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Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

theguardian.com

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Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#171

Post by blisterpeanuts »

ygjb wrote: post #33
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mount St. Helens (in Washington state) had a massive eruption in 1980, causing huge ecological and economic damage that lasted for years.[1] But, the region recovered. Similar such natural events, such as Typhoon Maria, have caused massive casualties and damage. Yet, the Earth and humanity have persisted. I wouldn't worry about anything happening to our planet and our ecosphere, short of a mass extinction event like…

> we now have the technology to detect and divert such objects so hopefully it will not be an issue. Citations needed for that overly broad claim, because Armageddon was not a documentary.

Nasa's Sentry system, for one.

https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/

Nasa's also planning to launch the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission, an orbital telescope designed to detect NEO's with more accuracy than ground-based systems.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1250770/asteroid-dete...

And ESA (Europe space agency) is building a spacecraft designed to nudge NEO's out of their path.

https://arynews.tv/en/esa-asteroid-defence-mission/

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#172

Post by nabilhat »

btilly wrote: post #45
throwaway5752 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I commented somewhere else here with a link to a researcher posting about findings. The link is to a twitter thread, and several posts down they say, "The birds seem to be in relatively good condition, except that they are extremely emaciated. They have no fat reserves and barely any muscle mass. Almost as if they have been flying until they just couldn’t fly anymore."

Almost like...their reflex is to fly until they are out of the smoke. Which is adaptive when dealing with small fires, and lethal when they are unable to fly far enough to get out of the smoke.

It's migration season. Smoke inhalation reduces breathing efficiency. Flying above the smoke is less efficient with reduced thermal lift activity. Poor visibility makes supplemental calories and overnight roost locations harder to find. More calories burned all around, and fewer calories are accessible, for thousands of miles of migration route.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#173

Post by alfor »

gdubs wrote: post #36

I was walking the trash bins down our long drive to the road yesterday in a soup of wildfire smoke and fog when it occurred to me — we sure have a compartmentalized way of looking at the issues plaguing the world right now. Part of that is the sheer complexity of our contemporary world. There are few polymaths — most are specialists. It feels like we’re sorely lacking people who see across many fields to synthesize e…

The problem is the prevention of forest fire.

It's normal for the west cost to burn. But we don't want that, so we stop it for as long as we can. But at some point the condition are just perfect: hot, dry, windy and then it burn like never before.

This is common knowledge among firefighter.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#175

Post by doublethrowaway »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #120
charwalker wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a large chunk of the US voter population that thinks that even if climate change is real it isn't human driven and therefor totally natural or by God's design. So of course nothing should be done about it because either it isn't real or it isn't human caused. This is also the group that often votes single issue or directly against their best interest much like What's the matter with Kansas. Surprisingly, Kan…

>This is also the group that often votes single issue or directly against their best interest much like What's the matter with Kansas. Surprisingly, Kansas itself hasn't read that book and seems to repeat history every time the GOP wants less taxes. Oh please. Inner city minorities have been voting for gun control (good luck getting the cops to show up let alone promptly in some places) since long before climate chan…

==Proclaiming that people are voting against their interest is just calling them stupid or saying you know what's good for them better than they do with some obfuscation thrown in to make it fit in better in "polite" conversation. ==

Kind of like you do in this sentence: "Inner city minorities have been voting for gun control (good luck getting the cops to show up let alone promptly in some places) since long before climate change was a thing."

Are you calling them stupid or just saying you know what's good for them better than they do?

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#176

Post by rhacker »

It was the massive surge of cold air that spewed into Colorado last week. The same surge that caused the massive winds in CA / OR / WA to churn up small fires.

Those birds left CO for the South - probably don't normally get that in the middle of summer.

There's very little smoke in NM. Some but not enough to kill the birds or cause them to fly a billion miles. That was the summer cold snap that did it.

This is a classic case of not enough Ornithological Meteorologists or Meteorological Ornithologists. Or maybe because the Ornithological convention and Meteorological convention (which are normally hosted in the same hotel in September) were both cancelled this year due to Covid-19. (this last paragraph was a failed attempt at humor)

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#177

Post by pjc50 »

HenryBemis wrote: post #169
DeonPenny wrote: post #132

The sky was red a few days ago. I'm guessing its that. I don't know. I'm not 100% sure, but that was the one thing out of the normal

Is the smoke 'clean', meaning is it just plantation that is being consumed by fire or there is also a large percentage of toxic smoke into the air? Has there been significant number of homes/cars/factories (I am thinking things that upon being burnt would release a chemical/toxic cloud)(thinking the difference of burning 100kg of wood Vs burning 100kg of laptops and how different the smoke would be in damaging health…

Wood smoke itself is surprisingly toxic; all sorts of nasty combustion products.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#178

Post by MiroF »

efreak wrote: post #166
bonestamp2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On that note, I always knew we were the problem, but this reminds me of something I heard that changed the way I thought about it... If aliens were flying past our planet and saw all of our concrete and deforestation from space, they'd assume we're an unstoppable virus that will destroy the ecosystem if a cure is not found. That perspective hit me in a way, at a scale, that I have never thought about before. We see m…

Regarding development: I've had a growing belief lately that capitalism (local) isn't the worst thing about global economy. Rather, the global economy itself is what's bad. We shouldn't be comparing countries based on GDP, and money shouldn't be used as a proxy for success. Rather, we should find some way to measure the success of regions and people independently (ie, how successful they think they are) without using…

> money shouldn't be used as a proxy for success

Money is a proxy for a lot of things, like ability to afford the things needed to survive on a daily basis.

I don't think we can wave away huge global inequity by saying that we shouldn't even compare countries.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#179

Post by xkcd-sucks »

chrisco255 wrote: post #60
rhacker wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always a comment like this. How about "The habitability of this planet is dropping like a brick."

Sensationalism is an art form that's become extremely refined in recent years. However, the habitability of the planet is just fine. Carbon dioxide is fertilizing the earth, providing a higher leaf area index than any time in recent history: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer... Global area burned in wildfires is actually down 25% over the last 20 years despite the arson in the Western Unite…

Increased crop yields are concerning though if related to unsustainable depletion of soil/water resources, insect population crashes, loss of diversity/resilience in crop species etc.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#180

Post by bdamm »

pjc50 wrote: post #177
HenryBemis wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the smoke 'clean', meaning is it just plantation that is being consumed by fire or there is also a large percentage of toxic smoke into the air? Has there been significant number of homes/cars/factories (I am thinking things that upon being burnt would release a chemical/toxic cloud)(thinking the difference of burning 100kg of wood Vs burning 100kg of laptops and how different the smoke would be in damaging health…

Wood smoke itself is surprisingly toxic; all sorts of nasty combustion products.

True, but our definition of toxic has changed. Humans have been living with wood smoke for millennia, it may not be great for you but it isn't very new in terms of evolutionary presence. Smoke from burning industrial chemicals is a newer thing, and certainly some of these industrial toxins can kill or injure you far more quickly than wood smoke. So a warehouse full of laptops burning (and probably painted with lead) is something I'd want to take extra precautions to avoid vs wildfire smoke.
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