occasion pieces of edifice crumbling to the ground.  It wouldn't take long to deduce what's happened. Unfortunately, at several 10's of light-year's travel it would take 30,000 years for conventional velocity to find the bones in the rubble. 

Science Fiction authors of the early and mid last Century were amazingly visionary. A cinema in the 1950s, called "The Forbidden Planet"   It was not for an environmental catastrophe, per se, but as the plot thickened, "killed off by a mysterious force.."  Hmm, in principle ...something the indigenous, the so-called "Krell," had created thousands of years before humans arrived in their somehow faster than light (maybe warp drive) exploreration, killed them all off in some sort of sweeping disaster... 

Stop there - no need to go further to see the metaphoric, comparative value.   On geological times scales?   - this CC could certainly be construed, and realized (being the self-afflicting tragedy) as a similar sweeping "correction". And, we almost don't even need the metaphoric comparison; strikingly similar, the Krell's agent of their own demise was something eerily alike an AI run amok.

[ChescoWx]

For all of you Cyclical Climate Deniers - where is that warming??

 

[paulm]

22 minutes ago, ChescoWx said:

For all of you Cyclical Climate Deniers - where is that warming??

 

Amazing that the "no warming since 1998" claim has been set aside with no acknowledgement why from those who were pushing it to begin with. Tells you there are bad faith factors involved in this discourse.

There was already goalpost moving to "no warming since 2016" but 2023/2024 have ensured that 2016 will no longer be used as a starting year to cherry pick going forward either.

[TheClimateChanger]

23 hours ago, paulm said:

Amazing that the "no warming since 1998" claim has been set aside with no acknowledgement why from those who were pushing it to begin with. Tells you there are bad faith factors involved in this discourse.

There was already goalpost moving to "no warming since 2016" but 2023/2024 have ensured that 2016 will no longer be used as a starting year to cherry pick going forward either.

And as for the so-called cyclical warming, I'm not seeing the cyclical downturn? If it was cyclical, wouldn't there be a period where temperatures dropped by 0.6C? I see two periods of similar length with 0.6C warming, with a period in the middle with not much warming, although I'm sure there is still warming during that period as well.

[paulm]

3 minutes ago, TheClimateChanger said:

And as for the so-called cyclical warming, I'm not seeing the cyclical downturn? If it was cyclical, wouldn't there be a period where temperatures dropped by 0.6C? I see two periods of similar length with 0.6C warming, with a period in the middle with not much warming, although I'm sure there is still warming during that period as well.

Yep - that graphic does nothing to address what the cause of the longer term warming trend is. 

[LibertyBell]

On 3/26/2025 at 5:37 PM, HailMan06 said:

Yeah not to minimize what we will see the rest of this century but living through the 22nd century sure will be a wild time to experience the world.

There wont be any humans here, we will have left for interstellar space before we completely ruin this planet.

 

[LibertyBell]

On 3/28/2025 at 9:48 AM, Typhoon Tip said:

Yeah, I was going to drop this little gem off this morning, myself ... but I see you beat me to it.

This CC apocalypse is slow moving.   Human relative observation doesn't see it moving, but on scales of a 100 years or so, this is moving very fast. 

again again and again and again ... the primary reluctance and/or belated response, and/or denailism ... and/or [add enabling reason not to react here], it is all made possible because people don't respond unless they feel pain.

That simple.  Biology on this planet, from the paramecium to the larger order and everything in between, are programmed to react based up perceptions that are directly fear-triggering some instinctual signal, or what causes discomfort.  

Humans do have a capacity for cause-and-effect awareness, one that far exceeds any other organisms of this world that show any semblance of the same ability - it's what really separates us from the chorus. Not that other shit with tools and language...  But there is just this one nagging flaw, other than the trope of "being human."  We are often in hesitation when that ability to foresee cost, competes with the immediate gratification of reward. This hesitation may be our undoing.   

It would be nice if there really was a kind of super consciousness known as Gaia running the show... and it had any interest in preserving us - but with little or no evidence to the contrary ... it such an agency does exist, it's clearly quite contented with us fucking up the world and leaving the keys on the counter upon exit.   Otherwise, a burning bush may tell us something about the, hey! ... wait a second -

I think it would be astounding if all this trillion dollar history of SETI search efforts at last found a world that had all the aspects of advancing industrial footprints, alas was completely absent of any life above bacterial decay ... Setting foot upon such a world would reveal hollowed winds as the only sound, other than the occasion pieces of edifice crumbling to the ground.  It wouldn't take long to deduce what's happened. Unfortunately, at several 10's of light-year's travel it would take 30,000 years for conventional velocity to find the bones in the rubble. 

Science Fiction authors of the early and mid last Century were amazingly visionary. A cinema in the 1950s, called "The Forbidden Planet"   It was not for an environmental catastrophe, per se, but as the plot thickened, "killed off by a mysterious force.."  Hmm, in principle ...something the indigenous, the so-called "Krell," had created thousands of years before humans arrived in their somehow faster than light (maybe warp drive) exploreration, killed them all off in some sort of sweeping disaster... 

Stop there - no need to go further to see the metaphoric, comparative value.   On geological times scales?   - this CC could certainly be construed, and realized (being the self-afflicting tragedy) as a similar sweeping "correction". And, we almost don't even need the metaphoric comparison; strikingly similar, the Krell's agent of their own demise was something eerily alike an AI run amok.

Cause and Effect is widespread upon highly intelligent creatures.

 

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/crows-understand-cause-and-effect-even-when-the-cause-is-hidden

 

Crows Understand Cause and Effect, Even When the Cause is Hidden

80beats

By Sophie Bushwick

Sep 19, 2012 7:36 PMNov 19, 2019 4:18 PM

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-understand-analogies/

 

A recent research collaboration between Moscow State University and here at the University of Iowa has discovered that crows exhibit strong behavioral signs of analogical reasoning—the ability to solve puzzles like “bird is to air as fish is to what?” Analogical reasoning is considered to be the pinnacle of cognition and it only develops in humans between the ages of three and four.

Why might crows be promising animals to study? Of course, crows are reputed to be clever. Aesop’s famous fable “The Crow and the Pitcher” tells of a crow solving a challenging problem: the thirsty crow drops pebbles into a pitcher with water near the bottom, thereby raising the fluid level high enough to permit the bird to drink. Such tales are charming and provocative, but science cannot rely on them.

Recent scientific research sought to corroborate this fable. It found that crows given a similar problem dropped stones into a tube containing water, but not into a tube containing sand. Crows also chose to drop solid rather than hollow objects into the water tube. It thus seems that crows do indeed understand basic cause-effect relations. Such causal understanding is no minor feat; children struggle with tasks like this until they are 5 years old!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140326182039.htm

 

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Raven/overview

 

https://www.sciencealert.com/crows-ravens-corvids-best-birds-animal-intelligence

 

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/40/16389.abstract

 

In a test on New Caledonian crows, crows were placed in an enclosure wherein a stick would emerge from a hide. They used two scenarios: in the first, a human was observed entering the hide before the stick moved, and leaving after. In the second, the human remained hidden.

In the first, the crows were much more relaxed after the human left, correctly linking the movement of the stick to the presence of the human. They would forage for food, and behave normally. In the second, the crow had no other reference for the stick's presence, so they remained wary.

"These results really seem to be showing that crows react in a very similar way to humans in a situation that requires them to reason about a hidden causal agent," says biologist Alex Taylor.

 

In an experiment with tubes published in PLOS One, scientists determined that New Caledonian crows can not only tell the difference between water and sand - they also understand water displacement.

The test involved tubes containing water and a treat floating on top out of reach. The crows filled the tubes with enough rocks or other heavy items to bring the food within reach.

They also were presented with different scenarios, such as tubes with different water levels. The crows showed an absolute preference for the tube that would get them the food with the least amount of work.

Their success rate was on a par with seven-year-old children, the researchers said.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0103049

https://www.sciencealert.com/planet-of-the-crows-these-birds-understand-physics

 

*note they understand physics*

 

Ever wonder why crow researchers sometimes wear masks? It's because crows can recognise human faces, especially the faces of humans who have done them wrong.

So, if you're trying to record how crows react to negative stimuli (such as being caught and tagged), you don't want to do that using your real face. If you do, you'll get loudly scolded by the agitated flock every time you approach, as biologist John Marzluff discovered and detailed in a 2011 paper.

Good thing he did, too. A few years later, he found out that crows not only hold onto that grudge - they tell other crows about it, too.

Within the first two weeks after trapping, around 26 percent of crows scolded the human wearing the danger mask. Around 15 months later, that figure was 30.4 percent.

Three years after the initial trapping event, with no action towards the crows since, the number of scolding crows had grown to 66 percent.

 

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/06/20/rspb.2011.0957

 

1. Crows can reason out cause and effect

In a test on New Caledonian crows, crows were placed in an enclosure wherein a stick would emerge from a hide. They used two scenarios: in the first, a human was observed entering the hide before the stick moved, and leaving after. In the second, the human remained hidden.

In the first, the crows were much more relaxed after the human left, correctly linking the movement of the stick to the presence of the human. They would forage for food, and behave normally. In the second, the crow had no other reference for the stick's presence, so they remained wary.

"These results really seem to be showing that crows react in a very similar way to humans in a situation that requires them to reason about a hidden causal agent," says biologist Alex Taylor.

2. Crows understand water displacement

In an experiment with tubes published in PLOS One, scientists determined that New Caledonian crows can not only tell the difference between water and sand - they also understand water displacement.

The test involved tubes containing water and a treat floating on top out of reach. The crows filled the tubes with enough rocks or other heavy items to bring the food within reach.

They also were presented with different scenarios, such as tubes with different water levels. The crows showed an absolute preference for the tube that would get them the food with the least amount of work.

Their success rate was on a par with seven-year-old children, the researchers said.

3. Crows hold a grudge - and pass that grudge on to other crows

Ever wonder why crow researchers sometimes wear masks? It's because crows can recognise human faces, especially the faces of humans who have done them wrong.

So, if you're trying to record how crows react to negative stimuli (such as being caught and tagged), you don't want to do that using your real face. If you do, you'll get loudly scolded by the agitated flock every time you approach, as biologist John Marzluff discovered and detailed in a 2011 paper.

Good thing he did, too. A few years later, he found out that crows not only hold onto that grudge - they tell other crows about it, too.

Within the first two weeks after trapping, around 26 percent of crows scolded the human wearing the danger mask. Around 15 months later, that figure was 30.4 percent.

Three years after the initial trapping event, with no action towards the crows since, the number of scolding crows had grown to 66 percent.

4. Crows hold funerals for their dead

When a crow dies, other crows are often observed gathering around and making a lot of loud noise - much like humans, really. The reason for this was unknown until 2015, when crow researcher Kaeli Swift crowdfunded research to try and figure out why.

Her conclusion, published in the journal Animal Behaviour, was that crows gather around their dead fellows to learn about danger.

And it works. The city of Chatham, Ontario is beneath a crow migration route, and they plague the town on their way through. Every attempt to get rid of them has failed - including shooting at them with pellet guns. The crows learnt how to fly just high enough to evade the fire.

5. Ravens are smart enough to be paranoid

A study released in early 2016 found that ravens possess something known as the Theory of Mind - that is, the ability to recognise mental states within themselves, and extrapolate that others have mental states, too, and that those mental states in others may differ from their own.

Ravens like to stash food for later, and had been observed doing so more cautiously when other ravens were around.

To test this idea, ravens were trained to use a peephole to watch a human hiding food in an adjoining room. Then they were put in the second room with the food, and observed in two conditions: with the peephole closed, and with the peephole open and a loudspeaker playing raven cries.

They behaved just as if another raven was in line-of-sight.

This indicated, the researchers wrote in their paper, "that they can generalise from their own experience using the peephole as a pilferer and predict that audible competitors could potentially see their caches. Consequently, we argue that they represent 'seeing' in a way that cannot be reduced to the tracking of gaze cues."

6. Crows can solve complex, multi-step puzzles

This crazy impressive experiment was conducted as part of a BBC Two program called Inside the Animal Mind, putting crows to the test with the most complex animal puzzle ever.

And not lab crows, either. The crows were captured from the wild one at a time, and kept for just three months.

This one, nicknamed 007, is apparently a genius. The puzzle involved eight individual steps that had to be solved in a very specific order to release the food reward. He had to collect the tools, then use them to complete the next step of the puzzle. He was familiar with the individual tools, but had not had to combine their use before.

Seriously, watch the video. It's so good.

7. Crows can fashion tools

OK, crows can use tools. Great!

But what do they do if there's nothing available? Turns out they just make their own, the resourceful little poppets. In 2015, researchers announced they had filmed the first ever video evidence of crows fashioning tools in the wild using a specially developed spy camera mounted on the crows' tail feathers.

They were observed snapping twigs from trees, then stripping it of bark and leaves, and fashioned the node into a hook. They then used these tools to probe into small spaces for food.

"The behaviour is easy to miss – the first time I watched the footage, I didn't see anything particularly interesting. Only when I went through it again frame-by-frame, I discovered this fascinating behaviour. Not once, but twice!" researcher Jolyon Troscianko said.

"In one scene, a crow drops its tool, and then recovers it from the ground shortly afterwards, suggesting they value their tools and don't simply discard them after a single use."

8. Ravens use social ostracism to punish selfish peers

When someone in your friend group acts like an idiot, they may find themselves suddenly disinvited from social events, unfriended from Facebook, and their messages unanswered. Ravens don't have Facebook, but they do exercise similar ostracism towards conspecific ********s.

In a 2015 study, researchers from the University of Vienna gave ravens a task wherein they would only receive the reward if they cooperated, pulling on ropes to raise a platform which had two pieces of cheese, one for each raven.

If one raven stole their companion's cheese, as well as their own, they were on the outs: the other raven would refuse to cooperate with them - but they would cooperate with other ravens who played fair.

"Such a sophisticated way of keeping your partner in check has previously only been shown in humans and chimpanzees, and is a complete novelty among birds," lead researcher Jorg Massen said.

9. Crows can exercise self control

Crows aren't driven purely by instinct - they can experience anticipation, and exercise self-control if the end result is a greater reward.

A 2014 study devised a test based on the Stanford marshmallow experiment, a 1960s study into delayed gratification in children. The first step was to determine which snacks the crows liked the most. The researchers fed them grapes, bread, sausage, fried fat and other treats.

Next, they were given a snack and the option to trade their snack - if they were willing to wait. They could either receive a better quality snack - meat in exchange for a grape, for instance - or a higher quantity of the same snack.

The birds preferred to wait until a better snack was on offer, but if it was just more of the same, they weren't. In some cases, they waited up to 10 minutes for a better snack. The fact that they waited for better quality, not quantity, showed that they were waiting because they wanted to - not because they were actually hungry.

10. Ravens can plan for the future and barter for items they need

When trained in the use of tools, ravens recognise the items as valuable and can set them aside against a future need. To figure this out, researchers trained ravens to release a treat by sticking a tool into a tube sticking out of a box.

Then they took the tool and box away, returning an hour later to offer the raven a choice of objects - one of which was the tool. After another 15 minutes following the raven's selection, the box was returned - 80 percent of the time, the raven had chosen the correct tool. The experiment was repeated with a 17-hour interval in returning the box, in which case the ravens had a 90 percent success rate.

For the next part, ravens had been trained to return a token to a human in exchange for a food reward. After an hour, they were offered three trays in succession with a choice of objects, one of which was the token and another of which was a low-quality snack, for a total of three tokens.

They chose the token on average around 73 percent of the time. After 15 minutes, the bartering experimenter would come back, and the raven exchanged the tokens for the prize.

"This study suggests that ravens make decisions for futures outside their current sensory contexts, and that they are domain-general planners on par with apes," the paper concluded.

11. Ravens remember people who have been nice to them

You know how crows hold a grudge? Well, corvids also remember people who have been nice to them. There was, of course, that adorable case of a little girl who crows started bringing shiny objects to after she regularly fed them - but there's been a scientific study on the subject too.

Again, it involves ravens trading a low-quality snack (bread) for a high-quality snack (cheese), which they'd been trained to do. Then two humans brought the cheese to trade for the bread. One experimenter would fairly give the cheese when the crow handed over the bread. The other experimenter ate the cheese themselves after being given the bread.

Then, after an interval - two days, and then later one month - three humans entered the enclosure, the fair one, the unfair one, and a neutral control. The raven was given a piece of bread to trade. Most of the ravens chose to trade with the fair experimenter - indicating that they remembered being cheated out of delicious cheese and weren't falling for that again.

12. Ravens use gestures to communicate

Before babies learn to speak, they communicate using gestures. Pointing at objects they want, for example. Outside of primates, this means of communication had never been observed in another species - until researchers observed wild ravens doing it.

They use their beaks like hands, Simone Pika from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and Thomas Bugnyar from the University of Vienna found.

They recorded 38 interactions between pairs of ravens, 25 of which involved the raven picking up an object and showing it to their companion, and 10 of which involved ravens offering an object to their companion.

"These distinct gestures were predominantly aimed at partners of the opposite sex and resulted in frequent orientation of recipients to the object and the signallers. Subsequently, the ravens interacted with each other, for example, by example billing or joint manipulation of the object," the researchers said.

13. Crows like to play

 

 

[LibertyBell]

On 3/27/2025 at 10:53 AM, gallopinggertie said:

That’s for sure. Not only global warming, but ocean acidification and microplastic pollution will become huge problems. 

As a random aside, Portland OR (where I live) broke its all-time march record high yesterday, with a high of 82. 

It will be far before then, but we won't be on the planet in the 22nd century we will have left long ago for other worlds once we're done trashing this planet.

 

[LibertyBell]

https://www.birdfy.com/blogs/blogs/are-crows-as-smart-as-a-7-year-old-human

However, a 2020 study found that the fibers and circuitry in the bird pallium are organized similarly to the mammalian neocortex, with both horizontal and vertical fibers. This similarity helps explain bird intelligence. Initially, birds were thought incapable of such intelligence due to their small brain size. Yet, it's not just the absolute size of an animal's brain that matters but the brain-to-body ratio. Crows have relatively large brains compared to their body size. In mammals, species with larger brains include humans and dolphins, while in birds, it's parrots and crows. Scientists have found that brain size alone isn’t the key factor; the density of neurons plays a crucial role. Dense neuron packing enhances communication between neurons.

A 2016 study revealed that some birds, like crows, have twice as many neurons as primates with similarly sized brains, approaching the number found in larger primates. While these findings explain why crows are so intelligent, the reason behind this evolution remains unclear. Many bird species thrive with fewer neurons and less mental capacity, so why did crows evolve this way? One theory suggests it relates to their rearing environment.

https://www.audubon.org/news/crows-understand-caw-se-and-effect

A New Caledonian crow takes part in an experiment, testing whether it will use a solid or a hollow object to get to the piece of food that's floating in the water. All of the birds that participated correctly chose the solid object nearly 90 percent of the time. 

https://www.audubon.org/news/crows-understand-caw-se-and-effect
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/are-ravens-as-smart-or-smarter-than-us

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77060-8

These birds have all the brains.

It’s well known that ravens, crows, and other members of the corvid family are more brainbox than birdbrain. But scientists continue to be astounded by just how clever these avian Einsteins prove to be.

One recent study claims that by four months old, ravens have full-blown cognitive skills and before reaching full maturity they can rival adult great apes. Another, indicates that problem-solving crows perform similarly to children under seven years of age. And what is more remarkable is the scope of intelligence that these feathered masterminds display…

https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/natural-sciences/animals/birds/7-brainy-reasons-why-crows-and-ravens-are-smartest-birds-in-the-world-0952352/

Both birds are extremely intelligent for their body size, though, and extremely resourceful given they can only count on their bills to manipulate objects and the world around them. Yup, it’s easy to do smart things when you have opposable thumbs.

1. Crows and ravens use tools, but also make their own tools, sometimes using other tools they manufactured earlier

ttps://www.statnews.com/2020/09/24/crows-possess-higher-intelligence-long-thought-primarily-human/?utm_content=buffer87cd6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter_organic

https://science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.abb1447

Now the birds can add one more feather to their brainiac claims: Research unveiled on Thursday in Science finds that crows know what they know and can ponder the content of their own minds, a manifestation of higher intelligence and analytical thought long believed the sole province of humans and a few other higher mammals.

A second study, also in Science, looked in unprecedented detail at the neuroanatomy of pigeons and barn owls, finding hints to the basis of their intelligence that likely applies to corvids’, too.

“Together, the two papers show that intelligence/consciousness are grounded in connectivity and activity patterns of neurons” in the most neuron-dense part of the bird brain, called the pallium, neurobiologist Suzana Herculano-Houzel of Vanderbilt University, who wrote an analysis of the studies for Science, told STAT. “Brains can appear diverse, and at the same time share profound similarities. The extent to which similar properties present themselves might be simply a matter of scale: how many neurons are available to work.”

https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.abc5534

https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.abe0536

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a34165311/crows-are-self-aware-like-humans/

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abb1447

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a41628165/synthetic-brain-plays-pong/

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a22729544/were-about-to-find-out-if-crows-can-help-solve-our-litter-problem/

Crows Are Self-Aware Just Like Humans, And They May Be as Smart as Gorillas
Studies show that crows have a high number of tightly packed neurons that process information, allowing them to work out complex tasks.

By Caroline DelbertUpdated: Oct 28, 2022 1:47 PM EDT

[TheClimateChanger]

Here are some interesting tidbits from Blodget's 1857 work "Climatology of the United States and of the temperate latitudes of the North American Continent":

The frequent occurrence of snows in April and even in May in the latitude of Washington is a striking phenomenon of the climate. As early as 1755 Richard Brooke, "of Maryland," communicated observations to the Royal Phil. Society in which he remarks of April, 1755, “on the 16th it snowed as hard as ever I knew it to do”; and of the same month in 1757 “the wettest and coldest April within man’s memory”. (Phil. Trans., 1759.) At several instances in recent years a quantity of snow has fallen in April in several instances a foot or more in depth in the interior valleys of Virginia. On April 22d, 1856, a small quantity fell at Washington, and near a foot in depth in Upper Virginia.

A remarkable instance of the extension of snows southward at extreme intervals is given by Abiel Holmes of Charleston, S. C., in a paper communicating the results of many years of observations at Charleston to the American Academy. On January 10th, 1800, there fell at Savannah the deepest snow accompanied by the greatest cold ever remembered in Lower Georgia.  The snow was three feet deep on a level.” The yearly extremes of temperature for several years are also given by Mr. Holmes, as observed at Charleston. — Memoirs Am. Acad., 1809.

+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Year            | Max Temp (°F)   | Min Temp (°F)   |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1750            | 96              | 25              |
| 1751            | 94              | 23              |
| 1752            | 101             | 18              |
| 1753            | 91              | 28              |
| 1754            | 93              | 22              |
| 1755            | 90              | 27              |
| 1756            | 96              | 26              |
| 1757            | 90              | 25              |
| 1758            | 94              | 25              |
| 1759            | 93              | 27              |
| 1791            | 90              | 28              |
| 1792            | 96              | 20              |
| 1793            | 89              | 30              |
| 1794            | 91              | 34              |
| 1795            | 92              | 29              |
| 1796            | 89              | 17              |
| 1797            | 85              | 22              |
| 1798            | 88              | 31              |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+

On March 6th, 1843, snow fell for fifteen hours at Augusta, Georgia, covering the ground fifteen inches deep. (Holbrook in Am. Alm., 1845.) In this month snow fell over a large area of the States bordering the Gulf, embracing New Orleans and Mobile.

Ramsey says (Views of South Carolina, vol. 11, p. 52): “On December 31st, 1790, wind northeast, a severe snow storm began in Charleston which continued twelve hours.  In consequence the streets were covered with snow two to four inches deep. Another took place on February 28th, 1790, wind northwest, which continued several hours and covered the ground five or six inches deep. Similar snow storms fell in January 1800, and were then thrice repeated in twenty-three days, amounting in all to more than ten inches.

[LibertyBell]

1 hour ago, TheClimateChanger said:

Here are some interesting tidbits from Blodget's 1857 work "Climatology of the United States and of the temperate latitudes of the North American Continent":

The frequent occurrence of snows in April and even in May in the latitude of Washington is a striking phenomenon of the climate. As early as 1755 Richard Brooke, "of Maryland," communicated observations to the Royal Phil. Society in which he remarks of April, 1755, “on the 16th it snowed as hard as ever I knew it to do”; and of the same month in 1757 “the wettest and coldest April within man’s memory”. (Phil. Trans., 1759.) At several instances in recent years a quantity of snow has fallen in April in several instances a foot or more in depth in the interior valleys of Virginia. On April 22d, 1856, a small quantity fell at Washington, and near a foot in depth in Upper Virginia.

A remarkable instance of the extension of snows southward at extreme intervals is given by Abiel Holmes of Charleston, S. C., in a paper communicating the results of many years of observations at Charleston to the American Academy. On January 10th, 1800, there fell at Savannah the deepest snow accompanied by the greatest cold ever remembered in Lower Georgia.  The snow was three feet deep on a level.” The yearly extremes of temperature for several years are also given by Mr. Holmes, as observed at Charleston. — Memoirs Am. Acad., 1809.

+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Year            | Max Temp (°F)   | Min Temp (°F)   |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| 1750            | 96              | 25              |
| 1751            | 94              | 23              |
| 1752            | 101             | 18              |
| 1753            | 91              | 28              |
| 1754            | 93              | 22              |
| 1755            | 90              | 27              |
| 1756            | 96              | 26              |
| 1757            | 90              | 25              |
| 1758            | 94              | 25              |
| 1759            | 93              | 27              |
| 1791            | 90              | 28              |
| 1792            | 96              | 20              |
| 1793            | 89              | 30              |
| 1794            | 91              | 34              |
| 1795            | 92              | 29              |
| 1796            | 89              | 17              |
| 1797            | 85              | 22              |
| 1798            | 88              | 31              |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+

On March 6th, 1843, snow fell for fifteen hours at Augusta, Georgia, covering the ground fifteen inches deep. (Holbrook in Am. Alm., 1845.) In this month snow fell over a large area of the States bordering the Gulf, embracing New Orleans and Mobile.

Ramsey says (Views of South Carolina, vol. 11, p. 52): “On December 31st, 1790, wind northeast, a severe snow storm began in Charleston which continued twelve hours.  In consequence the streets were covered with snow two to four inches deep. Another took place on February 28th, 1790, wind northwest, which continued several hours and covered the ground five or six inches deep. Similar snow storms fell in January 1800, and were then thrice repeated in twenty-three days, amounting in all to more than ten inches.

Look up the April 1915 storm in Philadelphia, nearly 20 inches of snow!!

[SnoSki14]

6 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Look up the April 1915 storm in Philadelphia, nearly 20 inches of snow!!

In the 18, 19th and early 20th centuries when winters were a lot colder there were plenty of early/late snowfalls. 

[LibertyBell]

10 hours ago, SnoSki14 said:

In the 18, 19th and early 20th centuries when winters were a lot colder there were plenty of early/late snowfalls. 

To be honest I've been talking to a lot of people who wish climate change would accelerate lol. They don't want the crap weather we are having right now, they want 60s-70s and sunny.  The bad thing is this kind of weather we're having actually makes the deniers think they are right, they've been saying, if climate change was a serious problem we wouldn't be getting this kind of weather anymore.

Paradoxically, I think climate change acceleration is the only way to get more people angry and involved.  It has to become a serious life and death situation where it's warm enough to cause disruption to their life. And a large percentage of people actually don't want abnormally cold weather anymore, that's another issue.

 

 

[etudiant]

19 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

To be honest I've been talking to a lot of people who wish climate change would accelerate lol. They don't want the crap weather we are having right now, they want 60s-70s and sunny.  The bad thing is this kind of weather we're having actually makes the deniers think they are right, they've been saying, if climate change was a serious problem we wouldn't be getting this kind of weather anymore.

Paradoxically, I think climate change acceleration is the only way to get more people angry and involved.  It has to become a serious life and death situation where it's warm enough to cause disruption to their life. And a large percentage of people actually don't want abnormally cold weather anymore, that's another issue.

 

 

Given the lags involved, I can't see much benefit from 'people getting angry and involved' once it has become warm enough to cause disruption.

Afaik, the satellite data shows a persistent energy imbalance, Earth gets more coming in than it radiates away. How long that has been the case is unknown, the data only goes back a few years.

I've no idea how to fix that and the proposals floating about, such as repolluting the atmosphere with more sulfur dioxide, just seem amateurish.