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Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

axios.com

41–50 of 129 posts

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK uses miles for distance, stones for weight, and I'm pretty certain that many things in the US are measured using metric. The real question I have is ... who really cares? I certainly don't complain when someone uses a celsius temperature, I just convert it to terms I'm more comfortable with.

> who really cares Engineers, Scientists, Mechanics, Carpenters, etc.

People who work in varying units all the time and for whom a conversion is second nature mostly DGAF.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#42
post #16

In India there is a running joke amongst physics teachers/professors that whenever a student forgets to write unit of measurement of the final answers they are mocked by saying 120 degrees what ? Banana ? Apple ? Centigrade ? Applies to this title too.

This is indeed a bad title, and yet those professors you're talking about sound like assholes.

I remember being mocked by my professors at school as well when making a mistake. All it did was make me resent them for being assholes to me, it didn't teach me to use units more correctly.

If instead they simply had said "Celcius or Farenheit? You have to be explicit, because ...", I would have learned something and it would have stuck with me.

Professors being nice to students makes the students want to be nice in return, and want to learn as a result.

I still resent every single one of my high school professor that did this sort of shit. All they achieved was getting me to drop out. Joke's on them, I pursued the career they mocked and did better at it than they did at theirs.

And when I see other professors, coaches, teachers and mentors do this kind of shit to students today, I honestly want to slap them silly. This is why I'll continue mentoring whoever I can. Education is the single most important factor in our survival as a species, especially now.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even half way to boiling really. Although it refers to Europe, it is using farenheit as its scale, as it is a US based publication. Although for that reason temperature measurements should always include the type for reference.

"Halfway" from where?

It also depends on the altitude. At a high enough altitude it would be boiling.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK uses miles for distance, stones for weight, and I'm pretty certain that many things in the US are measured using metric. The real question I have is ... who really cares? I certainly don't complain when someone uses a celsius temperature, I just convert it to terms I'm more comfortable with.

> who really cares Engineers, Scientists, Mechanics, Carpenters, etc.

Celsius is as arbitrary as Fahrenheit. Really, it's the one unit where it does not matter. Meters, kilogram, seconds, volt, ampere... they all stand in relation to each other. Celsius doesn't, you'd have to go to Kelvin for that (which is derived from Celsius, but Celsius is still useless by itself).

I'm European, grew up with Celsius and am therefore more comfortable with it, so hardly any bias there.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK uses miles for distance, stones for weight, and I'm pretty certain that many things in the US are measured using metric. The real question I have is ... who really cares? I certainly don't complain when someone uses a celsius temperature, I just convert it to terms I'm more comfortable with.

> The real question I have is ... who really cares Me, when the term “degrees” is used without further clarification.

I just read the material for context and convert if I need to. This publication is a US publication written for a US audience. In that context their choice makes sense. I can easily convert it to C.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#47
post #25

That's 48.8 Celsius for the non-americans. Scrolling through the tweets, some people are saying it's likely a short spike in temperature due to foehn winds[0] and that this reading doesn't really mean much due to the source of the reading. Here's an interesting thread nitpicking things apart[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn_wind [1] https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1425424519129407489

Like picking a od temperatures in the alps, near a lake, surrounded by mountains on all sides. Cold air sinks down, and gets stored down there. Good for records, bad for general temp monitoring.

Doesn't change the fact that these high temps are really bad.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#48
post #38

Yes, OK, everyone, Fahrenheit, we get it, metric system, cut the smugness, Axios is a US-centric publication, discuss the issues. Such as: the feedback mechanisms that may come into play here. Europe, broadly, hasn’t been big on AC. That may have to change, as 322 Kelvin is just not bearable. But that means more power use…which means more energy use…which probably comes from fossil fuels…which means more issues with…

Depends where you live. Germany has done an idiotic 180 away from nuclear, but France is heavily into it. https://www.electricitymap.org/

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#49
post #38

Yes, OK, everyone, Fahrenheit, we get it, metric system, cut the smugness, Axios is a US-centric publication, discuss the issues. Such as: the feedback mechanisms that may come into play here. Europe, broadly, hasn’t been big on AC. That may have to change, as 322 Kelvin is just not bearable. But that means more power use…which means more energy use…which probably comes from fossil fuels…which means more issues with…

20 years ago we should have started moving to nuclear. 20 years from now we'll be saying the same thing.

Re: Europe's all-time heat record set in Sicily at nearly 120 degrees

#50
post #9

Tip: the world uses Metric system. USA is the exception.

UK uses miles for distance, stones for weight, and I'm pretty certain that many things in the US are measured using metric. The real question I have is ... who really cares? I certainly don't complain when someone uses a celsius temperature, I just convert it to terms I'm more comfortable with.

I think stones for weight is dying out here.

Miles per hour, no, that's not going anywhere, nor pints of beer, but it's hard to think of other imperial measurements in day to day use.

(and those are real pints, 26% larger than US 'pints'! So it just goes to show the imperial system isn't even consistent across countries. Yet another reason that the ISU/SI is superior...)

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