Guest “Will climate change also increase our odds of finding a pot of gold?” by David Middleton
Climate change to produce more rainbows
Posted on October 28, 2022 by Marcie GrabowskiClimate change will increase opportunities to see rainbows, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa. The study’s authors estimate that by 2100, the average land location on Earth will experience about 5% more days with rainbows than at the beginning of the 21st century. Northern latitudes and very high elevations, where warming is predicted to lead to less snow and more rain, will experience the greatest gains in rainbow occurrence. However, places with reduced rainfall under climate change—such as the Mediterranean—are projected to lose rainbow days.
[…]
“Living in Hawai‘i, I felt grateful that stunning, ephemeral rainbows were a part of my daily life,” said the lead author of the study, Kimberly Carlson, who is now at New York University’s Department of Environmental Studies. “I wondered how climate change might affect such rainbow viewing opportunities.”
[…]
The Hawaiian Islands, recently dubbed the “rainbow capital of the world”, are predicted to experience a few more days with rainbows per year. The authors stopped short of discussing how changes in rainbow occurrence might affect human wellbeing. However, rainbows are an important part of human culture throughout history and around the world and are aesthetically pleasing.
“Climate change will generate pervasive changes across all aspects of the human experience on Earth. Shifts in intangible parts of our environment—such as sound and light—are part of these changes and deserve more attention from researchers,” said Carlson.
In this case, the overall findings are encouraging—it seems people will have more opportunities to make a rainbow connection under climate change.
Read also on Eurekalert.
The School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Does a rainbow actually exist if no one happens to notice it?
They might as well claim that the population as a whole will undoubtedly witness more lightning strikes by that year also.
I think, with Climate Scientists now numbering in the tens of millions (it seems), it’s hard to be original. This probably alludes to the, by now, boring ‘finding’ that its going to rain more, flood more, storm more, snow more, snow no more, get more droughtily, ….
A scientific paper was the outcome of this stunning new scientific research.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200142X?via%3Dihub
People interested in a lifestyle aided by looking at rainbows do not need to use CO2-producing jet fuels to travel from one rainbow sighting to another. Anyone with a bit of handyman skill can hook a hose and nozzle to the back yard water mains,then spray into the sunlit air to make their own rainbows.
What on Earth this has to do with the advancement of scientific knowledge is quite beyond me, It reflects a dumbing down of science.
Relatedly, I have sent simple calculations of some weather factors to our Australian Bureau of Meteorology, suggesting BOM mistakes that could do with correction, I now get responses saying in essence “The BOM cannot even look at work that that not been accepted and published after the formal peer-review process.” My responses have been that a scientific publication should be reserved for important, rare, ground-breaking research that has the capacity to advance science, not a mere bit of algebra at the adding up and taking away level.
This paper on sunbeams is in that category of simplicity and should never have seen the light of day. (Suggestion – it needs added gravity, such as coincident sightings of rainbows and unicorns). Geoff S
Geoff, you are right, but journals from for-profit (and now burgeoning opportunistic) publishing outfits don’t care about the quality of what they publish. This includes the dreaded Elsevier, but with a few exceptions if they are the early players like Sedimentary Geology, Precambrian Research, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Earth-Science Reviews, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta etc. which attract dedicated editors and there is a pedigree which makes them attractive to prospective authors. Sadly, university committees know nothing about stuff like this and just count publicaitons, and tend to reward the
fakes.
Yeah… But if, back in 1978, someone told me I could go to Hawaii and research rainbows… Oh wait a second… Someone did tell me that, he lived down the hall in my dorm, was stoned 24/7 and listened to Pink Floyd a lot… 😎
What, he was still there in ’78 ?
Brian,
The first two peer-reviewed papers I had accepted were in Elsevier’s Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 1977 and 1983. In those days it was a journal for which many of my colleagues and I awaited each issue with excitement.
The second of those papers was the print version to go with my global announcement at a Canadian seminar of the Number Three orebody at Ranger One uranium deposits. This was big international news in those days. Especially delightful for me at question time was correcting a USA geologist who did not see much to get excited about, until I told him again that the dimensions of the body were in metres, not feet. Happy days. Geoff S
It’s a “I am always chasing rainbows” and getting paid for it thingy. Surely the usual trolls won’t show up for this embarrassing product of the dismal science.
How infuriating.
Okay, BOM, skip the “work.” Can you “even look at” your own data?
Who in the WORLD do they think they are fooling with stupid responses like that?
Unfortunately, they are fooling a lot of people, especially the politicians who are in charge of spending tax money.
You want to see a rainbow and a unicorn at the same time, Geoff?
Perhaps the BOM should be informed that none of Einstein’s papers on Special and General Relativity were peer reviewed. They might also be helpfully informed that at the time Special Relativity was published in 1905, he was a Swiss patent clerk without a PhD who had been passed over for promotion because of his lack of adequate mastery of mechanical systems. He received his PhD from the University of Zurich in 1906.
As an experienced and successful gold exploration geologist I can assure everyone that we regularly follow rainbows to find gold. Now, with an increase in rainbows, we are in for another Gold Rush. All because of driving SUV’s. What a wonderful life.
Don’t you think those handles would be too weak to pick up and support that pot o’gold?
Unfortunately, due to climate change, instead of finding Leprechauns with those pots of gold, you will now find Doom Pixies.
A 5% change or increase in rainbows is an infinitesimal amount and no one will notice because you cannot see all the rainbows in a year. This is science today? On par with seeing CO2 molecules.
Keep in mind that a substantial number of rainbows caused by storms.
Storms that travel over vast areas.
Along the sunny side, especially for storms heading Eastward or Westward, the rainbow are sunlight refracting through the rain.
Is a rainbow defined by time, place or unique specific location?
Or does it matter how many individuals and other creatures see the transient rainbow?
And ‘Marcie Grabowski‘ and these UH @ Mano rainbow yahoos abused data until it confesses “an infinitesimal amount” of rainbows…
Well, it sure isn’t coffee they’re imbibing.
Something is wrong here David. According to our resident expert griff, it’s 6% wetter. How did they come up with 5%? Don’t they believe in The Science ™ ???
Yeah, apparently her friends are call her ‘The Big Grabowski’
In simple terms well within error bounds.
One easy rationale exposing non-science practicing researchers. They believe in evil magic, not science, proper methods, proper data and especially not proper statistics.
We are going to need more pots, more gold coins, and more Leprechauns.
More pots of gold.
Right.
But taxes on pots of gold will be set at a very reasonable 102.5% ….
And soon Leprechauns will be illegal aliens, in the UK at least.
So – no ‘real’ rainbows any more.
Auto.
Oh no! Not more rainbows! If I had known this was going to happen I would have taken global warning seriously. How long before the tipping point may I ask?
All I care about rainbows apart from the visual spectacle, is the missapropriation of the word and symbol by certain groups in the community.
Yes perhaps I needed a little humorous break this week from the serious stuff. More and more highly credible documents are coming out almost daily thru leaked files or hearings ranging from severe government censorship on a broad range of topics(USA) to the 🏹#%!? chemical biological interventions has predictably turned out be. Gets a little disturbing and disheartening at times at times.
I was stationed in Flensburg, Germany, on the Danish border. That had to be the rainbow capital of the world. The sun was always lower in the sky — and there were a lot of showers.
Now that you mentioned it, would not the true rainbow capital of the world be a high latitude place with lots of mist or even steam – like the hot springs in Iceland? Mt. Erebus in Antarctica? Sun shining practically sideways for up to months at a time and lots of water crystals in the air, perfect for rainbows.
I got to put in a plug for Niagara Falls – most anytime the family and I pass by, especially in the winter, there’s a rainbow to behold.
What a disgusting waste of time and money.
Just checked the date again to be sure we haven’t skipped time and arrived at April 2023 already…..no, that’s not it. What can it be?
“What can it be?”
It’s ignorance. Pure ignorance.
5%? Nobody would notice
The appearance of rainbows, like the appearance of catastrophic, unrecoverable climate-change, completely depend on where you stand.
What about our rainbow police cars?
From the article: ““Climate change will generate pervasive changes across all aspects of the human experience on Earth.”
The author, Marcie Grabowski, could not prove this claim if her life depended on doing so.
This is unsubstantiated speculation at its best/worst. It’s not science. Her claims are ridiculous. Yet here she is writing about human-caused climate change as though she is an authority.
This is the norm for climate change reporting. All lies and distortions and delusions, all the time.
Remember that Puff the Magic Dragon lived at Honolei, with all those druggie connotations. Geoff S
The background of the famous “Puff” song is interesting. It started with a poem by Leonard Lipton.
“Honah Lee” is from the poem/song. The North Shore Kauai town of Hanalei is now thought of in the context of the song.
I went to a concert of P, P, & M in 1966 or ’67 in Cincinnati. A good show.
Are people actually paid to produce such inconsequential reports? Do their superiors in their academic institution not ask them if they have not got better ways of spending the money which is given to their institution? Or perhaps even ask if the employment at the institution is really justified.
I have no idea how this study came about. However, much research is a response to “Request for Proposals” (RFP) that are written by an agency that has money. Often, in universities, there is an group or office that monitors these requests and alerts members of the faculty. The faculty member(s) can then write the text for the research and work with the budget folks to finish and submit the request for funding.
The university superiors encourage this process because the budget will include a line for “overhead”. That means paying for lights, heat, janitors and all the other stuff the school must support. The “Overhead” has been calculated as a percentage of the “salaries” budget line. That is, if all the people getting paid have a total cost of $100,000, then overhead might add an additional $50,000. That goes directly to the university or whatever it is where the researchers are employed.
Someone currently in a position to know may wish to provide an update to my, now old, recollections.
What.. No-one has posted this yet !!
Did their study include any observations of increases in nighttime rainbows?
–
No? They didn’t study that? Well then, they are going to need another grant.
–
No doubt some idjit government agency or nonprofit foundation will hand out money for such a study.
Who funds this drivel?
What on earth is an average land location? What is the average number of rainbows seen at an average land location and do the rainbow spotters at one actually do any useful work any of the time?
Next science paper:
“Rainbows are worse than we thought”
Why are there so many songs about rainbows? – Kermit the Frog
2030? 2050? Nope now we are out to 2100!
There is no weatherman on earth that can tell us with any meaningful precision whether it will rain tomorrow or even this week. But 14 climate “climate scientists” (yes, it took 14 of them to do this) can tell whether rainfall occurring 78 years from now will be 5% greater because of CO2. This amazingly precise work was enabled by a USDA Federal grant. Wow – 5% more 78 years from now! Why don’t these “climate scientists” use their amazing omniscience to inform us whether it will rain this week? They claim to know how to do it and the info will be far more useful than their 78-year hence predictions and they could get good pay as a “climate presenter” on TV as well instead of consuming my tax money.
I am more than certain that I would have passed neither statistics nor ecology with this.
“To assess how climate change might affect rainbow viewing opportunities, we developed a global database of crowd-sourced photographed rainbows, trained an empirical model of rainbow occurrence, and applied this model to present-day climate and three future climate scenarios……Here, we situate rainbows within the ecosystem service cascade (Haines-Young and Potschin, 2010).”
Part of the new STEAM movement, add Art to STEM. American Scientist just had such an article about how art might help solve turbulence. “Heather Massie is bringing legendary actor and inventor Hedy Lamarr to life on stage at the inaugural International Forum on Research Excellence ” Sigma Xi meeting. Hope they don’t ruin art too much.
I try to keep up with modern ‘thought.’
Haines-Young and Potschin, 2010. The links between biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being. Ecosyst. Ecol.: A New Synthesis, 1 (2010), pp. 110-139.
“Although we can define an ecosystem service in fairly simple terms, as ‘the benefits
ecosystems provide’ (MA, 2005, p.1), it can become quite difficult to be precise about
what an ecosystem service is when we try to apply the idea…….A key theme of the Ecosystem Approach is the emphasis it gives to holistic or ‘joined up’ thinking……Crucially, we would need to show that the maintenance of ecosystem function and the output of ecosystem services are dependent on a wide range of native species. ” Google Scholar said that they have 1819 citations.
…… they were not “natural” therefore “…we seek to end the debate..”
We got that critique (in Proceedings Royal Society London) about an oyster paper we wrote over a decade ago. Was thinking about replying as soon as I could understand what the debate was about. Might be about removing all “unnatural” ecosystems.
STEM was too limiting. Add “A” for arts, “B” for baseball, and “F” for football.
If one degree of warming results in 7% more water vapor….extrapolating….yeah 5% more rainbows by 2100 maybe…..But there are lots of “ifs”, does 7% more water vapor make 7% more storms, or does it make rainfall last 7% longer, or the same duration but 7% heavier, etc….all these having an effect on the number of rainbows….
They can’t predict the “tipping point” of disastrous climate whatever, what makes anyone think that the cultists have a clue about the future of “rainbows”. Except in flags depicting another nutjob cause.
Sheesh.