Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave • Hacker News Board

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#121

Post by _jal » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

Taek wrote: post #18

kiloreux wrote: post #6

The affects of this on third world country are even worse. Here in Algeria we are having the worst drought in over 20 years. What I fear, is that if this continues to happen, people could literally start dying from thirst again. I wonder how good is desalination of sea water technology and if we could see some startups that explore this field, certainly a lot of people's lives to be changed.

I'm not celebrating people dying of thirst, but I also think that's the only thing that will get the world properly focused on the issue. We need to make big structural changes to the global economy to fight climate change, and those changes are going to have an outsized negative impact on today's wealthiest and most powerful people. They aren't going to let change happen without a fight. People dying is what it's go…

People dying will not change the minds that need changing.

The people who profit from the current state of affairs need to be convinced to modify their plans. Perhaps there are other ways to persuade them, but fear of something worse than not profiting from their current investment plans is the only thing I can think of at this point.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#122

Post by kmerroll » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #25

kiloreux wrote: post #6

The affects of this on third world country are even worse. Here in Algeria we are having the worst drought in over 20 years. What I fear, is that if this continues to happen, people could literally start dying from thirst again. I wonder how good is desalination of sea water technology and if we could see some startups that explore this field, certainly a lot of people's lives to be changed.

Again? Didn't the Romans build aqueduct there 2000 years ago?

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#123

Post by twobitshifter » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

kiloreux wrote: post #6

The affects of this on third world country are even worse. Here in Algeria we are having the worst drought in over 20 years. What I fear, is that if this continues to happen, people could literally start dying from thirst again. I wonder how good is desalination of sea water technology and if we could see some startups that explore this field, certainly a lot of people's lives to be changed.

Even temperatures alone are getting into the deadly range in terms of wet bulb temperatures.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people...

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#124

Post by throwawaysea » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

squidfood wrote: post #61

bob1029 wrote: post #13

I wish I knew more about meteorology. It must be incredible (and maybe a little harrowing) to be in that profession these days. Does anyone have any idea how this heat wave will conclude? Does all that energy just fade out into a nice polite rainstorm, or should we expect something more dramatic to cap it off considering the unprecedented circumstances?

On the Pacific NW coast where this is happening, cool marine air will push in and eventually overwhelm the system holding in the heat. The change can be quite abrupt, as the two systems wrestle for dominance, I've felt it (in Seattle) is as a sudden breeze followed by what feels like turning the AC on - literally a 5-10deg temp drop in minutes and can drop 30deg in a couple hours. It doesn't generally end with full-o…

In this case it was a 40-50 degree (Fahrenheit) swing from the record high to the overnight lows as the air compression from sinking air off the mountains dispersed and marine air came onshore: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/06/even-more-extreme-ext...

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#125

Post by retrac » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

mbostleman wrote: post #107

Taek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not celebrating people dying of thirst, but I also think that's the only thing that will get the world properly focused on the issue. We need to make big structural changes to the global economy to fight climate change, and those changes are going to have an outsized negative impact on today's wealthiest and most powerful people. They aren't going to let change happen without a fight. People dying is what it's go…

How do we know this is the result of climate change? It's meant as an honest question. Though it is largely ignored in the mainstream discussion, I've heard for years to be careful about making a distinction between weather and climate. Are you thinking this is not weather, but climate? How does one tell the difference? If there's a record winter of cold temps, would it be evidence that the climate is cooling?

I don't mean to be dismissive, but simple statistics. A record winter by itself is just a freak incident. As is a record hot summer. But what are the probabilities? One record cold day broken after 80 years? Improbable but not downright implausible. Year after year after year of record highs? Just coincidence?

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#126

Post by thewarrior » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

julienb_sea wrote: post #117

AngryData wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't technology that holds back water desalination, it is energy availability/cost. Even the most promising desalination tech is only a small efficiency boost over simpler established methods. Yeah efficiency gains certain help over the long term, but the overall energy costs are still enormous and nearly require dedicated power plant for any significant amount of clean water. The best bet in actually desalinatin…

This isn't technically accurate, we have access to abundant long term (multi-century) reserves of natural gas which can be used to provide power needed for desalinization. Nuclear is in no way a "blocker". Certainly, cost is a substantial barrier especially in less wealthy nations.

Carbon emissions

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#127

Post by _rpd » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

raidicy wrote: post #93

Arrath wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most desalination methods are unfortunately quite energy intensive, and produce a concentrated brine that has environmental/disposal concerns such that it can't just be pumped back into the ocean, really. It presents a difficult problem for entrepreneurs to tackle. Definitely the potential to change people's lives for the better, though.

Stupid question. Can't we just let the brine evaporate and then compress the minerals left over?

This is a common method of salt production ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_salt

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#128

Post by Arrath » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #98

Arrath wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not ideal right now, how well does it scale if more and more desalination plants come online to meet freshwater demands, and dispose of their brine in the same manner?

It's not ideal if the brine is dumped in one location. If it is dumped deep enough it gets a chance to be diluted before it hurts the environment. In the end, all fresh water goes back to the ocean so it's not like we would be creating an imbalance, there's just a risk of causing local damage.

Yeah the local imbalance is what worries me. I have a mental image of a big long 'soaker hose' style brine dumping pipe rather than a single outlet, that way the brine is further diluted. Wonder how much that helps.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#129

Post by PicassoCTs » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:31 PM UTC

kiloreux wrote: post #6

The affects of this on third world country are even worse. Here in Algeria we are having the worst drought in over 20 years. What I fear, is that if this continues to happen, people could literally start dying from thirst again. I wonder how good is desalination of sea water technology and if we could see some startups that explore this field, certainly a lot of people's lives to be changed.

First we deny (which costs energy/money), then we wall the problem off (which costs energy/money) - the moment it overwhelms us, we have neither energy nor money left.

Re: Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave

#130

Post by freeflight » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:31 PM UTC

grishka wrote: post #100

In the US, at least, air conditioning is somewhat common from what I know. It was as hot as +35 in northwest part of Russia last week, for several days, with sun barely coming down at night, and that felt like a torture at times. Some historical records were broken.

> In the US, at least, air conditioning is somewhat common from what I know.

Afaik that depends on the specific region in the US. Some states have hot regions where AC is common, but plenty of others don't because heat didn't used to be as common as it's now, thus the sudden need for cooling to such a degree that even public cooling shelters are a thing [0]

Another factor, even for places with AC, is that their infrastructure and AC is built to certain heat expectations, if the weather goes outside these expected then the infrastructure can't cope. A version of that was the Texas electricity grid failing during the sudden high demand of a "real" winter.

[0] https://www.axios.com/northwest-heat-dome-global-warming-591...