Original article on Science Alert instead of this BI reheat with its annoying adblocker popup:
https://www.sciencealert.com/sinister-hunger-stones-dire-war...
Sinister 'hunger stones' with dire warnings have surfaced as water levels drop
21–30 of 80 posts
Re: Sinister 'hunger stones' with dire warnings have surfaced as water levels drop
#22It's so odd to see this article appear on HN alongside https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17868840
Re: Sinister 'hunger stones' with dire warnings have surfaced as water levels drop
#23Perhaps that water ended up in the great lakes, which currently contain near record high amounts of water?
http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/content/news/Lake-Superi...
Re: Sinister 'hunger stones' with dire warnings have surfaced as water levels drop
#24Perhaps that water ended up in the great lakes, which currently contain near record high amounts of water? http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/content/news/Lake-Superi...
AFAIK, the Elbe doesn't drain into lake superior.
Re: Sinister 'hunger stones' with dire warnings have surfaced as water levels drop
#25Perhaps that water ended up in the great lakes, which currently contain near record high amounts of water? http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/content/news/Lake-Superi...
The same water has been flooding homes and destroying infrastructure all over the upper midwest for the last couple weeks.
Re: Sinister 'hunger stones' with dire warnings have surfaced as water levels drop
#26Perhaps that water ended up in the great lakes, which currently contain near record high amounts of water? http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/content/news/Lake-Superi...
AFAIK, the Elbe doesn't drain into lake superior.
I think the idea is that wet areas are getting wetter, while dry areas are getting drier as the climate becomes more extreme.
Re: Sinister 'hunger stones' with dire warnings have surfaced as water levels drop
#27It's so odd to see this article appear on HN alongside https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17868840
What's weird? The landlocked Czech Republic has different water level trends than coastal Miami?
Re: Sinister 'hunger stones' with dire warnings have surfaced as water levels drop
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Record” refers to past data. “Record breaking” means you’ve exceeded the past data, not that you’ve exceeded anything that has ever happened. For example, regular and reliable temperature records only go back to the late 1800s, so any “record breaking” temperature just means it hasn’t happened since 1888 or whatever.
Would you include these stones as data? They're certainly a record of low water levels.
A "record" has multiple shades of meaning. For example, temperature records must be officially observed, using (sufficiently) modern weather instrumentation. That's why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records says "remotely sensed observations such as satellite measurements, since those values are not considered official records."
This thread spun off into pedantry when you used the phrase "record breaking drought".
I know that there have been record breaking temperatures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_European_heat_wave comments that in Germany "Both April and May set new temperature records as the warmest April and May since modern record-keeping began in 1881."
Note the 'modern record-keeping' associated with 'new temperature records', and that those records are only 150 years old.
It's certainly true that there are older weather records. 10.1023/A:1005505113244 describes weather journals including one which covers the drought of 1540, which was "the most outstanding" one of the last half of the 1000s. 10.1007/s10584-014-1184-2 is "Based on more than 300 first-hand documentary weather report sources" from that time, to describe the 11-month-long Megadrought of 1540.
So, who are you quoting when you use the phrase 'record breaking drought', and what definition are they using?
Re: Sinister 'hunger stones' with dire warnings have surfaced as water levels drop
#29Re: Sinister 'hunger stones' with dire warnings have surfaced as water levels drop
#30Pedantic quibbling: is "ancient societies" a proper designation for 15th century Europe?