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Anchorage Has Never Reached 90° F. That Could Change This Week

nytimes.com

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Re: Anchorage Has Never Reached 90° F. That Could Change This Week

#61

Post by cmroanirgo »

cyberferret wrote: post #50
hellofunk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't that partly due to it being summer in Alaska right now, and it is winter in Australia? You said "late last year" was your previous comparison, which implies it was approaching summer in Australia?

We are so close to the equator here that we don't really have the equivalent of 4 seasons. Rather just a 'wet' and 'dry' season. Probably about a 15 degree C variation in temperature throughout the year. My point was that I don't believe Alaska ever got warmer than we ever do here, but it has happened. My first story about the 70 degree variation in temperature is more the norm.

for reference (for everyone else). Darwin is 12 deg south of the equator, which makes it closer than Hawaii/Honolulu (which is 21 deg north), or Nicaragua which is roughly the same at 12 deg north. Darwin is typically hot and humid.

Re: Anchorage Has Never Reached 90° F. That Could Change This Week

#62

Post by irjustin »

reallydontask wrote: post #60
huffmsa wrote: post #57

100 years of temperature data isn't saying much though. If we could show that prior to the Last Glacial Period the temperature never breached 90°F, maybe this would be compelling.

Is there a way we could do this, namely get air temperatures prior to the last glacial period? It seems that you are setting an impossible bar rather than seeking an honest inquiry, happy to be corrected though

Sadly this is one of those arguments that are basically impossible to refute with large enough timescales.

I don't like the argument because it's unprovable with any degree of reliability (i.e. we can know the ice age was cold, but how cold? generally... this cold), but to outright ignore it is not fair either.

Re: Anchorage Has Never Reached 90° F. That Could Change This Week

#63

Post by olah_1 »

ForHackernews wrote: post #49
alecmg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again arbitrary cutoff at 20000BC. Lets pick the peak of last ice age and be amazed because since then we are only getting warmer. Lets also add some exponent predictions in the end, because it worked out so well for Lisa Simpson teeth. I like xkcd, but this is not their best work.

Sure, whatever. Honestly, I'm tired of arguing with denialists. Really, I do hope that it turns out you're correct and know better than almost every climate scientist on earth. At this point irrational hope is about the only hope left, so sure. Let's say you're right. Everything is fine. Natural cycles. Whatever.

>I'm tired of arguing with denialists

I don't think that guy is denying anything. He's merely stating that the earth has gone through drastic changes _many_ times in the past.

What makes this change the final one before earth is incapable of sustaining life?

Re: Anchorage Has Never Reached 90° F. That Could Change This Week

#64

Post by isostatic »

cyberferret wrote: post #25

My former co-founder of my SaaS was based in remote Alaska (I am in tropical Australia), and I remember one day a while back late in the year, it was +35degC here and she said it was -35degC over there. I couldn't believe we were equidistant on either end of the 0 datum, with a massive 70 degree C difference in temperature variation. Weirdly, it is now our dry season, with temperatures around 21degC and I just Google…

Equidistant? The equivalent of remote alaska would be the antarctic peninsula.

Re: Anchorage Has Never Reached 90° F. That Could Change This Week

#66

Post by ForHackernews »

olah_1 wrote: post #63
ForHackernews wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, whatever. Honestly, I'm tired of arguing with denialists. Really, I do hope that it turns out you're correct and know better than almost every climate scientist on earth. At this point irrational hope is about the only hope left, so sure. Let's say you're right. Everything is fine. Natural cycles. Whatever.

>I'm tired of arguing with denialists I don't think that guy is denying anything. He's merely stating that the earth has gone through drastic changes _many_ times in the past. What makes this change the final one before earth is incapable of sustaining life?

Nobody sensible says Earth will be incapable of sustaining life. Jellyfish, for example, are predicted to flourish in a warming ocean depleted of fish stocks.

I think it still it's an open question whether modern human civilization will survive these changes. Today, people are already dying of heat and rioting for lack of water: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_heat_wave_in_India_and_Pa...

If society does collapse from drought, famine, resource wars, etc., then will we be able to rebuild it without all the free energy from fossil fuels, or was that a one-time cheat code? Maybe we're looking at the Great Filter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

Re: Anchorage Has Never Reached 90° F. That Could Change This Week

#67

Post by geoid »

cyberferret wrote: post #25

My former co-founder of my SaaS was based in remote Alaska (I am in tropical Australia), and I remember one day a while back late in the year, it was +35degC here and she said it was -35degC over there. I couldn't believe we were equidistant on either end of the 0 datum, with a massive 70 degree C difference in temperature variation. Weirdly, it is now our dry season, with temperatures around 21degC and I just Google…

> I couldn't believe we were equidistant on either end of the 0 datum

Longitude only affects the time of day, and thus daily temperature variations. Latitude is much more important, and determines climate and seasons. You are at vastly different latitude than Alaska.

Re: Anchorage Has Never Reached 90° F. That Could Change This Week

#68

Post by ranko »

isostatic wrote: post #64
cyberferret wrote: post #25

My former co-founder of my SaaS was based in remote Alaska (I am in tropical Australia), and I remember one day a while back late in the year, it was +35degC here and she said it was -35degC over there. I couldn't believe we were equidistant on either end of the 0 datum, with a massive 70 degree C difference in temperature variation. Weirdly, it is now our dry season, with temperatures around 21degC and I just Google…

Equidistant? The equivalent of remote alaska would be the antarctic peninsula.

Equidistant from freezing point.

Re: Anchorage Has Never Reached 90° F. That Could Change This Week

#69

Post by graeme »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #52
yostrovs wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm concerned about the starving people in sub Saharan Africa. It would still be inappropriate for me to constantly spam you about it, regardless of how hungry they are.

Yes. Absolutely. I am concerned about the security/surveillance state. I understand this and try to apologize when I start going on about it. I love HN, but it's gotten so that if it's a weekend or U.S. holiday, it's climate stories. I'm happy to ignore them, but the site itself is beginning to look a bit preachy on this particular topic.

So, the person copy pasting shouldn’t do that, but....I would expect the volume of climate stories to get larger, not smaller.

The issue is growing in urgency and severity. By social convention people treat it like any other issue, but it drawfs anything else in terms of the scale of the problem.

So it’ll remain relevant to the forum, which tends to do a better joh weighting things based on importance. That said the discussions likely verge on repetitive.

Re: Anchorage Has Never Reached 90° F. That Could Change This Week

#70

Post by bregma »

StreamBright wrote: post #28
iamzozo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The highest temperature ever recorded at Anchorage’s official station was 85 degrees"

Yes so in the last ~100 years it was the highest. How about 1000 years or 100000? Why is only the last 100 years relevant in the context of climate?

If it bleeds it leads.

Don't worry about climate change, we're all going to have bled to death first.

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