
A Hawaiian island got about 50 inches of rain in 24 hours - blondie9x
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-hawaii-storm-kauai-20180428-story.html
======
soapdog
I've been to Kaua'i multiple times as I contract for a monastery there. It is
a very wet place and I remember the first time I've been there and saw houses
built on "high stilts", I remember thinking that was a smart solution for
flooding on my own home country of Brazil where flooding happens annually.

Then, after about 14 years without ever hearing about flooding over there in
Kaua'i, this news struck quite close to home. I lost contact with the
monastery on that day and then someone there messaged me: "heavy rain, the
network is down". I didn't imagine the rain was that heavy... Lucky for them,
the monastery is on high ground and wasn't affected as much as shore
properties. Can't fathom what those in Hanalei might be handling, heck, I
wanted to move to Hanalei for many years.

Climate change is something that people in the US should take more seriously,
I can't believe the amount of deniers in that country. It is very depressing
to watch from afar as people deny science as if it was merely opinions. Kaua'i
is one of the most amazing places I've ever been, somewhere I consider a home
away from home. Can't believe that government will not take action to course
correct their recent snafus related to the Paris accord. They recklessness
will make beautiful places such as Kaua'i suffer.

noho palekana, my friends.

~~~
hollander
In Friesland, The Netherlands, farmers used to built a "terp" to keep their
home safe from floodings. The first terps were built around 500 BC.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terp)

------
tambre
50" = 127cm

~~~
kome
Thank you for keeping spreading civilization among the barbarians ;)

~~~
dang
We ban accounts that post nationalistic flamebait, so please don't post like
this again. Tired clichés like bickering over measurement systems aren't
needed either.

I get that you intended it as a joke, but the hivemind doesn't consider that
when going to war.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
mabbo
For those of us in the north, worth considering: an inch of rain is something
like a foot of snow, before it gets packed down by further snow. That, for me,
puts into perspective just how insane 50 inches of rain is.

------
porlune
10 years ago the same island had similar flooding:
[http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/4687248/rain-continues-
to...](http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/4687248/rain-continues-to-cause-
flooding-on-kauai)

edit: Also 26 years ago
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/12/16/f...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/12/16/flash-
floods-kill-three-on-hawaiian-island/7d8f3ba4-31cd-49a6-8188-f8598de13752/)

~~~
librexpr
Your first link is pretty light on details, but your second link from 26 years
ago says that the rain was 15.33 inches in one part of the island, 10.88 in
another, and 6.68 in another. Compared to that, the 50 inches in 24 hours this
month are in a class of their own.

------
elvirs
not sure if its warming or cooling but climate is definitely getting weirder

~~~
darkerside
On the one hand, I'm tempted to agree. The whole reason we call it climate
change instead of global warming is that, whole temperatures may rise at a
global level, that doesn't necessarily manifest as a mean temperature increase
in a plurality of locations. But it is theorized to add kinetic energy to the
weather system resulting in more powerful weather phenomena.

On the other hand, we sure need to be careful in the way we observe trends.
The human mind is suited to observe patterns even where they may not exist.
Combine that with increasing distribution of news coverage, and the insatiable
consumer appetite for bizarre news stories, and it would be surprising if
weather didn't seem to be getting weirder over the years.

------
la_fayette
maybe the next phrase of a us president should be: "war on climate change"...

~~~
tempodox
One might say, there are already several PR departments and politicians
engaged in that.

------
StavrosK
Wow, what the hell is going on in the comments? A few climate change deniers
and someone blaming Hawaiians for living on the island, jeez.

~~~
chronotis
Sometimes I feel like there's a bot-army monitoring all channels for new
articles invoking the words "climate" or "global warming" and forwarding those
pages to a waiting battalion of troll-soldiers.

~~~
300bps
Is it so unbelievable that people could just disagree with you that you have
to assume they’re espousing a fake or paid for position?

I consider myself a conservationist so I think outrageous and easily
falsifiable claims like “this was caused by climate change and we can expect
more of this” destroy the credibility of the people making the claims and the
dangers of climate change in general.

The most famous was the 2000 article that claimed snowfall was a thing of the
past which was finally deleted after years of mocking:

[https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/12/one-of-the-longest-
ru...](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/12/one-of-the-longest-running-
climate-prediction-blunders-has-disappeared-from-the-internet/)

There are so many more examples including Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth
being released shortly after Katrina and being advertised with a hurricane
coming from the smokestack of a factory saying we can expect hurricanes like
that will be much more common going forward. Instead we had hardly any
hurricanes make landfall for over a decade.

[https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/?ref_=fn_al_tt_0](https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/?ref_=fn_al_tt_0)

~~~
dhimes
_easily falsifiable claims like “this was caused by climate change and we can
expect more of this”_

If it was easily falsifiable we wouldn't be having this discussion. Not much
on this board concerning astrology, for example.

 _Instead we had hardly any hurricanes make landfall for over a decade._

Since you're running at 300bps you have apparently missed some news.

The fact of the matter is that by the time Al Gore put out his movie
(disclosure: I never watched it) even skeptical scientists like myself were
taking note. It's not that there was proof, but something happens with
scientific measurements when you start sniffing the truth: As you look closer,
with better technology and more detailed measurements, the results tend to go
in one direction. Not always, and it's certainly not proof, but it's enough to
make our spidey senses tingle.

The danger in this game is that the system is chaotic (indeed, chaos theory
was invented around weather prediction). So there is a point where even a
small, incremental change will lead to wildly non-proportional changes. And we
still have no idea where that point is. Hell, some politicians are trying to
stop people from even talking about it.

------
oldandtired
We can be thankful that these kinds of event happen rarely. The thing I find
interesting is the comments by the experts that these kinds of events are
supposed to be an indicator of future catastrophe and they do not say that
these kinds of events have occurred in the past as well.

If we were to see these kinds of events occur more and more frequently (like,
every year and a couple of times a year) then we would have evidence that
specific changes had occurred in the climate.

But to jump the gun and say that this is a harbinger of massive change based
on just this occurrence is premature at best and at worst, well, choose your
own words.

~~~
dhimes
_If we were to see these kinds of events occur more and more frequently (like,
every year and a couple of times a year) then we would have evidence that
specific changes had occurred in the climate._

The problem is that we don't really know the number is that means
"frequently." In the US we had this Hawaii event; we had the Nor'easters[1] in
what-10 days?; we had the strongest winter storm on record; we had the
catastrophic Texas flooding (because of the Hurricane, but extra). In what-7
months or so?

[1] One of those Nor'easters brought enormous damage not because it was so
strong, but because there was simultaneously an enormous storm in the
ocean-2000 miles across or so, that was going to pound our coast with waves
anyway, piling on.

~~~
oldandtired
Certainly, what number of events over what period of time to be considered
frequently is a judgement call and different people and different groups of
people will have different criteria to determine this.

The problem with records, as they currently exist, is that they are partial at
best. It doesn't take much for extent records to be destroyed. As a
civilisation, we do not value things like this.

As a consequence, when those looking into what has happened in the past,
personal recollection is considered extremely unreliable and is often ignored.

Some time in the last year, I did a search for extreme weather events that
occurred between 1850 and 1910 in Queensland, Australia. The kinds of records
that are available are quite sparse. However, a couple of interesting things
did arise.

1\. The population of that area was quite small during the time period in
question. The records come from farms and cattle stations mostly.

2\. The recorded values aren't usually used today, though when I was a child
and a teen, those values were regularly given during the cyclone season to
warn people of the severity of the events. The values were for barometric
pressure. I found the recorded values to be so much lower than what was
published during the 1960's and 1970's. The inference being that these extreme
weather events were spectacularly bigger and more destructive than the events
recorded in recent years.

The actual destruction to human property and lives was minimal due to the low
population density of those times.

There are a lot of factors that go into how "destructive" recent events are.
If you look at the bigger picture, what we can see is that increasing
population density and the subsequent population distribution and the
subsequent greed by various factions means that there are more and more people
now living in places that a century ago, no one would have lived in because
they knew that to do so would be foolish as the weather events would be
destructive in those areas.

When it boils down to it, people en bulk tend to be less wise and more easily
manipulated. If climate scientists and those that support the anthropogenic
climate change agenda want to get to be supportive, they need to be less
political and less dogmatic and much more open. As I have said elsewhere, if
climate scientists can answer specific question in a clear logical manner then
they can have the benefit of the doubt. If they don't and they won't then one
can quite logically call their utterances as rubbish. I'm still waiting
fifteen years after my initial questions and still nary an answer.

Your opinion over whether or not anthropogenic causes are responsible for
climate change is still, at this time, just an opinion. We do not have
sufficient facts or research to determine this, nor do we have sufficient
facts or research to determine what mitigation protocols will be effective in
the face of climate change.

Does climate change exist? Of course it does. We have the obvious evidence
before us. But, is it anthropogenic? That we cannot tell at this point. Do
humans alter the environment? Yes, we have seen this over a period of a couple
of millenia. Does this environmental change have gross effects on climate? We
really don't know. We don't know the long term feedback cycles within the
planetary system and these feedback cycles are important.

Anyone who declares that they know for certain, is just blowing smoke in your
eyes. If we cannot stop the dogma and the politics about the subject, we will
not even begin to understand the complexity of our planetary system. I have
had arguments with scientists and all I can say is that they need a good
engineering education to understand the limitations of their theories and
models. Many seem to live in a fairy land that ignores reality. Maybe it is
just the scientists I have come in contact with.

~~~
dhimes
_Maybe it is just the scientists I have come in contact with._ Perhaps.

In general you are preaching to the choir. I don't follow the politics of
climate change, however. Occasionally I'll see something about a denier paper
funded by somebody with skin in the game (like an oil company), so I'm sure
there are shenanigans going on. But there are a lot of people out there who
have some idea of a boogey-man scientific power structure that is desperate to
maintain it's supremacy and therefore will corrupt scientific research to
protect it. It's the same boogey-man that gives rise to theories about
evolution and the origin of the universe.

Exactly what this power structure is they don't explain. These are not people
who have ever been engaged in scientific research. They aren't stupid, just
aren't in the field. Kind of like non-athletes who criticize an athlete who is
probably in the top 100 people on the planet at doing what they do as
"sucking."

So they're easily distracted by arguments like it's "all political" and "both
sides have a point," which, while true, miss a very important distinction. One
side very clearly has a financial stake in the game, and their investors
demand (by force of law) that they protect that stake. The other side stands
to gain...I'm not really sure. Does the scientist who "proves" anthropogenic
climate change make 15 million dollars a year for it? Does the lab stand to
gain? Maybe some research funding to pay for more trips, but they're not
flying first class.

You don't make a name for yourself by saying what everybody else is saying.

But maybe there is something I'm missing. Maybe you can explain it to me.

~~~
oldandtired
Most work environments are "political" in nature. Within them, certain ideas
are not to be questioned. Within most science research groups there will be an
expectation that you will be following the "consensus" model, whatever that
may be.

For example, in string theory research groups you will be expected to follow
the party line of "string theory" as the basic viewpoint, and so your work
will not be supported if you dispute string theory in any way. Whereas in
other research groups you will be expected to discount any string theory model
as valid and if you support string theory you will be frowned upon and not
funded.

So it is with many different research areas. Anthropogenic climate change is
the mantra for climate research, so you had better follow party line or you
don't get funded. If your research doesn't produce the results that support
that view then it will quickly be removed from funding.

It really doesn't matter what the subject matter is, if what you are doing
doesn't follow "funding guidelines", it will be closed down. Before that
happens, to keep their jobs, most people will follow the party line.

This is a shame as "science should be fun" and a way to further our
understanding of the universe around us. What I find interesting is that
scientists, on the whole, seem to be trained to believe that some things are
"truth" because the theories on which those "truths" are based seem to work
and work well.

In fact, many believe that certain things exist and spend their days, months
and years trying to find those things. Occasionally after much time, some of
these things seem to appear as based on their models. It seems to vindicate
their belief in their theories and models. Yet, if one takes a few steps back
and takes along hard look at the data collected, other things appear that
raise questions about the validity of those theories and models. This is a
good thing as it suggests that our theories and models may not only be
incomplete but could be quite wrong. There is nothing wrong with that.

I liken it to the geocentric to heliocentric viewpoints. Both had some level
of workability, but both have been superseded by later data and observations.
Instead of being a tool for exploration of our universe, science appears to be
getting the veneer of a religious system of belief and a pantheon of gods to
go with it. Oh well.

~~~
dhimes
_Within most science research groups there will be an expectation that you
will be following the "consensus" model, whatever that may be._

That's because you usually believe it when you sign up. That's within a lab,
not a field. You don't go play guitar for a group whose music you can't stand.

 _Anthropogenic climate change is the mantra for climate research, so you had
better follow party line or you don 't get funded._

This is where you either need to show some evidence or I'm not going to
believe you. Outsiders say this, but the truth is usually just the opposite:
If you have some results that are counter-establishment, the funding flood
comes. Fifth force, earth angular momentum-coupling, cold fusion....

It's harder to _get_ that evidence because, duh, if it were easy then _that_
would be the norm- the standard belief of the field. This is the popular
misconception that people have outside of research. It's one of those urban
legends: sounds plausible, and somebody knows a guy, aligns with my belief
system, therefore must be true. But the fact is, when something outside of
accepted beliefs seems to have strong evidence, there is a lot of excitement
in the field and people all talk about it and rush to be a part of it. Heady
days!

 _In fact, many believe that certain things exist and spend their days, months
and years trying to find those things._

I agree. As James Randi said, "Scientists, like everybody else, tend to find
what they are looking for." It _does_ take a while to break out of old
theoretical frameworks. Look at the hoops that astrophysics is jumping through
to explain their observations that are based on the idea that physical
constants are truly constants as well as certain conservation laws. They are
inventing all kinds of exotic, not-quite-self-consistent schemas for
explaining their observations.

But that's very different from the assertion that "if you don't buy into it
you can't get funded." It is true that you'll have to have your ducks in a row
(stars aligned? heh) to get that funding, but if you had a way to explain all
of this shit in a simple, self-consistent way then you would be fine.

But you wouldn't have to fight a bunch of politically-driven opinion-makers on
that front because they don't GAF. With climate change you have to do exactly
that- some politicians have forbidden even its discussion.

------
marcoperaza
To preface, I am inclined to agree with the anthropogenic climate change
hypothesis. But the claims in this article are no better than climate change
skeptics pointing to a particularly cold winter or mild summer as evidence for
their position.

How can you possibly conclude this is caused by climate change vs. being a
100, 200, or 1000 year storm? Freak weather events have been occurring for
billions of years before the industrial revolution.

Climate change is a gradual process that may in fact make such storms more
likely, but pinning any single storm on climate change is suspect.

~~~
chapium
"The flooding on Kauai is consistent with an extreme rainfall that comes with
a warmer atmosphere," said Chip Fletcher, a leading expert on the impact of
climate change on Pacific island communities.

Because no one can know the entire body of knowledge, we divide our
understanding of the world among us. Some of us study the earth and climate
and accumulate expertise on the subject matter.

~~~
marcoperaza
“Consistent with” does not establish much at all, other than that the event
does not _disprove_ climate change. An event tells us nothing about climate
change if it is consistent both with and without climate change.

My withdrawing $40 from my bank account is consistent with me having no cash
at all left in my wallet. It’s also consistent with me already having some
cash but needing more. The event, the withdrawing of the cash, does not tell
us whether my wallet was empty.

~~~
sykh
What is the goal of your comments? Are you trying to convince people that when
there is an increase in anomalous weather patterns we shouldn’t say it’s due
to climate change? At what point would you say these things are a result of
climate change? Do you deny the reality of climate change? Do you agree that
it is a reality but are fighting against people ignoring the fact that an
individual event might have a different cause?

Due to humans releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gasses into the
atmosphere there is more energy in the system. Clearly this increase in energy
leads to anomalous behavior. It’s ok to point this out.

~~~
marcoperaza
My motivation? A commitment to truthful and honest reporting.

The claims in this article are no better than climate change skeptics pointing
to a particularly cold winter or mild summer as evidence for their position.

~~~
sykh
Your last sentence is false. The difference is one of probability. There’s a
much greater chance being correct with the climate change attribution over the
other one.

We have to make conclusions and policies based on evidence and what is likely
the cause rather than waiting for a formal proof. The most likely cause of the
increase in anomalous weather events is due to the increase in energy in the
system. It’s worth pointing this out when these events occur.

~~~
krona
_There’s a much greater chance being correct with the climate change
attribution over the other one._

Isn't the null hypothesis that there is nothing specific to attribute the
rain? Regardless, what's your statistical test and confidence interval?

~~~
sykh
Do you create a statistical test and confidence interval for all of the things
you believe to be true? I doubt it. Do you have expertise in all areas? I
don’t.

I rely on experts. Experts tell me that there is climate change. They tell me
that there has been a massive increase in energy in weather system due to
human activity. They tell me that the number of anomalies is increasing. Now I
encounter a story about a very strange weather occurrence and your question to
me is what statistical test I’ve run?

I don’t know you and I can only guess as to the purpose of your question. I’m
very skeptical that you can answer your own question when it comes to making
conclusions about things outside your expertise. So it seems your purpose is
lacking in genuineness.

If it is news to you that people make conclusions based on the evidence they
know about and weigh the possibilities and rough probabilities without
conducting a formal statistical analysis then I highly recommend that you do
some soul searching.

