US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming • Hacker News Board

Re: US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming

#121

Post by drclau » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

sgpl wrote: post #39

I've been cranking up my AC and adding ice to my water to combat the heat but I recently read an article about sea-life [0] boiling to death in their natural habitats (oceans, seas) which made me realize that animals in the wild increasingly don't have this option. It made me really sad to think about the fact that we'll probably see mass-extinction events (for animals, etc.) in the near future or at least within my…

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

"The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction, is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch (with the more recent time sometimes called Anthropocene) as a result of human activity."

Re: US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming

#122

Post by quenix » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #78

jazzyjackson wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A heatwave in Iowa and Wisconsin does not invalidate the statement that this heatwave in the Pacific NW / BC was once unthinkable and will now be common. Relevant quote from the article: "According to the analysis, if the world warms by 2C, which could happen in about 20 years' time, then the chances of having a heatwave similar to last week's drop from around once every 1,000 years to roughly once every 5-10 years.…

"it will now be common" Apparently you haven't been paying attention to all the failed predictions by alarmists over the past 3 decades including: The End of Snow (2000) https://www.climatedepot.com/2018/01/04/flashback-2000-snowf... The predictions of Glacier National Park being ice free by 2020: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park-202... Not only is it extremely, extremely unlikely that 2C warm…

The first website you cite, Climate Depot, is severely biased toward right-wing anti climate science agendas, and has been classified as "conspiracy-pseudoscience" by Media Bias/Fact Check. They further comment that

"Overall, we rate the Climate Depot a strong Pseudoscience source based on the promotion of human-influenced climate denialism propaganda and the use of poor sources who have failed numerous fact checks."

I'm not sure how an anecdote of one climate prediction failing (your CNN article) is a rebuttal against decades of climate research and unanimous consensus from the vast majority of scientists.

As for Dr. Roy Spencer—his credentials are impressive, but he is just one scientist. The scientific consensus on climate change is established, and "nearly all actively publishing climate scientists (97–98%[3]) support the consensus on anthropogenic climate change"[0]. I don't particularly care for the opinion of one lone man.

--

[0]: Anderegg, William R L; Prall, James W.; Harold, Jacob; Schneider, Stephen H. (2010). "Expert credibility in climate change". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 107 (27): 12107–9. Bibcode:2010PNAS..10712107A. doi:10.1073/pnas.1003187107. PMC 2901439. PMID 20566872. https://doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.1003187107

Re: US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming

#123

Post by warlog » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

dghughes wrote: post #111

helen___keller wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It made me really sad to think about the fact that we'll probably see mass-extinction events (for animals, etc.) in the near future or at least within my lifetime It's generally agreed that we are already living within a mass extinction event[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene#Biodiversity "Humankind has entered what is sometimes called the Earth's sixth major extinction. Most experts agree that huma…

The acidification of the ware is what goes unnoticed. The heat adds to ocean volume but CO2 acidifies water more but it's not noticeable by humans.

Wouldn't heat cause CO2 to bubble out of solution (and elevate pH)?

Re: US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming

#124

Post by mjburgess » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

ghastmaster wrote: post #96

> If humans hadn't influenced the climate to the extent that they have, the event would have been 150 times less likely A change in odds by a multiple of 150 does not equal "virtually impossible". Imagine 1/1000 vs 1/150,000 odds for a multimillion jackpot. Our weather and climate system is unfathomably complex. The odds that a compter model is correct is "virtually impossible".

Indeed, one has to scale that probability by our confidence in the model itself -- so the probability itself has a wide confidence interval.

Ie., a more accurate claim is something like, `15x to 1500x`, with `150x` the best mean according to the model.

(Or even `1.5x to 15,000x` -- it would be useful to know).

Re: US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming

#125

Post by zivkovicp » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

schnebbau wrote: post #100

I feel like I've gone through the five stages of grief with climate change, and I'm finally at acceptance. There are too many forces pushing it further than to prevent it, and governments won't come together to actually do something about it until it's too late. Everything that has a beginning has an end, and maybe this is ours. Over time the earth will heal without us, so instead of worrying about something out of o…

Regardless of whether climate change is real or this is all a "green wash", the logical choice is to support ecological preservation and clean air initiatives BECAUSE it's nice to breath clean air and drink clean water.

I think it's really that simple.

There is very little incentive for us regular people to support heavily polluting industry unless it's required for self preservation in some way. Technology will also find good solutions for reducing the impact if industry is forced down that road.

Re: US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming

#126

Post by gjulianm » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:31 PM UTC

CA0DA wrote: post #87

irthomasthomas wrote: post #40

I thought we where not supposed to conflate weather and climate change? https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_we... https://www.science20.com/news_articles/stop_conflating_weat... https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/hot-planet/dont-be-fool...

Funny how these ideas are touted until there's an hot summer then all the articles talking about how this _weather_ is a _clear example_ of climate change.

Funny how many times the same thing needs to be explained. At some point one thinks that people making this argument are arguing in bad faith.

> there's an hot summer

Didn't you notice that, lately, every summer is "a hot summer" and "warmer than before"?

Re: US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming

#127

Post by the_third_wave » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:31 PM UTC

necrotic_comp wrote: post #11

chrisco255 wrote: post #4

Not only is it possible but the worst heat waves on record were experienced in the 1930s: https://www.weather.gov/arx/heat_jul36

What I don't understand is what people who argue against climate change stand to gain. The argument for climate change is: "humans are polluting the planet and it's causing a change in the environment and will have a disastrous effect on the climate." The arguments I hear against climate change always seem to concede that humans are polluting the planet, but argue in different ways (natural cycle/not really happening…

> What I don't understand is why people who argue against climate change stand to gain.

One of the larger problems is that to many people climate change has become a political issue instead of a physical phenomenon. Climate change is used as a lever to achieve political goals just like racial relations, gender confusion, migration questions and many other unrelated things. This has made it a political act to either affirm and reinforce anthropogenic climate change or relativise or deny it. Just like with the other mentioned issues this politicisation makes it much harder to come to rational conclusions and act upon them. The tactic of using one thing to try to force through other things - "climate refugees" (migration), "green new deal" (welfare state), "the great reset" (globalism) - only adds fuel to the metaphorical fire, making it even harder to act rationally.

Another big problem is that climate-related eschatology has a rich history of failed predictions which makes it rather easy to claim that the currently fashionable scenario will probably end up by the wayside just like all the previous failed predictions did. Add to that the exaggerated emotionally laden calls for action because "the world will go under/be uninhabitable in X years" (where X tends to be in the near, not far future) and the stage is set for the defence of any stance on the issue, from "everyone is going to die from climate change" to "the world will thrive like never before".

Christopher Hitchens mused about "how religion poisons everything" in his book "God is not great: how religion poisons everything" [1]. Were he still alive he could write a similar book on politics: "How Politics Poisons Everything". It would be a good read and it would not change the situation one whit, alas.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43369.God_Is_Not_Great

Re: US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming

#128

Post by nobody9999 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:31 PM UTC

bboylen wrote: post #57

necrotic_comp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is what people who argue against climate change stand to gain. The argument for climate change is: "humans are polluting the planet and it's causing a change in the environment and will have a disastrous effect on the climate." The arguments I hear against climate change always seem to concede that humans are polluting the planet, but argue in different ways (natural cycle/not really happening…

People don't want the new normal to be like in California and New York where rolling blackouts are the new normal due to unreliable green energy

>People don't want the new normal to be like in California and New York where rolling blackouts are the norm due to unreliable green energy

Huh? I live in New York and we've never had "rolling blackouts."

I can't speak to California, but in New York, no power failures due to "green energy" have ever happened here.

The few (half a dozen in the past 55 years or so) significant power outages here in New York have been due to regional grid failures and local failures due to severe weather events and/or equipment failure[0][1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout_in_New_York

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy#United_States

Where, exactly, in New York are "rolling blackouts are the norm due to unreliable green energy"?

Somehow, while living in New York for the last 50+ years, I missed that.

Re: US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming

#129

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:32 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #95

sgpl wrote: post #39

I've been cranking up my AC and adding ice to my water to combat the heat but I recently read an article about sea-life [0] boiling to death in their natural habitats (oceans, seas) which made me realize that animals in the wild increasingly don't have this option. It made me really sad to think about the fact that we'll probably see mass-extinction events (for animals, etc.) in the near future or at least within my…

I know. People have all kinds of silly ideas on how to slow climate change. http://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal-with-c... I did try to convince people to use nuclear power for a couple decades. Now I’m told it’s too late. The windmills and solar are still coming…

The UK has in the past couple of decades massively expanded its wind production, somewhat expanded its solar, and not quite completed one nuclear plant. Coal is almost entirely phased out, its use is zero most days.

(gridwatch is currently broken but you can see that we're now gas-with-some-renewables if you look back a few days: https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ )

The key to getting this to work in other countries is to exclude the coal extractors from the political process.

Re: US-Canada heatwave 'virtually impossible' without warming

#130

Post by djxfade » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 1:33 PM UTC

Scarblac wrote: post #37

necrotic_comp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is what people who argue against climate change stand to gain. The argument for climate change is: "humans are polluting the planet and it's causing a change in the environment and will have a disastrous effect on the climate." The arguments I hear against climate change always seem to concede that humans are polluting the planet, but argue in different ways (natural cycle/not really happening…

Because it means massive changes to everybody's lifestyle, and people will become poorer. It's not surprising that there is resistance to that.

We will become poorer one way or the other. One of them is definetly still the worst outcome, poor and boiled to death.