Sure but at least they had a degrees of certainty as to what to expect year to year. Regular seasons for example. Confidence in their crop planting so they could plan their labor needs etc...
Yes. But the idea that the increased volatility means there will be no regularity at all is nonsensical alarmism too. Move from Europe to the South, and you will observe more volatility in the tropical region today too. Does it follow that there is no regularity in the tropical weather? No. If the tropical climate zone moves North, the corresponding volatility will move North too. And the volatility we see there today is is the volatility we have to expect in that shifted tropical zone.
Nonsense. The Nile flooded regularly and predictably.
As predictably as the rain in the regions in the South. Where it was quite hot at that time too.
Had Egypt relied on rainfall agriculture it would never have become such an empire, and had Egypt relied on rainfall and then had to deal with multi-year droughts followed by torrential rains and then more multi-year droughts most of its empire population would have had to move or die.
Of course, depending on big rivers gives the advantage that it averages over the whole basin of the river. But serious droughts remain serious droughts even with such an averaging.
There have been also enough empires which had to rely on rainfall.
That one can invent extreme scenarios of volatility which would make life quite hard is obvious. The question is how relevant these extreme versions will be. The other question is how much one needs to develop agriculture in such regions. This, of course, depends on the average rainfall - if there is, in the average, not enough water for agriculture, then there will be none. If there will be, then all what is necessary is to find ways to collect and store enough water of the torrential rains so that it can be used for several years.
Often enough, this is done by Nature itself, with groundwater. If there is enough precipitation, the groundwater level will be sufficiently high to be accessible. If there are multi-year droughts, the groundwater level will, of course, decrease. But then comes the torrential rain, and all that one has to care about is that most of the water remains in that region, increasing the groundwater level. So all one has to do is to build local dams and so on. In the mountains, that structure with terraces will do the job.
One of the major issues around the expected AGW consequences is that it will create climate zones humans have never seen - and it will in many cases create them rapidly, too quickly for agriculture to adjust.
Of course, there are regions already quite hot today, where higher temperature may lead to something never seen by humans yet. So what? There is not that much agriculture now in these regions. Remember, what matters is the world market. All the alarmist scenarios have to presuppose that the world market fails - else, in particular, the migration will be simply the standard one, from rural areas to the local towns, and the food to the towns comes from the world market. This system has to fail, so that, remember, Riyad cannot buy any food on that world market as it does today. But this world market does not depend much on those hottest regions we have today. So what happens there will not make a big difference.
The "too quickly for agriculture to adjust" is an alarmist meme of no value. The time scales are different. Of course, the climate change may be fast, even very fast, if comparison with natural climate change events. But this is the sort of hundreds vs. thousands years. If there is a fast climate change, agriculture will not need hundreds of years to adapt. Tens of years will be sufficient.
No, let's not use homo sapiens for purely egocentric reasons and use insects as I proposed. You are right, most all insects would thrive, but all larger mammals might well go extinct. It's not the first time that has happened.
There is no base at all to think that the whole Earth becomes uninhabitable for humans.
Well, a few degrees increase in mean temperature will make Egypt unlivable as with all countries with climates at the limits of habitability.
The problem with Egypt is that there is no rain, so that most of the country is simply desert. This can, in principle, change with warming, last but not least AGW predicts more precipitation. If there will be sufficient rain, so that one can start agriculture where we have desert now, then even much more people will be able to live there. Note that clouds also lead to more moderate climate (less temperature differences between day and night).
Are you prepared to move to No.Canada, Alaska, Greenland or Siberia ?
Actually I see no base for such a move. As explained, what matters in a global world is the average agricultural production.
To whom? Your refusal to comprehend prevents me from "proving" anything to you.
To the reader of your claims. It is not only me who ignores empty claims as cheap alarmism, but would take such claims seriously if supported by quotes from and references to scientific literature. (And, of course, my "refusal to comprehend" is your fantasy, a cheap attempt to hide the absence of counterarguments on your side.)
Again, you assert as "plausible" something that is directly contradicted by the physical evidence and theoretical arguments of a scientific paper directly in front of you.
The research says otherwise.
The research paper in front of you does that.
I already handed you plenty, in that paper. Read what is in front of you.
No. This is not how a civilized argumentation works. You make the claim, thus, you have the burden of proof. Thus, you have to find and present a quote which makes the point. So, quote the paper if you think one of my claims is wrong.
It's not I, but the AGW researchers, who found the thresholds and deduced their implications.
The point being? I have questioned neither the existence of these thresholds nor that they have some implications. Instead, I have described such implications (sharp borders between different ecosystems, with those visible in the mountains as a particular example accessible to almost every mountain tourist.
You have repeatedly claimed as "plausible" what is directly contradicted by published research, and you based your argument on a foolish misreading (or more likely no reading) of the article in front of you.
Your argument, btw, was invalid in itself - regardless of the facts. You can't distribute an average evenly like that.
This makes no sense. I have not distributed averages evenly. (I have distributed evenly only expectations about changes, and only under the assumption that there is no additional information available how the changes will be distributed.)
The AGW researchers - especially in the paper I referred you to - say that is false.
Really? Quote them. I'm interested.
According to all the data, evidence, and theoretical calculation, from the researchers in all related fields, the "process" (wrong word, again) will not be continuous, but cross thresholds and pass tipping points and so forth. That's the major conclusion of the article I referred you to.
You completely ignore the explanation I have given. I think you are intelligent enough to understand the difference, so I think you intentionally mislead the readers. In particular, I have not questioned that at a given point in space, the climate change will lead to discontinuous changes of the ecosystems because of these thresholds. But this discontinuity is part of a continuous movement of the border between the different ecosystems.
That would of course be normal - the borders of ecosystems very often change suddenly, far more rapidly than the driving parameters, as they first lag and then catch up. The northern boundaries of US tree species, for example, often lag the temperature regime changes until a sudden event (forest fire, say) opens the door.
This is about something completely different, and irrelevant.
The question still, whether you will ever be able to answer it or not: Why is the US fascist movement sending its minions - the people who, like Schmelzer, refuse to accept information from any reality based or scientific source - to trash AGW and everyone trying to slow it or adjust to it while time remains?
Why do you think I would even try to answer such a completely incorrect question? Why do you beat your children every day?
