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Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely

nature.com

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Re: Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely

#121

Post by wffurr »

stareatgoats wrote: post #117
sen wrote: post #5

It’s been intense here (SE Australia). It’s just been raining for weeks now without stopping. I think we’ve had 2 sunny days in the last 4 weeks? Crops are dying, lettuce costs $10 each (if you can find them), internet keeps dropping out cos of shittily buried lines, drains overflow and flood the streets constantly, and the kids are going up the walls. I know it’s normal for lots of areas of the world (and I’ve lived…

Seems to me like Australia either has catastrophic droughts or catastrophic rains. The engineer in me wants to create massive reservoirs during the wet spells to carry over the dry spells. But I guess it's not that easy?

I believe those are called aquifers aka geologic water reservoirs. There's a lot that can happen, especially in urban areas with lots of hard scaped surfaces, to encourage rain water to enter aquifers instead of run off into the water shed or sewer/storm drain system.

Re: Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely

#122

Post by dreamcompiler »

bagels wrote: post #102
smt88 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus the government is led by people who refer to much of the southwest as “fly over country” doesn’t help. The people who (you assume) don't use the term "flyover country" are the people stopping Congress from spending money to fix environmental crises like drought. Even so, the White House has ordered studies and gotten Congress to spend a lot of money on the Southwest already[1]. What else are you looking for, e…

Desalinization plants built by California or the Federal Government.

Desal can work for residential use in cities. But desal for agriculture is supplied by mother nature and it's called "rain." Replacing agricultural rain with man-made desal would require a 10x-1000x scaleup in cost and energy and area over the desal plants now feasible. In most cases it would probably be cheaper to move the farms to rainier areas.

Re: Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely

#123

Post by dmurray »

ainiriand wrote: post #118
takeda wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, thanks. If anyone is interested: "La niña" translates to "the girl" according to google translate (perhaps I saved someone extra clicks :)

Not a good translation, it is the kid (a female kid). Problem is that we (spanish speakers) have letters to define the gender of the noun. The girl would be 'la chica'.

”Kid" vs "boy"/"girl" isn't well defined in English: I would say they both refer to people of the same ages. If what you mean by kid is a very young child, prefer "baby" or "infant".

Re: Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely

#124

Post by c1sc0 »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #67
c1sc0 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geoengineering. I know that if they won’t do it someone will. Iron fertilization in particular looks cheap enough to try at the non-state level.

> Geoengineering. I know that if they won’t do it someone will. that's true for any terrible idea. in many way's terrible ideas is how humanity progresses. but it seems bad to double down on the same old ("more engineering") to solve the problem. Guess the alternative "spend less" is very unpopular because it's something anyone can do but it actually hurts.

I'm all in favor of "spend less / consume less / grow less / be more sustainable" ... trouble is: seems like most decision makers are not ... wildcat geoengineering is no longer a matter of if, but when.

Re: Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely

#125

Post by igitur »

dendrite9 wrote: post #107
igitur wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In South Africa La Niña is also associated with a wetter season and El Niño with a dryer season.

Didn't that work out in the last 2 cycles of La Niña? I read about drought in South Africa recently but I admittedly know nothing about weather patterns there.

Depends on which part of South Africa you're referring to. Cape Town (Western Cape) had a much publicised drought 2015-2018 [1], but that's been broken. This drought was partial attributed to El Niño.

At the moment dams in the Eastern Cape are empty [2]. My mother's taps in Gqeberha are on a trickle only. No idea whether (El|La) Niñ[ao] is responsible here, but maladministration of available water has also been mentioned.

In summary, in ZA we look forward to La Niña, so this article is good news for us.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town_water_crisis

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/19/south-africa...

Re: Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely

#126

Post by jmarneweck »

dendrite9 wrote: post #107
igitur wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In South Africa La Niña is also associated with a wetter season and El Niño with a dryer season.

Didn't that work out in the last 2 cycles of La Niña? I read about drought in South Africa recently but I admittedly know nothing about weather patterns there.

There are some towns and cities which are currently running out of water in the dams and are heading towards day zero (no water in taps). Cities like Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) are near day zero and a large portion of the Eastern Cape has been experiencing a drought from 2015 to 2020 and then from 2021 to current.

Water tankers are delivering water to various areas in Port Elizabeth as well as numerous smaller towns which have run out of water.

During Cape Town's water crisis we were queuing to collect water from the mountain spring that the local brewery graciously allowed us to collect water from.

National Geographic has an article about South Africa running out of water: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/partner-c...

Re: Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely

#127

Post by distances »

twicetwice wrote: post #66
10u152 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes....and no. Lettuce likes some pretty specific conditions. If there's one area that's perfectly suited to growing lettuce with the minimum resources (fertiliser/water etc) then grow it there. Better than trying to grow it in the desert or somewhere much too cold. If Australians go without lettuce for a month or so nobody is going to die. Eat rocket, spinach and cabbage instead.

For Americans (and others?) who are OOTL, rocket == arugula. It has a bunch of other names too, apparently.

For continental Europeans: they mean rucola

Re: Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely

#128

Post by bruce343434 »

lrhegeba wrote: post #104
smt88 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2-3 times in a lifetime is rare by some reasonable definition

2 x 3 years would be 6 years. 1950 to 2022 are 72 years. So 6 years of 72 years would be 8,3 percent. YMMV if this can be considered rare

The "event" is that it takes/repeats 3 years in a row. So 2 in 72.

Re: Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely

#129

Post by andrewnicolalde »

ainiriand wrote: post #119
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #16

If you ever wonder what el nino /la nina means in terms of weather for your hemisphere, here is a heuristic: La niña is the opposite of el Niño. El niño (spanish - "the boy") is the name used by inhabitants of the area it hits the hardest, South America (mostly spanish speaking). The western part of South America has its usual rainy season from late Dec to April. The "el nino" boy is a reference to birth of Jesus. Ch…

El niño -> the kid. El chico -> the boy.

I’d say “el chico” translates more to “the lad”, but perhaps this is a matter of regional dialects.

Re: Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely

#130

Post by distances »

pram wrote: post #50

The situation in Lake Mead is horrific. I’ve been watching a YouTuber that has been filming various locations around the basin for the past couple months. It’s one thing to hear “the lake is doomed” and another to see it disappearing as the days go by: https://youtu.be/NCBG_aVkv4s

Off topic, but is it common to just bring your boat with you for recreational purposes? The whole idea seems pretty wild to me. Where are the boats for the rest of the time, just in people's backyards? Or do they have a permanent pier spot in some other, more stable body of water like you'd usually expect with boats?
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